Posted by worrier on September 1, 2003, at 16:31:52
Hey all, its been awhile since I've posted much, been way too muddled to respond to much. To be honest, things seen to be going downhill at a rather rapid clip and I'm not sure why. Hope someone out there has some insight or advice. For those who haven't read any of my prevoius posts. let me give a brief summary(to the rest of you I apologise for all the rehashing). I've had panic attacks for nearly 20yrs (I'm 42 now). They started when I was in grad school (biopyschology, how ironic) and my mom was quite ill (she was sick for 8 years before she died....stressful time, yes, but I did o.k.). Never sought help for the panic attacks as I could just ride them out or talk/breath myself out of them. They were an annoyance, but not much more than that...always happened at home when I should have been relaxed. Anyway, last year they started to happen much more frequently and much more intensely. About that time I had my yearly ob/gyn check up which showed anemia. The Dr. suggested a complete physical, which I hadn't had in years....so off I go to to dr. Turns out the anemia was a lab error, but I did mention the panic attacks. She gave me sample packs of prozac which made me really weird and disconnected after about 3 weeks...when I went back for my recheck she swithced me to paxil. Didn't notice much at all on 10mg, then increased to 20mg daily as directed. After about 2 weeks on 20mg I had the absolute worst panic attack of my life...honest to god thought I was dying..I had hot flashes,profuse sweating,vomiting, the absolute knowledge that something truly horrible was about to happen, though I had no idea what it was going to be. I had experienced much of this in many panic attacks before, but this was multiplied by an order of magnitude(or 2 or 3) and it lasted way into the next day until I finally convinced my husband to take me to the ER(never done that before). They gave me xanax which brought me down enough to sleep a bit. I called my md and told her what happened and she said I had to expect some "breakthrough anxiety" and to increase my paxil dose to 30mg per day. She gave me 30 .25mg xanax and said to use them only very occasionally. Also made it clear she'd never give me any more of them. So like p perfect fool I took the 30 mg of paxil and nearly went right off the edge. Didn't sleep for literally days, had to be literally pacing to keep from feeling like I was going to die. I felt like if someone had touched me I would have shattered into a million pieces. Went back to the dr. she took me off paxil, gave me Effexor xr (which I never took) and without asking or telling me tested me for illegal drugs. At my final recheck, she asked me if I was taking cocaine (no, and she had the reults of the drug test) said I was probably bipolar and should see a pdoc....I had already made an appt. He said my symtoms where the result of too much seotonin and to stay away from SSRIs. Started me on .5mg xanax 2-3 times a day. This helped take the edge off while (I thought) I was waiting for the paxil effects to wear off. Here we are well over a year later and I still have this horrible physical anxiety. There seems to virtually no mental component to it at all. He swithced me to xanax xr 2mg once daily and .5 to 1mg of reg. xanax at night. Helped a bit, the xr is much smoother. Anyway, had to mds reccomend a different pdoc, so I went for a second opinion. With him I've tried Gabitril with the xanax..no effect except the gabitril seemed to make me really dopey and irritable...now I'm on remeron and xanax...its only been a week, but things don't seem to be getting any better. To be honest I am beginning to feel like I'm at the end of my rope. Not that I'd consider suicide, but I sure don't look forward to another several decades of feeling like this. I could have made this long, babbling nonsense much shorter by just asking this...anyone had similar experiences? Anyone had success with remeron and if so at what dose and how long did it take to kick in? And anyone got any other suggestions or ideas? My motvation is virtually gone, friends and family are sick of hearing about it and I'm sick of feeling like this. Sorry to take up so much time, but you guys have been really helpful in the past. Best to all, Worrier.
poster:worrier
thread:256164
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030828/msgs/256164.html