Has anyone experienced unpleasant side effects while taking the anti-depressant Remeron. ?

In particular I,m referring to any personality change, noticed by immediate family and friends whist they were on this drug.

For me personally, I had some unpleasant side effects initially, I started getting bad night tremors, commonly known as "restless legs" where I would twitch violently, with my legs shaking, even kicking out severely on a few occasions.

Then there has been the increased appetite for sweet stuff .....and Ive put on about 20 lbs Id say.

Those have been not nice, but the most worrying has been noticed by my Beautiful wife Viktoria.

Viktoria has noticed some "depersonalization" with my personality becoming colder and "flatter" . This is a major negative and I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced anything like this.

Has anyone had any experience with Remeron or any suggestions please?

I've been taking Remeron for the last 3 or 4 years - so experience with it I have - but I've never had the problems you're having. It may or may-not make give me a sweet tooth - I've always had a thing for sugar, so I don't know how I'd tell the difference! It doesn't surpress my personality at all. I've noticed that when I was taking other anti-depressants previously some of them seemed to sap my "drive" or motivation - this might be due to the anti-anxiety effects, although Remeron also has anti-anxiety properties and it doesn't de-motivate me at all.
Could the sedative effects of Remeron be causing the depersonalization your wife mentions? How much are you taking and what time of day do you take it? I take mine before bed, since it is so sedating - which is an effect I like, since falling asleep is an issue for me.
Some information on Remeron indicates that the sedative effect gets less pronounced as you increase the dosage, but another paper I read suggested that this might be a misinterpretation of data collected by US and European clinical trials, which were done using different dosages, so who knows?
Have you tried changing the dosage? At lower doses the noradrenaline reuptake inhibition is less pronounced - which is what I would suspect is giving you the restless legs, since the other neurotransmitters it effects - histamine and serotonin - would be less likely to do this (of course I could be way off base here?).
Remeron is unlike other anti-depressant meds due to the way it works - it's a receptor agonist as opposed to a reuptake inhibitor (the end result is more or less the same) - so it may help people who haven't had luck with other meds, but there isn't anything very similar that you can try as an alternative - Effexor perhaps, and maybe Cymbalta?
Does Remeron help you despite it's side effects?

I took Remeron for over 3 years, and stopped taking it in 2001. I was taking 90 mg a day for the last year and a half, and that is much more than the recommended 45 mg suggested maximum dose that is approved by the FDA. The only reason I went so high with it was because I had read about Dr's in Europe who were having success treating patients that were not responding to lower doses. As a result I was able to convince my Dr. that it would be worth trying.

Here is my experience: Side effects for me included drowsiness, and weight gain, and oddly enough it took away my ability to enjoy the effects of alcohol. In fact, Remeron caused me to develop a very unpleasant response to drinking alcohol. It took almost two years after I stoped taking Remeron to actually be able to drink again, and in hindsite this was probably a blessing in disguise.

I have never heard of Remeron causing intolerance to alcohol in other people like it did to me, but it was a very real side effect for me. It started to do that to me during the first year I was taking it, in fact before I pasted the 6 month mark it had started to do that.

I still keep a fresh supply of Remeron on hand for times when I desperately need something very strong to help me sleep. I have found that it is without a doubt the strongest sleep aid for me. The biggest problem for me with using it as a sleep aid is that it generally takes me about 12+ hours to sleep it off. however, the sleep that it provided me was deep, and profound, and every time I would wake up after taking it for sleep (even though I would have wasted half a day or more), I would feel so enriched by having just had such a therapeutic sleep.

Remeron tends to make people very mellow. Its often joked that its marijuana in pill form because it makes you sleep alot and eat sugar like crazy and generally act sort of laid back. Its gaining a big popularity in the anxiety treatment world where some people are on multiple anti depressants and sedatives, thats where i came into contact with it. If you really need an anti depressant and want less side effects then stick with remeron because its by far one of the best, its side effects in comparison to something like effexor are very small.

And dont even get me started on the discontinuation syndrome of some of these SSRI/SNRI drugs. Withdrawl from cymbalta and effexor was akin to waking up every morning feeling like i spent the whole night drinking rotgut tequila and this was with me slowly bringing down the dose by very small incriments.

i took remeron once, at night, and fell asleep immediately (i have severe insomnia); I could not get out of bed in the morning (I'm pretty much a morning person normally), and could not drive for 2 days. plus, i felt so awful! i refused to ever take another of those pills.