Effexor XR - What's the Difference?
With the FDA giving pharma producer Teva permission to manufacture a generic version of the antidepressant Effexor XR, this is a good time to review some of the differences between Effexor and Effexor XR, as well as reinforcing the similarities between the medications.
Many of the problems that arise in cases where a medicine is responsible for damage done to patients can be attributed to a lack of understanding and education. Doctors prescribe a medicine, so the patients taking it assume it is safe. After all, why would a doctor prescribe something unsafe? Similarly, when new versions of older medicines come out, it's assumed they are improved in general, rather than in one or two specific ways such as extended release medications.
Effexor XR does not have any significant changes over standard Effexor as far as the core medicine. It is still an SNRI type antidepressant, chemically identical with standard Effexor in the main ingredients. This means it is still tentatively linked with the risk of suicidal thoughts in patients, and with the risk of birth defects in the children of patients who take it while pregnant.
The name is part of the problem here. In contracting the name to XR, the manufacturers have eliminated some of the recognition quality. It isn't as obvious that it simply stands for extended release, rather than hinting at some new style upgrade to the original medication.
The only purpose of the change is to reduce the number of pills a patient has to take during the day. The absolute amount of medicine changes slightly because one pill lasts the patient longer, requiring only a single dose at the beginning of the day rather than several doses throughout the day. It still requires several weeks to take effect, and has the same side effects as the parent medication.
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