Sleep Apnea, Effexor and Weight Gain

Hello everyone,

I have bee using APAP (Resmed S9) for five months to treat my moderate-severe sleep apnea. Before realizing that I have sleep apnea, I have been on different antidepressant/anti-anxiety medications for several months each. Lately, I have been on Effexor XR to treat my anxiety while using APAP. Four months into APAP, I started to feel improvement in mood, energy and cognitive functions. I talked to my doctor about stopping Effexor as I had the belief that all of my underlying anxiety issues were caused by un-diagnosed sleep apnea (more than 10 years).

The problem I had is that after stopping Effexor, I started having really bad withdrawal symptoms (anxiety, flu-like aches, headaches, and outburst episodes where I became hostile with people). I convinced my doctor to put me on Prozac and that did help a lot with withdrawal. I am hoping to stop Prozac end of this month (this would be 1-month of Prozac, 20 mg every other day). The problem I am having is that even though I stated to feel the benefits of APAP and the withdrawal symptoms gotten under control, I started to gain weight pretty rapidly. Despite the fact that I am exercising 5 times a week and my eating habits haven't changed much recently.

Does anyone have any similar experience with gaining weight on APAP or as he/she stopping Effexor (what I have read about Prozac is that people actually lose weight when they start taking Prozac).

Any insight or advice would be appreciated....

Sudden weight gain is an issue that you need to take to your doctor!

Hi newcpap,

Yes, contrary to popular medical belief, Prozac can definitely cause weight gain. When I was on it several years ago, I gained 30 pounds and greatly feared it would never stop. But the good news is once I stopped taking the med, the weight immediately came off.

Personally, I would not be taking Prozac every other day as doing so can put you into withdrawal. It is really better to take a consistent dose every day by very slowly tapering the dose. I just fear since you had withdrawal symptoms with Effexor that this might not be a good idea

For more information, you might want to visit this site, http://survivingantidepressants.org/index.php?/index. The site depends on donations and is not beholden to any commercial interests.

In the name of full disclosure, I am not a medical professional nor is that site run by people trained in medicine. But sadly, we all learned that unfortunately, many doctors are totally clueless about psych med withdrawal. Obviously, you can make up your own mind as to how credible you feel it is.

Best of luck.

49er

newcpap wrote:Hello everyone,

I have bee using APAP (Resmed S9) for five months to treat my moderate-severe sleep apnea. Before realizing that I have sleep apnea, I have been on different antidepressant/anti-anxiety medications for several months each. Lately, I have been on Effexor XR to treat my anxiety while using APAP. Four months into APAP, I started to feel improvement in mood, energy and cognitive functions. I talked to my doctor about stopping Effexor as I had the belief that all of my underlying anxiety issues were caused by un-diagnosed sleep apnea (more than 10 years).

The problem I had is that after stopping Effexor, I started having really bad withdrawal symptoms (anxiety, flu-like aches, headaches, and outburst episodes where I became hostile with people). I convinced my doctor to put me on Prozac and that did help a lot with withdrawal. I am hoping to stop Prozac end of this month (this would be 1-month of Prozac, 20 mg every other day). The problem I am having is that even though I stated to feel the benefits of APAP and the withdrawal symptoms gotten under control, I started to gain weight pretty rapidly. Despite the fact that I am exercising 5 times a week and my eating habits haven't changed much recently.

Does anyone have any similar experience with gaining weight on APAP or as he/she stopping Effexor (what I have read about Prozac is that people actually lose weight when they start taking Prozac).

Any insight or advice would be appreciated....

Prozac destroyed my body. I gained 100 pounds on it in less than 8 months. If you need to take, take a small amount. Very small. That stuff is bad.

All ADs cause weight gain for most people - with the exception of Wellbutrin. I took Paxil and gained weight. Then I took Prozac to help with withdrawal from Paxil. I lost the weight from Paxil rather quickly. No weight gain from CPAP. People have said they do gain weight but that's ridiculous - it's air.

