HI,

I've been on Zoloft, Lexapro, Cymbalta, and Effexor XL and now Pexeva.

The first 3 pooped out after a while, though Zoloft worked the longest, about 5 years. The Effexor was not the right drug for me at all and now the Pexeva is working fine for me.

It is a very similar drug to Paxil, just the competitors brand, manufactured by a different drug company than Paxil, but according to my psychiatrist it doesn't have the same sort of side effects as Paxil. It doesn't cause the weight gain, nor is it as hard to titer off of, if I needed to stop taking it. I have no intentions of coming off this drug since it workd to stabilize my depression. I'm not trying to promote Pexeva, just trying to tell you some drugs work some stop and each person is different. I still have problems with motivation, but he says I have to force myself to do something each day. When I do, I feel good. What I need is to find a job, then a few of my stresses will change.

I went off the Effexor very slowly, much slower than my family doctor told me to because I was afraid of the side effects. But the drug itself had so many side effects to me that it was good to be getting off of it. I didn't have bad withdrawal side effects - head aches and after I was off, I relapsed because I wasn't on any other anitdepressant. That was my choice, not my doctor's. Looking back, it wasn't a good choice, especially since i did it in February - probably the worst time of the year. (I wasn't making real good choices at the time I guess???). Plus I had extra stress a work.

My reason for going off the Effexor was to see what it felt like to be "normal". Or whatever normal for me was. The effexor side effects were like I had too much caffine, and my family practice doc finally sent me to see a psy doc because he said he didn't know what else to Rx, that if increasing the Effoxor didn't work it was beyond his expertise. I'm so grateful he did that because the psy doc knows his stuff. He explained to me that Effexor's second ingredient is the only part that gets increased, the first part is effective or therapeutic at 50mg and the other part is like caffine and it caused me anxiety and heart palps, things I really didn't need!

I hope you don't worry too much about switching medicines, it takes a few before you get it right sometimes. We both know they can poop out though.

Where did you hear it will take 10 years to get off Paxil? I know nothing about Paxil except my best friend takes it for panic attacts and her doctor says it is the perfect drug for her in how it works from the very begining. She has taken it for over ten years and she has been lucky it is still working fine. Keep us posted on how you are doing. Hang in there!