Venlafaxine (effexor) & severe brain fog?

[Emily L]

I started taking Venlafaxine XR (effexor) in the fall of 2015. I quickly worked my way up to 225 mg. Well, starting in late 2016 (Nov/Dec) I had trouble remembering things. Fast forward to Spring/Summer of 2017, my brain is SO foggy. I cant remember common things and words often, I can NOT process anything complex.. Sometimes I have to re-read a sentence 7 or 8 times, slowly, just to MAYBE understand it. I can think "whats today's date" and look at a calendar, and stare at it for 15 seconds before I realize that I was looking at a calendar to get the date. I was NEVER like this before this medicine. I have also read that other people have experienced brain fog while on the medication, or anti depressants in general.. So I decided to come off. I'm now down to 37.5 mg about every 4-5 days.

Has anyone experienced brain fog on an anti depressant, effexor, etc? If you quit taking it, how long did it take for your mental clarity to come back?

Also, I've decided to start trying HCF (Happy Calm Focused). It uses 2 essential amino acids to sensitize the receptors to dopamine, seratonin, etc. It is supposed to help with mood issues, mental clarity, memory, focusing, sleep cycles, etc.

 

[ParalyzedMind]

Medications and responses are sooo individual. I think these are one of the things you should leave up to you and your doc as much as possible.

With psych meds, I have heard all kinds of concerns from all kinds of people. We have so different biochemical pathways and pharmacology is just starting to realize this. My afvuce is to be VEEEERY specific to your doc about concerns and take it from there.