SSRI Advice Please!

[Ahner93]

I suffer from a few different anxiety disorders...social anxiety, generalized, panic. I used to be on Lexapro 10mg (only the brand name worked for me...generic made me crazy as my family described me). I think Lexapro worked for me but I hated being so dependent on it. I lost control of my emotions and I would get head zaps if I missed a dose accidentally so I slowly tapered myself off. Quitting Lexapro was the worst time of my life, I had SERIOUS stomach problems, had flu like symptoms and was in a dream like state for a year. However, a year later I am becoming overwhelmed by anxiety. It's concerning my mom with how I even respond to dirty dishes but I'm terrified to start another SSRI again because of how much I went through when I went on and off of Lexapro. Any suggestions or similar experiences? Is there hope with other medications or are they generally all going to function this way?

[Chiliphil1]

Firstly, welcome to the forum, this is a group of people who share a similar situation in life, we all have experience in one way or another will all of the various anxiety issues and we are all generally willing to help in any way we can!

As far as your situation, there are many different meds on the market Lexapro is only one of one thousand options. I will give you a general answer, no all ssri meds do not function the same. The tricky part when it comes to AD meds is that you have to experiment until you find the one for you, that's why there are so many different ones out there. Everyone is different and what works for one will not work for another. If you and your doctor make the decision to go back on meds I would say to ask for something else, Zoloft is another ssri in most cases doctors are very receptive to what you want when it comes to treating mental issues. Now, I never had any luck with ssri's at all, I also tried a med called Buspar which is sort of like an entry level drug, it's usually harmless perhaps you could ask your doctor about this? What ended up working for me was an sNri called Pristiq, it's a different class of med all together.. But it proves my point about different people needing different things. In the end, the best remedy for anxiety is simple mindfulness and calming techniques that you can do yourself, I am not saying don't take meds, if you need them by all means take them! What I am saying is that while taking them learn to calm yourself and one day you may just find that you don't need the meds anymore, it happened to me and I have been about 99% better for the last 3 years! Be sure to spend time browsing this forum because it's where I learned how to get over anxiety and you can too.

One other note I wanted to mention, I think we may need a bit more info to help you as much as possible. Do you see a therapist or do you go to a regular doctor? Have you taken any other meds that have or have not worked for you? Are you currently in any sort of therapy or counseling?

Sorry to be so nosey but to the above, if you don't see a therapist, you should.. they can help a ton and in most cases regular doctors do not have the understanding of anxiety needed to treat it properly, generally they just throw meds at it and hope it works. Other meds are important because it may give a clue as to what you need in order to get better, and remember the unfortunate fact of any AD med is that you WILL have withdrawals and it WILL be miserable, these pills literally re wire your brain and when it has to revert back to it's normal state without the meds it causes all kinds of issues and as in your case sometimes they can go on for a long time.. Some doctors use Prozac to come down from other meds because the half life is so long it tapers itself from your system which allows the withdrawals to be less, perhaps this med may work for you? I have heard great things from some people. Finally the therapy question, the key to overcoming anxiety is not to medicate it away but to learn how to cope with it and over come it, therefore some form of counseling on things like CBT, mindfulness, relaxation techniques is essential.. You can find these online if you're not able to go to an actual therapist but doing something like this is ABSOLUTELY MANDATORY if you want to truly get past anxiety. The meds will make it go away but unless you put in the time to learn what it actually is and how it works and what you can do to stop it you will never truly be out from under it and it can come back..

Hopefully some of this helps and hopefully someone else will chime in with more info.. Feel free to ask any more questions or PM me if you need to.