Medicine - Is it a Band-Aid?

[jessr421]

Hi Everyone,
I'm confused about medicine, a lot of people have been saying (including my doctor)
to just take the medicine for a bit and maybe that will be what I need to get by and then I can live a normal life.

My doctor said the good news is, that my anxiety isn't a life long thing for me (i'm not sure how she can determine that in an hour conversation....but...),
she says that until I can learn how to deal with anxiey on my own. I should take the meds.... (i'm meeting with a cognitive therapist in a month). Why are they so easy to give you meds before trying to do it a natural way???? Couldnt she have just said, your appoinment with the cognitive therapist is not for a month, try to deal with it naturally for a month if you need meds take then...but if not, dont and soon enough you'll learn the skills to deal!... NO, she told me that anytime i feel anxious that i should be taking them..... now i'm an anxioius person , i feel anxious all the time! ha... i can't deal with the nonsense anxeity, its when i have an attack that causes me trouble!....

But I don't understand it, because people like us are very intune with everything that has to do with us, our body, our mind....everything around us!
Since this is mental, how on earth can I take meds fora 2 months... have no panic attacks....., and then convince my mind that when i'm off the meds, that my panic attacks will be gone forever & that i don't need meds, when it was the meds that got me better in the 1st place?????

Has anyone struggled with this?

I just don't understand how anyone goes off the medication and doesnt have panic attacks......
because you never truly learned how to deal with them...(unless you were doing things throughout that time)
but if not - it was the medicine was what was dealing with the anxiety not you.....(??????)

I dont mean to offend anyone taking medicine, but I just don't understand it!
You guys have been so helpful to me! please help me with this!

I'm 28 years old, I plan to have a baby in a year or so... the doctor prescrived me Ativan (causes birth defects)
So, obvoulsy, i can't be on meds when i'm pregnant... I don't want to start taking the medication, rely on it...
get pregnant, unexpectiely or planned and have to go off it .. and be thrown into the world of anxiety attacks & pregnant to boot! (like thats not stressful...ha)

Thanks for any thoughts you can give!!

[fludo]

Hi Jess, For me, my anxiety disorder is most likely a life-long thing, as it began developing at the age of 9, continued untreated until 20, and have been on meds for the last 7 years. When I began meds, I also began therapy. It helped enormously, I gained a lot of confidence in myself, had a lot of issues, felt I sorted them all out, but haven't been able to get off the meds. I have tried probably 10 times, done it really gradually, but within a few weeks I start to fall back in a hole and it's not even that I'm thinking (consciously) "I can't do this without my meds!". For me I am convinced I have a chemical imbalance. Now, if I had only taken meds and done no therapy, I dont' believe I would be where I am today and would most likely need a higher dose of meds (am only on the very minimal dose).

I am also wanting to get pregnant - will start trying next month. I happen to be on Aropax - may be called something different in the states, sorry, but it is the one SSRI drug that has been linked as having a greater risk of birth defects. I tried Luvox last year, a safer one, didn't work. Had decided to just stay on the Aropax and hope for the best but saw my doc last week who suggested I try another one. So I'm now on Cipramil. Am doing ok so far, but usually takes a few weeks before I notice. I tried to come off all meds a few times last year as I wanted to be pregnant drug-free but realised it's just not an option for me, so I am trying to find the safest alternative.

As for how long they take to get out of your system - pretty quick. They talk about half life of drugs, and I think it's a few days. I had a period where I managed 6 weeks completely drug free (until I fell in a heap!) and doc said it would have been well and truly out of my system by then so my relapse wasn't as a result of withdrawel from the meds.

Hope this helps. My situation sounds different to yours (ie, I'm a lot more screwed up!) but is good to get all perspectives. I think docs often prescribe medicine straight away as the best results have shown to come from combined drug therapy and other therapy. The drugs give you a "break" so you are open to accepting new ideas and have a realistic chance of being able to learn to cope. Then the idea is you ween off the drugs and hey presto, you're cured! didn't quite work that way for me but it has literally saved my life, so I can't complain.

[R8DRN8SHN]

Hey I have been reading that our own thoughts made us this way and we need to reverse those thoughts with positive thinking which is done in cognitive-behavioral therapy. Im not very educated in that thing but I heard that the therapy helps by changing our thought process to positive thoughts so it becomes "automatic" and you wont have any "irrational" thoughts anymore. I guess pretty much if you want it to go away you just need to get on medication and go to therapy and then when your done with therapy GET OFF the medication GRADUALLY to see how you do. Then they decide whether you should be on medication for THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. Thats what the school psychologist told me.

