is taking the meds worth it?

[caseman]

i was prescribed prozac and im extrememly hesitant to take it i have ben reading about all these horrible stories about people taking meds and when i look up the side effects they suck i already have enough to handle i dont want all the other crap to, anyone have input on this?

[soshy]

Hi Caseman - The drug companies legally have to list all possible side effects before a drug is released, as I'm sure you know, if the test study people had some kind of "experience" like dry mouth or dizziness it is recorded. This could be one person out of 200. As the drug companies keep doing test studies on more sets of people, any type of symptom a person may state or is medically found must be revealed.

If you were to look at every drug insert, or the PDR, almost all of them list the same possible side effects. I think this is good, but it can be scary cause it seems like taking the medication isn't worth it with all the possible side effects. How I look at it is if someone were to experience a side effect...let's say nausea and it continues then yes, I think the person should stop using the medication. It's good to be informed, but do consider why all those side effects are listed - the drug companies list everything their test studies reported and this could be thousands of people.

Having blood work done while you're one it will show any side effect that you may not be physically aware of and that's releaving.

I know it's scary. I watched my friends go on Paxil and the progress they made, then I decided to go on it - about two years later. I still remember the night I took it (20mgs) - I felt as if I were to go sky diving. I felt like I was either going to fly or crash. The only side effect I experienced was a little dry mouth and that went away after about one month. The other side effect was sleepiness so that's why I take it at night, 60 mgs.

My situation with using an SSRI worked wonders for me. Physiologically my body and mind accepts it well.

I hope you can have the same experience, because having anxiety is road block after road block to living as we want and should.

Take it when you're ready.

soshy