What is the BEST medication you've taken for anxiety?

[DaneV]

Clonazepam is both the best and the worst med i tried...
While it vanished my anxiety within 15 minutes the first time i took it, the effect became less noticeable after two to three weeks 1mg/day. So i decided to quit, but even after those two weeks i had withdrawal effects on top of my normal anxiety. When i decided to taper off (from 1,0 to 0,5 to 0,25 to nothing in three weeks) it went better, but the two weeks weren`t worth the withdrawal for me.

I`m going to try fluoxetine now (also for depression).. I know this is also a bad drug to withdrawal from for some people (although not as bad as benzodiazepines), but at least it shouldn`t produce tolerance that quickly.

[DaneV]

forwells

Thank you very much for your comment. To be honest i think you`re completely right and i`m still doubting if i should take meds or not. I know very well that they will not solve my problems but i`m at a point i`m really not able to function anymore.

If this continues for another year I`m sure i will fail at college and that alone will cause a great amount of stress on top of the things i have to deal with.

I Wish i could call in sick for 6 months and work solely on my recovery without medication but i cannot afford that.
Do you think recovery is harder or even impossible while taking meds?

[lifeconfusion6179]

Forwell i really like your post on anxiety in general. The hard fact is that alot of people when they get hit with the anxiety the first time they dont know to look for coping mechanisms, they just want it to stop. So, in turn be quick to take a pill. The trick with medication is you have to take it while trying other ways to deal with your anxiety whether it be thru some herbal, homeopathic or some sort of counselor. If not the risk for abuse, tolerance and withdrawal will set in. Im seeing a psychiatrist tomorrow for the first time in like 6 years. Dave try to see a counselor at the school while exploring medical options. just dont run from medicine to medicine without tackling the problem head on. good luck

[Robbed]

The trick with medication is you have to take it while trying other ways to deal with your anxiety whether it be thru some herbal, homeopathic or some sort of counselor. If not the risk for abuse, tolerance and withdrawal will set in.

A couple of things. First of all, a BIG part of the problem with medication is that, if you are taking it to try to get you to a 'better place' while you learn to cope with anxiety disorder, what you learn from, say, counseling or CBT is probably not going to be as effective as it would be without the medication. In a way, it's kind of like trying to learn how to be more social by drinking alcohol or taking E pills. Drugs like these will help in social situations. And maybe you can learn to converse better with people while taking them. But once you take these drugs away, you are basically back at square one. The same thing will likely happen if you take, say, an antidepressant. In addition, there is the whole question as to whether taking a drug (like antidepressants) will prevent natural healing. Lots of times, people get anxiety disorder. But with time, the disorder goes away completely with little to no intervention. Other people in the same situation choose to go the drug route because they just want the anxiety gone NOW or because their doctor tells them to. SO many of these people just end up stuck on antidepressants for years. Granted, it is hard to say whether this same thing would happen if some of the non-drug users took antidepressants (or whether some of the drug users would eventually recover on their own if they DIDN'T take antidepressants). But this sort of thing sure doesn't make antidepressants look good.

As for abuse, tolerance, and withdrawal, if we are talking about antidepressants (and NOT benzos), what you do while taking medication (ie counseling, CBT, etc) has little to no effect on such things as abuse, tolerance, and withdrawal. Tolerance happens regardless of these factors. And so does the potential for withdrawal. These things happen solely as a result of taking these drugs for an extended period of time. And going through counseling, CBT, or taking supplements is NOT going to change this.

[DaneV]

Robbed

Yeah but you have to understand that these drug aren`t only bad, and that they can help certain people. I Know some people who got a lot better while on an SSRI. It made them able to fix their life and their way of thinking instead of lying in bed all day worring.

But again I agree these meds are not the solution by themselves and i see them merely as "painkillers".

[Robbed]

But again I agree these meds are not the solution by themselves and i see them merely as "painkillers".

A BIG part of the problem is that, at least here in the US, antidepressants are promoted less as painkillers and more along the same lines of insulin for diabetics. The result? Even people with mild to moderate depression/anxiety (and who would be better off without medication) feel like they NEED to be on meds. A good example of this is a friend of mine who developed anxiety disorder from being in an abusive marriage. She started taking Effexor when things were at their worst. Admittedly, I haven't seen her in a few years. But at that time, she was still on Effexor because of that whole ordeal - despite the fact that she had broken up with that abusive guy YEARS earlier. Now I KNOW that she could have pulled through her problems just fine without the medication. And, in the end, it might have been a six month problem or a one year problem if she never took any pills. But instead, it became a 10 year problem, all because she felt like she had to take pills. Interestingly, in the last days I saw her, she actually said she wanted to be off Effexor. But the withdrawal was just too bad. Hopefully, she is finally off the stuff.

[DaneV]

aargh double

[DaneV]

Indeed i heard the insulin example here in the Netherlands pretty often and i think it`s bullshit.

Luckily there is a shift happening and often people aren`t treated with medication without any other help nowadays; but still 6% of our population is on these antidepressant drugs. I find this number pretty shocking and I think big pharma`s marketing is the main cause for this. They made up a nice story with their serotinin theory and the bad thing is some doctors keep believing it. Why? I guess because it`s the only handle they can grab on to, to explain it to the common people.

But again i believe they could help severe cases. I know some people who are the living proof of that. For years they were suffering from bad anxiety and/or depression and these drugs give them the jump start they needed to work on their lives and fix things. The drugs didn`t fix things, they just helped in the process.

And i`m hoping they will do the same thing for me when i go on them.

[Awkward]

Lexapro along with adavan has helped calm me down, but it also makes me tired, which leads to feeling sometimes lazy. Before these medications I tried abilify and it had the opposite effect. I felt extra paranoid and scared. That's just my experience though, so I don't want to scare anyone who is on it.

[Robbed]

Before these medications I tried abilify and it had the opposite effect. I felt extra paranoid and scared.

If you DO decide to go the medication route, I would HIGHLY recommend you stay away from antipsychotics (like Abilify, Seroquel, and others). These drugs can have SERIOUS side effects, which can easily be worse than the anxiety you are trying to treat. Furthermore, some side effects (like Tardive Dyskinesia, a movement disorder) can become permanent, even after discontinuing the medication. Unfortunately, there seems to be a trend these days toward using antipsychotics as a first-line treatment for anxiety disorder. But antipsychotics should be used ONLY if ALL other, safer meds have failed.