Posted by CareBear04 on January 18, 2005, at 13:58:55
In reply to What Is Best Anti-Anxiety Med In Your Opinion?, posted by phillipa on January 16, 2005, at 17:40:56
hi phillipa--
for me, it depends on what kind of anxiety i'm feeling. for very physical, strung-out and antsy types of feelings, nothing works as well as xanax. i take xanax regularly, but xanax prn works like a charm, too. recently, when i was in the hospital, something happened that made me hysterical crying. i knew i needed a prn to calm down and get smart, so i sucked it up and asked the nurse who gave me xanax. within minutes, i was so calm and cold that they didn't recognize me or know what to do with me. ativan is my second choice and klonopin probably third. for physical tremors and that kind of anxiety, propranolol is also great, especially if you have associated heart palpitations or panic-type symptoms. my pdocs have said that klonopin and xanax are the best benzos for panic attacks.as for things like racing thoughts and psychological angst, neuroleptics are the best for reigning my thoughts in. actually, lithium is very effective, but not as a prn, which seems to be what you're asking for, no? haldol has been the best for me, and the atypicals all work the same to a greater or lesser degree. abilify is one that i was only on for a few weeks, so i can't really comment on whether it slowed my thoughts down, but i don't think it did at 10mg/day for two weeks. seroquel was mostly a sleeping pill. now risperdal is intersting. it was my first antipsychotic, and eventually-- in teh very long-term-- it did reign in some of those racing and morbid thoughts. zyprexa was very effective, either as a prn or a standing drug, but for me it was successful only as a med of last-resort. it totally knocked me out when i was too upset to deal; it kept me safe, but it didn't help me deal with things while vertical. the anticonvulsants like depakote or neurontin were mildly helpful, though i wasn't on those long, either. i imagine tegretol or trileptal would be similar.
oh, and effexor was good for generalized anxiety, though it didn't do much for my mood.
hope this helps!
poster:CareBear04
thread:442887
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050113/msgs/443750.html