I hate to break it to you doc, but I bet you 90% of the people on these forums have had HUGE side effects with Effexor, including myself. Expecially on the withdrawl discontinue stage. If you look up the popular med review site (cant remember the URL), you will find thousands of reports of people putting it down for being a horrible horrible medication and one that should be pulled from the market. But as a doctor I highly doubt you have experienced anything that we have in that regard. Unfortunatly its very true for most doctors out there, they love to throw meds around without really researching them. As in your case you havent, atleast from the patients perspective. I would suggest you start doing so, as spreading bad advice is not a good idea and you dont want to grow to become one of "those" doctors who all of us around here tend to drop and put down. Please Please, read up more on these meds before suggesting them.