Is there any advantage to taking venlafaxine extended release over just venlafaxine?

20 Oct 2009

The advantage with extended release tablets is that it delivers the medicine slowly throughout the day, compared to the normal one where the whole dose of medicine is delivered/absorbed sooner, and metabolism of the entire dose happens with time.

Therefore the normal release tablet, gives more peaks and troughs in your system. With the normal release tablets you may need to do more frequent dosing to keep the level of medicine from having too high peaks and low troughs, and at a level in your system.

With the extended release tablets, because it delivers the medicine slowly it would remain at a relatively constant level in your system, so you won't have to take several doses during the day to keep the medicine at a level in your system.