Anxiety Forum

[Sharon]

I have had anxiety for about a year. It developed over a potential medical problem that I thought I had but it turned out after a lot of tests, that I did not have a serious problem at all. The anxiety did not go away even after I did not have anything to be anxious about.

I have been to 3 different Psychiatrists who have prescribed about 15 different medications (Trazodone, Paxil, Vistaril, Cymbalta with Ativan, Klonopin, Lexapro, Neurontin, Prozac, Tranzene, Lyrica, Pritiq, Celexa, and Depakote). The medications either cause me to be more nervous or I get side affects (mostly nausea) from taking them. Most of them, I only have taken for a few days. I take Xanax to control the nervousness, but it makes me tired and sleepy all the time. I take 1Mg 4 times a day. I am trying to find another medication that will control the anxiety so I can get off the Xanax. I am currently on Buspar (25Mg per day). The Dr. started me at 10MG per day. I tolerated it OK till I got to the 25 MG level when I started getting nausea most of the time. Still I am nervous taking both of these drugs.

One of my Psychiatrist sent me to a Psychotherapist and we tried talk therapy and hypnosis for about 5 sessions each. The hypnosis did not help and she could not find the reason that I still have the anxiety.

Has anyone had this kind of sensativity to these drugs? What did you do to help your problem? I am getting desperate.

[Robbed]

I have a question for you: How much do you fear your anxiety problem? If you are like SO many people out there with anxiety disorder, your anxiety problem is probably your number one fear. SO many anxiety sufferers fear their symptoms. And SO many anxiety sufferers fear that the anxiety disorder will be with them for the rest of their days. This fear causes a GREAT deal of stress, and conditions us to think in a fearful manner. And guess what this does? It keeps your anxiety disorder alive. Yes, it is often something like a medical condition that gets people stressed and fearful. But once the anxiety state becomes established, it creates its own fear and stress, which keeps it going. And the disorder takes on a life of its own.

For whatever reason, SO many therapists, doctors, psychiatrists, etc fail to recognize this. They fail to see that fear of the disorder is the REAL problem with SO many anxiet sufferers. But Claire Weekes recognized that this is indeed a MAJOR problem. So, as I always say, try to accept what is happening to you. Try not to react to your symptoms with fear. Realize that that the symptoms, no matter how scary, weird, or bizarre, are just anxiety symptoms. And that they will go away as you lower your levels of stress. Just remember that both acceptance AND symptom reduction will take time: neither will happen overnight. And recovery is almost never smooth: there will be times when anxiety temporarily increases ater decreasing for a while. This is all normal. The more you learn about anxiety, the better off you will be.

[Sharon]

Robbed,
Sorry for the slow response. For some reason, I had problems logging back in. Thanks for your response. Your response is exactly me. Questions:
1. Who is Claire Weekes? I am not familiar with her.
2. Any meds you might suggest that I could try until I get through this?
3. Any other ideas of what I could do to get relief for this anxiety?

I see my Psychiatrist tomorrow morning and she will probably be ready to change my prescription again since I can't get to high enough dosage on the Buspar to get some relief because of the nausea that it causes me.

Thanks,

Sharon