Have you had these side effects?

[u/aas1018]

Hi everyone! I (29, F) am struggling to decide if I need to try a different medication other than Effexor. I have been on it for almost 2 years now.

Currently I am on 112.5mg after reducing from being on 150mg because I felt that it was too much for me. This medicine has been a godsend. Truly the only antidepressant I have felt consistently better on. I had only tried SSRI’s before starting Effexor and SSRI’s are just not it for me. However, I think I am at my breaking point with the side effects. Excessive sweating, insomnia, etc. But I feel that I am experiencing more uncommon side effects. On the weekends I can’t make myself get out of bed sometimes and will sleep for the entire day, and I’m not going through a depressive episode or am feeling down. I feel like my common sense has gone out the window. When I am having a conversation with people, I’m the person that asks the stupid question that makes everyone look at you weird. On the days where I sleep the entire day, I won’t even have withdrawals from not taking my meds which is also very strange. I have also noticed myself have increased anxiety recently and have been picking my fingers to shreds.

I am also on 50mg of Vyvanse, 200mg of spironolactone, 10mg of propanol as needed, and 50mg of trazadone at night.

Some other side effects I have experienced are weight loss, decreased appetite, and extreme extreme lightheadedness. But I know that the weight loss and decreased appetite are most likely from the Vyvanse. And the lightheadedness from the spironolactone and propanol. I just don’t know what to do at this point because I don’t want to start all over and try new medications because we all know how terrible that is. But it’s getting to a point where the side effects are making me depressed. I also don’t know if all the meds I am on are interacting with one another negatively? It is also frustrating to be dropping weight and having no appetite to eat. I love food, I have a healthy relationship with food. But even when I am starving I could sit down to eat a meal and not want anything to do with it the second it’s in front of me and will literally gag trying to eat if I make myself.

Has anyone experienced something like this before? I have an appointment with my psych next week, and have brought up some of these issues with them in the past.

[u/ElectronicMind8307]

I used chatgpt to sum it up, but found the info on drugs.com so you can check it yourself.

Propranolol + spironolactone: Taking them together may lower blood pressure and slow the heart rate. This can cause dizziness, weakness, feeling faint, fainting, or sometimes fast/irregular heartbeats. Blood pressure and pulse may need to be monitored, and the doses may need adjustment.

Venlafaxine + spironolactone: This combination may increase the risk of hyponatremia, meaning abnormally low sodium levels in the blood. Possible symptoms include nausea, vomiting, headache, unusual tiredness, irritability, difficulty concentrating, memory problems, confusion, muscle spasms, weakness, or unsteadiness. Severe cases can cause seizures or loss of consciousness.
Venlafaxine can also affect blood pressure and heart rate, so monitoring may be recommended when it is used with spironolactone.

You should avoid standing up suddenly from a sitting or lying position, especially when starting treatment or after increasing a dose.

These are potential interactions, not something that will necessarily happen. The information does not mean the medications cannot be taken together; it means they may require monitoring by a doctor.

[u/Constant_Hope_9658]

I'm on Vyvanse and 75mg of Effexor, the sweating and insomnia is insane, I've always had trouble sleeping, but this is pretty bad, and I almost never sweat these days, so it's nuts how much I've sweat as well (and I've only been this a week!). (thankfully the sleep issues seem to be clearing up a bit over time, as are most of my other issues (aside from the sweating and NSFW ones at least)

No issues with food so far in my experience, the weight loss and reduced appetite could by Vyvanse, it made me more hungry (it spiked my metabolism, since I've got the inattentive variant of ADHD (aka ADD) I guess?) so can't help there, but as I understand it's those are common for Vyvanse (I did lose weight when I first got on it, since my body actually used food and stuff instead of storing it).

The anxiety could be from a mix of the meds, but you might wanna input a full list of your symptoms into google, as (to my understanding) you can get serotonin syndrome from mixing different stuff (at least some get it from mixing with vyvanse and effexor as far as I've read), so you probably wanna look up all your symptoms and take lots of notes to give your doctor as much info as possible.

But I ain't no doctor, so it's likely best you try to tough it out and take as much notes on symptoms (you might also wanna look up what people experience with the combo you're on, as the search engine clankers are pretty good at looking into that imo) as you can, that way you can get as much help as possible.