Posted by bleauberry on April 8, 2011, at 17:19:43
In reply to Please anxiety meds, posted by B2chica on April 8, 2011, at 9:26:59
I would look outside of the psychiatric toolbox for your answers. There are herbs and plants of the earth better than the meds. There are causes of the anxiety that can be stopped so you don't even have to worry about treating it. It's another leg of the journey, but you either stay stuck on the present road or you lift your head up and see there are other roads, some of which make a lot more sense than the one your are on.
I know this is kind of generalized without much detail. I speak from personal experience, having failed all the meds and ECT. Entire books and entire clinics are founded on what I'm talking about. The journey to healing, rather than just managing, has to start somewhere or else you will never find what you are hoping for.
Staying a bit more on topic to your direct questions, I assume you have been on the SSRIs? Sampled any of the antipsychotics in combination with them? I am not recommending either of those strategies, only pointing out that they do work very well for a select sample of patients. Not me unfortunately, but I have seen them work for others. Side effects, well, that's another story. That's why I prefer to look at the healing side instead of the managing side. Managing almost always comes with the compromise of undesirable or untolerable side effects.
Strange, but the one med in my suitcase that did the fastest good for my anxiety was Parnate at a very low dose. (5mg) In the herbal category, it is a dropperful of Lemon Balm tincture in a glass of water....relief within an hour, lifting of spirits a bit too, without any brain fog or sedation. It combines very well with St Johns Wort, which also is good for your symptoms in a select number of patients.
On a more basic level, it could be something as simple as the need for more magnesium and/or B vitamins. Or avoiding gluten foods. This brings us full circle back to the healing part rather than the managing part. But they are certainly cheap enough and safe enough to experiment with. I cannot say from my own experience, but there are several sources (doctors, clinicians, forums) that claim Niacin is the one for anxiety. It takes high doses, and most prefer the Niacinimide version because it has shown affinity for the gaba receptors the same as benzos. Except without the tiredness, and it takes weeks to really kick in, though some people feel relief almost right away.
Lots of things you can do. I personally would rely on the lowest possible doses of meds I could to function just to help me out a little bit while embarking on deeper experimenting and exploration into other strategies that make more sense and are more in tune with the body's own biology.
poster:bleauberry
thread:982241
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20110406/msgs/982273.html