# California Rocket Fuel, How long until effects?



## beaches09 (Feb 1, 2009)

Hey What's up all 

I've been on Effexor XR 225mg for about 4 months. 150 for the 1st month. It took forever to kick in, almost 3 months believe it or not. It's been decent, better than being on nothing, nowhere near remission, but for me like many I wouldn't expect that from a single medication.

I just added Mirtazapine 30mg a couple days ago.

This is my first go with effexor but I was on mirtazapine before and the effect this time is very different. Before when I took it without the effexor it kicked my *** and caused major drowsiness and head fog etc. Although I still got the really good "feelings" from the drug.

This time there's no drowsiness to speak of and it doesn't even knock me out that much when I take it which is all very good of course. But I feel very blah now. I know stuff takes a while to get situated, I remember this drug kicks in pretty fast and was feeling good feelings after a few days, I wanted to relate with some of you others familiar with this combo.

What do yall think? What was it like? etc


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## beaches09 (Feb 1, 2009)

Whoever came up with this name is a crackhead.

This aint rocketfuel! I feel like ****. Felt way better on Effexor alone.


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## Under17 (May 4, 2010)

Sorry to hear that. I never felt any stimulation from Mirtazapine either, even at 45 mg doses.


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## Recipe For Disaster (Jun 8, 2010)

california rocket fuel? sounds more like a strain of weed than a psych med.


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## beaches09 (Feb 1, 2009)

I'll give this a couple weeks and see. If no go I'll cash in on my script for Abilify and give that a try.


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## Brightpaperwarewolf (Oct 16, 2008)

Dude that's such a cool name, wtf is california rocket fuel?


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## jim_morrison (Aug 17, 2008)

beaches09 said:


> Whoever came up with this name is a crackhead.
> 
> This aint rocketfuel! I feel like ****. Felt way better on Effexor alone.


+1, I came to the exact same conclusion after taking the combo for awhile. Effexor alone is much much better. Glad I'm off the mirtazapine, I feel alot better without it.



Brightpaperwarewolf said:


> Dude that's such a cool name, wtf is california rocket fuel?


Dr. Stephen M. Stahl (famous psychiatrist) came up with the combo. I think the 'california' part of the name atleast is a reference to the fact that he's a professor at the University of California, San Diego.


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## beaches09 (Feb 1, 2009)

jim_morrison said:


> +1, I came to the exact same conclusion after taking the combo for awhile. Effexor alone is much much better. Glad I'm off the mirtazapine, I feel alot better without it.


Did you notice any change at all after time went on or was it just always kinda blah?

When it took this before it gave me awesome feelings unlike any med I've taken before, and now it's not like that at all. I'm starting to think it must have been the combo. I was also taking selegiline in the morning with it before. When I would pop my mirtazapine pill at night I would get the most warm fuzzy amazing feelings afterwards, and I would have this awesome cool nonchalant chill buzz that lasted for hours. Then when I stopped mirtazapine those feelings went away, so I chalked that up as being the bigger contributor to that effect.


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## jim_morrison (Aug 17, 2008)

beaches09 said:


> Did you notice any change at all after time went on or was it just always kinda blah?


Nah, I just always felt kinda blah, mind you I couldn't get above 15 mg of mirtazapine, coz even that dose was giving me noticeable negative effects that did not seem to go away even with time. Then again I may just be sensitive to mirtazapine so who knows.


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## beaches09 (Feb 1, 2009)

ahhh I guess I'll find out. I'm thinking this is going to be a nogo. I'll tell you though what I find addicting is the way it makes me sleep. I sleep great all the time normally, but the sleep on this is a whole different level, and the lucid type dreams lol.


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## jim_morrison (Aug 17, 2008)

Yeah I know what you mean, I do miss the great quality of sleep I got from mirtazapine, I just don't miss the crazy food cravings, and the all day grogginess and mind fog that it gave me. 

And ironically, even though I sleep badly since stopping it, I still have more energy and motivation during the daytime now that I'm off of it.


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## beaches09 (Feb 1, 2009)

Yeah I think I'm done with this. A one week trial. LOL. I need activating not this. The effexor is definitely blocking any drowsiness like I had before, but the overall feeling is just a bland blah. I was much more amped the previous weeks on just Effexor. I'm going to try that Abilify my doc recommended. Did you ever try that? If that's no go I'll keep the Effexor and add bupropion which I know works good, just been trying to avoid that one.


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## jim_morrison (Aug 17, 2008)

Nah I've never tried Abilify coz I don't like antipsychotics. But I just pushed my effexor dose up to 300 mg/day, so I'll see how that goes.

Other than that I just rely on caffeine, we don't have bupropion here, but if I were you, if neccisery I'd chose bupropion over abilify to add to effexor.


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## beaches09 (Feb 1, 2009)

I hear that. I used to down a few energy drinks everyday, between the loads of guarana and ginseng I was pretty good most of the time. 2 years went by and I had lost like 45 pounds and I was already on the thin side in the first place, I quit them and then crashed for a while.

I'm a bit curious on the Abilify. On paper it seems like it pushes a few of the right receptors while blocking some bad ones. I figure at the worst I'll give it a couple weeks to either rule it out or have it as a go. 

I hear ya, the bupropion is really great man, likely a big chunk of what I need I'm just a bit leery of it. I took it previously a couple times with success, but coming off of it usually leaves me pretty messed up for a good little while basically destroying whatever good is going on in my life at the time. So, it's a bit seeming like one of those things if I get back on it I may have to plan to take it forever.

Ahh that's cool 300mg effexor ought to be interesting. I can imagine that having a more positive effect. A couple times I popped 300mg and crazy enough on those days I felt a better boost, I didn't have the script for the extra though so I can for now just imagine giving it a longer haul.

I wonder how 375 would do. I might try 300, then 375 before I give bupropion a try again LOL.


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## jim_morrison (Aug 17, 2008)

Well you could give abilify a try for a few weeks I guess, I agree that it does look promising on paper, and one benefit it definitely does have over most antipsychotics is that it's generally less sedating and has a lower risk of weight gain/metabolic syndrome. Downsides seem to be that in some cases it still causes just as much TD as other AP's even though it was initially suspected that it wouldn't.

Yeah I've had chronic fatigue problems for a long time, so I generally need a cup of coffee (about 100 mg caffeine) per hour during the daytime to keep me up and running. Mirtazapine only served to amplify the fatigue in my case, man that stuff was like chronic fatigue in pill form.


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## jim_morrison (Aug 17, 2008)

So last night I was having my usual bout of insomnia so I thought 'stuff it' and I took a small dose of mirtazapine to help put me to sleep (about 7.5 mg) and now that I'm on 300 mg of effexor, holy heck! I woke up this morning feeling super happy, high as a kite. How strange.

So I'm thinking maybe the secret to california rocket fuel is that the effexor needs to be boosted to atleast 300 mg for that combo to work properly.


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