I have been on Effexor now for about 5 weeks. It's the first antidepressant I've ever been on. Things have been going alright though I wish that it had done more for my anxiety. (I have always been scared of Paxil because of the bad things that came out about it.) I'm very interested to hear that you like Elavil because I read somewhere that the tricyclic antidepressants (of which Elavil is one) are supposed to work well for people with IBS but your the first person I've heard who's been on it. I'm looking into this one. Your post really hit home for me because sometimes I feel like I'm borderline anorexic or something. It's been alot better since I got on the IBS diet but I still lost alot of weight (I'm 5'2" and I went from a size 10 to a size 0 in little under a year and a half.) Now that I know what I can tolerate and what I can't I'm not so anxious as I was when I was in constant pain and having diarrhea and not knowing why. And truth be told, I would say that living practically 2 years like that is definetly enough to give anyone an eating disorder! And now it's still hard because food rules my life and puts me outside of the norm (can't eat out, gotta read every freaking label, gotta find time to cook good food I can eat) but I'm learning to accept it and certainly being on Effexor has helped. Having a supportive partner has also been a blessing. Anyway, thank you for your post!