It may be "just air" but being on CPAP does things to your body no one understands, whether it is metabolism, body chemistry or what, who knows. Maybe having my heart racing to keep by my oxygen level up for a short burst every minute all night long was burning calories and the CPAP got rid of all night exercise. Maybe it was from mass fatigue and not sleeping well for the first three months, but I gained weight rapidly, almost 12 pounds and more than I'd ever weighed in my life, when I started CPAP. So this idea that you lose weight or "it's just air" doesn't fly. It has taken me another three months to get that weight off.

Thanks every one for the feedback...

it is comforting to know that Prozac can cause weight gain for some people, as all of the web sites I have visited claim that people lose weight when they start taking Prozac. Hopefully I can lose this weight after I stop it.

49, I agree with you that taking AD every other day is, generally, not a good idea. However, Prozac has very long half-life which cause the body not to notice missed daily dose. My doctor didn't object to this approach as I wanted to take the minimum there is to help with withdrawal.

Finally, I agree with decatur11 in that CPAP therapy is not just air as it does affect your body in different ways. I know that after I started benefiting from CPAP, I gain 3-4 pounds, which may or may not be related to CPAP. My sleep doctor told me that CPAP doesn't cause weight gain. But after 10 years of going to doctors and hearing that "everything is OK with you, it is just stress", I've learned that human body is complex enough, that there is not a single doctor who can have all the answers. One should always follow doctor's guidelines, but also have an informed dialog with him/her when needed.


regards....

newcpap wrote:Despite the fact that I am exercising 5 times a week and my eating habits haven't changed much recently.

Since weight is governed by a process:

Thermic Effect of Food + Resting Metabolic Rate + Thermic Effect of Physical Activity = Daily Caloric Expenditure

if your total exercise has not changed (and it would need to change a LOT), then I would respectfully submit that your eating habits HAVE changed.

ADMs alter appetite, so you either need a "diet-friendly" ADM or add pushaways to the exercise regime.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8521151

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11105740

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2274632

49, I agree with you that taking AD every other day is, generally, not a good idea. However, Prozac has very long half-life which cause the body not to notice missed daily dose. My doctor didn't object to this approach as I wanted to take the minimum there is to help with withdrawal.

I understand what you are saying but the longer half life may not protect you against withdrawal symptoms in tapering every other day as it will just take longer from them to appear. Of course, I realize everyone is different but I think I am also concerned for you because it sounds like you might have tapered the Effexor too quickly and I just worry your body is still recovering from that and that an every other day tapering might be too harsh.

Sorry, I have seen too many people suffer greatly from tapering regimens from well intentioned doctors. But obviously you have to do what you think is best.

49er

Thanks 49, I am about to stop Prozac and see how it goes.

Sludge, your point about my eating habits has some merit. There have been some days where I was craving and eating a lot of carb-food, especially as I was going through withdrawal symptoms. But when I said my eating habit didn't change, I meant overall there was no significant change in number of meals, quantities, etc. Of course weight is affected by the number of calories one ingest and the calories one burns, but it is also affected by other factors like metabolism.

The main question I have in mind on weather Prozac might have a weight-increase effect (either by affecting eating habits or metabolism or anything else). From earlier responses to this post, it seems some of the folks here had such experience. It may not be common, but it looks like it does happen to some people.



regards.

The last post was written by me!!! I realized I wasn't signed in!!!

I didn't gain while on effexor but wasn't on it long because it quit working for me after a few
months. Now Prozac well at first it made me lose a few lbs then later I put them back on. I was
later to read that that was a common reaction to it. But after I regained the 10 lbs I had first
lost I didn't continue to gain.

Newcap - TAPER off the Prozac or you'll have the same problem you had with the Effexor... no SSRI's should be stopped all at once.

Julie,

How could someone taper from taking 20mg (smallest available capsules) every other day? Did u have any experience with stopping Effexor or Prozac?


any advice will be appreciated...


newcpap....

Your doctor will know how to do - there are 5 and 10 mg pills available, or a sharp knife (ask your pharmacist - they have special cutters that won't mess things up).