Today is Day 34.
I have started on my new medication today. Venlafaxine / Efexor 75mg, once a day. Wikipedia tells me it is another anti-depressant. It is an SNRI this time. The pharmacist says it may take up to 3 weeks to start working. If this is the same 3 weeks that the previous medications were meant to take then I expect to be facing the full effects by about lunchtime tomorrow.
I went in to work for an hour this afternoon to give them an update on when I expect to be back, and to say goodbye to a friend who is leaving. I was struggling even with being in the office and I came straight home afterwards. I spent about an hour asleep after that. Considering how much better I felt yesterday and that I had a relatively good sleep last night I am going to have to put this afternoon's exhaustion down to the new pills. Hopefully the effect is not cumulative although I suspect it might be based on the pharmacists suggestion that they wont be effective for about 3 weeks. At least it isn't as bad as the Mirtazapine yet.
Interestingly Wikipedia and the drug information sheet both list a 60% increase in risk of suicide. Seems a strange choice of medication to put me on when I already at the suicidal ideation stage. Other side-effects apparently include loss of appetite (evident already as I just noticed it is 9pm and I didn't have dinner, and am not hungry).
I am hoping to go for a run with a couple of friends tomorrow morning, right alongside a major road with a 60mph limit. Not sure if I will manage after struggling at work today. Then a bike ride on sunday morning around the same route as last week, that should hopefully be easier as I managed it once already.
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