[squirt]

Hey I have been reading that our own thoughts made us this way and we need to reverse those thoughts with positive thinking which is done in cognitive-behavioral therapy. Im not very educated in that thing but I heard that the therapy helps by changing our thought process to positive thoughts so it becomes "automatic" and you wont have any "irrational" thoughts anymore. I guess pretty much if you want it to go away you just need to get on medication and go to therapy and then when your done with therapy GET OFF the medication GRADUALLY to see how you do. Then they decide whether you should be on medication for THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. Thats what the school psychologist told me.

This is exactly how it is going for me so far in my recovery. I joined a cbt group and was on meds at the time but have been off meds ever since and feel better than ever. I still do my tea form exercise nearly everyday to get my automatic new way of thinking ingrained and it seems to be working but my therapist said you need to keep doing them for several years to make sure they COMPLETELY replace your old ways to prevent the anxieties from coming back. If you are interested in trying cbt read the book by Sam Obitz called Been there, done that? Do This! The author writes about his lifelong battle with anxiety and depression before learning cbt and then breaks it down to what worked for him. We used this book in my group and it is really short and simple. Listen to your school psychologist and try cbt :D

[Robbed]

Hey I have been reading that our own thoughts made us this way and we need to reverse those thoughts with positive thinking which is done in cognitive-behavioral therapy. Im not very educated in that thing but I heard that the therapy helps by changing our thought process to positive thoughts so it becomes "automatic" and you wont have any "irrational" thoughts anymore. I guess pretty much if you want it to go away you just need to get on medication and go to therapy and then when your done with therapy GET OFF the medication GRADUALLY to see how you do. Then they decide whether you should be on medication for THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. Thats what the school psychologist told me.

I, of course, disagree on medications being NEEDED. In fact, they can actually be a bad thing. Remember that MANY of us with anxiety are overly worried and in tune with everything that just doesn't feel right. And the LAST thing we need is some drug that is going to cause a bunch of scary side effects to freak us out even more. It is for this reason (and others) that I think meds (particularly SSRIs) need to be looked at as a treatment of LAST resort rather than a first line treatment.


As for how long they take to get out of your system - pretty quick. They talk about half life of drugs, and I think it's a few days. I had a period where I managed 6 weeks completely drug free (until I fell in a heap!) and doc said it would have been well and truly out of my system by then so my relapse wasn't as a result of withdrawel from the meds.

Then again, half life is NOT a measure of how long a drug will continue to affect you. Remember that if we are talking about taking a drug (like an SSRI) for the long term, it is going to make long-term changes in brain chemistry. And if you stop taking it, it is going to take a while for things to rebalance themselves. Possibly several months. So yes, the drug may be out of your system within a few days. But it is going to take MUCH longer than that for 'normalcy' to be restored. In fact, if you go 'cold turkey' off meds, the resulting imbalance is actually what causes withdrawal symptoms. It is for this reason that meds are typically tapered - to give your brain a chance to slowly get used to not having the drug.

[squirt]

Good points Robbed. Too many people want the quick fix rather than the best fix :(

[duddits]

I disagree with medication being a fix for mental disorders. A lot of the anxiety medications being prescribed actually induce anxiety or depression as one of their side effects.

Medications can definitely help supplement a behavior therapy program, but by themselves they'd only treat symptoms.

[Robbed]

I disagree with medication being a fix for mental disorders. A lot of the anxiety medications being prescribed actually induce anxiety or depression as one of their side effects.

Medications can definitely help supplement a behavior therapy program, but by themselves they'd only treat symptoms.

Agreed about the side effects. They can indeed make things worse. And this is one reason why I have refused to take meds. I mean, my sleep may not be the best. But it is OKAY. I may not get as happy or excited about stuff as I did before this all started about a year ago. But I can still go out, do stuff, and have a semi-good time. Hell, I even climbed my first 14er (14000 foot mountain) last summer. SO the bottom line is that while things could be better, they could also be MUCH worse. I have a fairly close friend on Lexapro. And he is not liking the side effects such as brain fog, fatigue, and disrupted sleep. I also have another friend who doesn't seem to be benefitting from Prozac, and claims it reduces motivation to do things. Might these things NOT happen to me? Perhaps. But I REALLY don't want to take the chance. Especially since determining whether meds will be beneficial requires up to two months use. And, if at THAT point I find that they AREN'T, then there is the possibility that I might have to suffer from withdrawal to get off them.

On the other hand, even if you are benefitting from meds, my position is that they should be used simpy as a means of getting back on your feet. Your long-term goal should ALWAYS be life without meds.