What're yalls experiences with Pristiq?

[attackingvertical]

I guess I'm giving recovering another shot? I flip flop on whether to CBT or not on a near daily basis, but I honestly I don't think I could leave my cat.

A couple days ago I got prescribed 25mg of Pristiq. Before that I was on Lexapro, but it just kind of stopped working. The doctor said sometimes that happens when people have been on the same medication for a while. I was wondering what experiences people have had with it. I tend to be a bit more sensitive to side effects.

I took it for the first time yesterday and felt fine, but I think it'll take at least a week or two of consistently taking it to really feel it from what ive read? Had some chest pains but I have those fairly frequently since before the new meds.

 

[YourLocalSadGirly]

Pristiq isn't actually an SSRI it's actually an SNRI which I'm not sure of the difference but you can look it up. Pristiq worked better for me than prozac which I was on for a couple of months. In my experience the side effects are quite minimal but the withdrawal effects are quite harsh, even if you miss one day you might feel weak or lightheaded. Pristiq hasn't been super helpful but also my depression is treatment resistant. The medication that's helped me the most is actually abilify which is sometimes used as an add-on for treatment resistant depression. Again abilify has some nasty withdrawal effects and it's also classed as an antipsychotic but I've found it helps. Of course take all this with a big grain of salt because depression is something that needs to be treated differently for each individual but this is just my experience. I'm glad to hear you've decided to give recovery a shot and I hope it goes well for you <3.

 

[muu]

pristiq (desvenlafaxine) is usually prescribed in lieu of effexor (venlafaxine) if the side effects are not tolerated well, as was told to me by my psychiatrist. it is an SNRI (selective serotonin-norepenephrine uptake inhibitor), which is different from an SSRI (selective serotonin uptake inhibitor) in a couple different ways, those of which you can google. but they tend to be more potent than SSRIs for people with disorders like MDD.

now, personally, as someone who has been on both pristiq AND effexor, pristiq is a pretty decent medication without causing a lot of side effects like effexor did for me. i was on pristiq a couple months ago before getting off and switching to cymbalta.

on effexor, i had a bunch of sexual dysfunction side effects as well as feeling numb and like a zombie with no emotions. effexor is considered to be one of the most "potent" SNRIs i believe? so it makes sense.

on pristiq, i had none of these or at least very little, and it did help my OCD/anxiety symptoms. my depression is treatment resistant but it did help some with that.

generally i would say that it's worth trying. SNRIs in my experience are much more helpful than SSRIs, especially if your anxiety and depression tend to be the biggest issues. as the other person in this thread said, you will have pretty bad withdrawal symptoms even on a small dose, so make sure you are extremely punctual with when you take it each day. say you take it at 9, don't take it later than that. on effexor the withdrawals were horrible but i never had withdrawals on pristiq, so i can't tell you what that's like.

hope this information helps you in any way. ^_^

 

[derpyderpins]

Pristiq isn't actually an SSRI it's actually an SNRI which I'm not sure of the difference but you can look it up. Pristiq worked better for me than prozac which I was on for a couple of months. In my experience the side effects are quite minimal but the withdrawal effects are quite harsh, even if you miss one day you might feel weak or lightheaded. Pristiq hasn't been super helpful but also my depression is treatment resistant. The medication that's helped me the most is actually abilify which is sometimes used as an add-on for treatment resistant depression. Again abilify has some nasty withdrawal effects and it's also classed as an antipsychotic but I've found it helps. Of course take all this with a big grain of salt because depression is something that needs to be treated differently for each individual but this is just my experience. I'm glad to hear you've decided to give recovery a shot and I hope it goes well for you <3.

On the flip side, Pristiq did not work for me and Prozac did. Supports your conclusion: it's case by case because we don't understand how the brain works so the different meds are like mashing different buttons until you get success.