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"Please help stop this poisoning."
I was prescribed Effexor for anxiety by my family doctor about a year ago. When it did not help, she just prescribed more. I lost my job and health insurance so over several months I started to wean myself off Effexor.
When I decreased the dose, I got extremely dizzy and could not understand things being said to me. I started to display epileptic activity. The University of Pennsylvania ruled I did not have epilepsy but a local neurologist said my EEG was consistent with left front temporal lobe partial epilepsy - all after I had been on Effexor. After months of weaning, I stopped.
I started fainting and feeling nauseous. I could not get out of bed. I found samples the doctor gave me and tried for 6 more weeks to wean off. I ran out of samples and had to stop taking the drug all together on 10/30. That day, I had something that resembled an epileptic seizure (petit mal) in a college class. I was sent to the health office, and the nurse pulled my brother out of an FBI training class on campus to come get me. I could not get out of bed from 10/30 through 11/3 when things got worse. I felt like I was dying. Valium helped a little but I took too much to curb the withdraw symptoms.
I went to Underwood hospital in Woodbury, NJ, where they made me wait 3 hours to be seen after I told them I had over dosed. I fainted in the chair while they took my vitals. As I woke, the triage nurse was no where near me, the thermometer was dangling down my face and the BP cuff still on. The triage nurse came over and said go sit down and wait to be called. As I sat I felt like I was not going to wake up.
Several times, I dragged myself to the desk to tell them it was worse and they yelled at me to sit. My father is a security guard there and was off that day. The security guards called him and told him I was being nasty to the staff and he came up to yell at me. 3 hours after waiting, I was taken back and asked questions. An hour of waiting in the bed later, a nurse took blood work. A half hour later she put me on a saline drip.
Finally after 8 hours in the ER, I was told I was fine and just had a virus. I asked what about the medications? How do I detox? They said you're fine you just have a virus. I have no virus. Since then I have been unable to get out of bed. I tried to go to class today and had to leave from the dizziness. 3 times in my own home, I stood up and fainted. I have called everywhere looking for clinics and charity care, and all the places I called said they can't help me.
The only facility that said they may be able to said they cannot see me for a month. While trying to wean off on June 10, 2003 I tried suicide via valium overdose, but my brother revived me and I was not hospitalized. Please help stop this poisoning.
Tina Whinna
twhinna@msn.com
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