Effexor Side Effects: Nausea, Headaches, and More

I started Effexor about 2 months ago and have had horrible nausea since increasing from 75 to 110 the past 2 weeks. I deal with chronic back pain as well and it hasn’t helped the pain. It has made my back pain meds give me more of a chilled out head high which I don’t like since I use them to function and when I’m too chill that doesn’t happen. I just talked to my doc about it and she said try taking the full dose at once at night (instead of one in the morning and one in the afternoon) to see if that helps. If it doesn’t then I’m going back to 75mg for a while. I have had nausea, sleep issues, extreme fatigue during the day, temperature dysregulation (really sweaty, night sweat, overheating, freezing) brain fog, head aches, nausea, and chronic pain before I started so honestly I have no idea whether the Effexor is making it worse, not having much effect or helping. I’m on it for bipolar so it’s pretty difficult to see if it really helps my mood because that’s constantly changing.

@Slater I was prescribed Effexor. I could barely get out of bed, and when I did I had to vomit or diarrhea, and then crawl back in bed. I didn't wait for my next Dr's appointment. ( I do not advise to do this for anyone, who take bipolar meds. ) I was desperate. That's ONE of the worst side effects. Having violent tendencies while taking Prozac is the other worst side effect of bipolar meds.

Effexor gave me tardive dyskenisia (subtle jerky movements of muscles) in my face and neck and if I don't take it exactly every 24hrs I get intense withdrawals. Feels like my entire body pulses with electricity for every heartbeat.

I wasn't on Effexor but Pristiq has a similar ingredient (desvenlafaxine vs. Venlafaxine) and had the headaches/brain zaps too. But I know with the Effexor, it has the shortest half-life for antidepressants so if there is even an hour difference of when you took it last, headaches and brain zaps will 100% happen and the are hard to make go away once they start, even after taking the med and everything that accompanies a headache/nausea/vomiting. And those side effects seem really severe. You should definitely not be experiencing that! I'm glad you're going to see someone else bc it sounds like that is definitely not the right med for you!

Does your doctor know about these side effects that you are experiencing, Slater? I have found that Wellbutrin works way better than Effexor did for me