Effexor- Venelflaxine HCL and drugs

[loon]

Now my understanding is that most drugs work on seritonin levels? If thats so then if you are already on a seritonin perscribed drug(EFFEXOR) would this cause some kind of overdose? When I was younger I took several drugs -shrooms, weed, etc and they had no effect or very little. I believe it may have been because of the low seritonin levels I had so now that I take a perscribed seritonin drug would I just react like most people or do you think it may cause an overdose in some way? Would appreciate any information you could find for me.

[danzman]

I have sat and given this question much thought, and the answer that I keep coming up to in no. The mode of action for drugs like mushrooms and LSD are very complex and only somewhat understood. This is also similar for SSRI’s and SNRI’s (Effexor). It is thought that the neurotransmitter Serotonin (5H-T) is decreased in individuals with depression. SSRI’s block the reuptake of 5H-T and allow them to stay in the synaptic gap of a neuron longer allowing for them to be “noticed” more by their respective receptor sites. SNRI’s also do this, but with norepinephrin to. It would be a gross overgeneralization to say that all psychedelic drugs did was up 5H-T levels in the brain. LSD acts on many serotonin receptors, all dopamine receptors, and adrenoreceptors, and many other parts of the brain. It stands to reason that many other drugs share the same multi-faceted reaction mechanism. If you took a reasonable quantity of all of these drugs and had no reaction at all, I can offer you no answers. Even with a low level of 5H-T you would still have noticed marked increase in dopamine and etc’. My guess is rather that you had steep expectations from these chemicals and where not fulfilled. All drugs work a little differently for all people, some people love them and are changed by them, when I was younger I often times took LSD and was always let down. I had heard so much about how it would change your life that a few spirals on my walls where just not what I had expected. There, of course, may be many other explanations for your experiences that I am unsure of. I think that if you took these drugs today, your reactions would be the same, with or without SSRI’s. And to your other question, it is theoretically possible to “overdose” on serotonin? It is called Serotonin Syndrome and is very rare. It is generally caused by mixing tricyclic anti-depressants, or SSRI’s, with MAOI’s or other drugs like MDMA or methamphetamine with MAOI’s. If you take MAOI’s, you should be well versed on the dangers of the inability to break down a dietary amine, and should not take any of these drugs…

[.:Nocturnal:.]

Sorry for the late reply, but I just joined recently. The answer to your question is probably "no".

SSRI's doesn't "simply" raise serotonin levels, they do more than that and possibly much of it are unknown. If the mechanism was simple then all SSRI's would have acted the same, but that doesn't happen. These medicines also have unexplained side-effects (i.e. sexual disfunction).

I expected Venlafaxin to be better than Fluoxetine (Prozac) but it was not. So, the additional Norepinephrine boost wasn't appreciable. It also had very weird side-effects. So I quit.

I would very strongly recommend against taking any MAOI's. These drugs can have life-threatening reaction if mixed with many psychoactive substances and also with SSRI's.

And please do your research before taking any drugs, and be sure the source from where you are getting it is "trustable". Badly stored, cut and manufactured drugs contain many impurities that may be dangerous.

[funkspiel]

for the Norepinephrine effect of venlafaxine, dosage needs to be at least 225 mg./day.