Medication

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Hey, how successful has medication been for you guys? I'm not an anything right now, but I'm meeting with a psychiatrist soon, and I'm thinking about asking about medications for treating my rather extreme social anxiety. I used to take clonazepam as a preteen, but it caused massive weight gain. I definitely don't want to go through that experience again...

I think the effect of medication varies significantly between individuals. In my experience medication (mostly for depression, anxiety and OCD) had absolutely no effect, good or bad. I was on medication for about 2 years, but nothing happened, but I have met some people who had had exactly the same medicines and they benefited a lot from them. So, unless you try, you don't really know.

They have a whole palette of meds for anxiety.

Oh man, clonazepam knocks me out hard...I can't be on that stuff and still function, ha. I just started on Paxil about two weeks ago, for generalized anxiety disorder. For the first few days, I really felt the medication...massive brain fog, which I wasn't expecting. A few weeks later and I can barely even tell that I'm on anything. As far as it helping with anxiety...I know it can take up to and more than a month for SSRIs to become effective, but so far, I feel only slightly better. Don't get me wrong, slightly better is still a HUGE improvement and I find that I don't ruminate on anxiety inducing issues near as much. Best of luck with the meeting!

Cipralax , an SSRI , has been good for me. It helps with my anxiety and my horrible insomnia if I take it at the right time (around 7PM).....it has a soporific effect. I was on Zoloft, another SSRI, which did not work for me and gave me stomach problems as a side effect. Sometimes you have to play around with them.

Dexedrine has been great for me, but it's been prescribed for ADHD, not AS or anxiety - but it does help with social anxiety as well as a myriad of other things.

Otherwise, I have to say that while it's non-prescription (for now, I may seek a legitimate prescription.), I do find that even very small doses of tetrahydrocannibanol administered via inhalation works wonders at eliminating social anxiety. Seriously.

I take Celexa for my anxiety: although it dulls down the world quite a bit, I love the relief it gives me. If I forget to take it, there is a huge difference. It also has helped quite a lot with my perseveration/obsessive thinking.

From my own experiences and the experiences of others I know, meds are a bit of a trial and error process. It won't be likely that you'll find the one that works for you right away. You may have to switch meds or adjust the dose of one until you find out which med or meds are right for you.

I've been taking Buspar and Risperdal for over a year to help with my anxiety. They have helped to an extent. I still get anxious though so we are working on what the right balance of medication should be for me.