Duloxetine and other SNRI and anxiety disorders

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Hello
I thought i would quickly post some info on the SNRI Duloxetine aka Cymbalta.
Which i believe is primarily used for clinical depression, as well as neurological pain conditions, but also can be prescribed by some doctors for the treatment of anxiety.

I have been on this med at a fairly low dose of 60mg for a few years and have just come off.
I was prescribed the medication for anxiety. While on the med I continued to suffer from anxiety, and if anything,
my anxiety got worse. However, due to a lack of knowledge on Psychiatry, i didn't fully understand why i was feeling more anxious.

As SNRI's elevate serotonin as well as norepinephrine, i found trying to work out what was going on inside of myself as to how i was feeling even harder.

This i believe was because the serotonin increase does indeed make a person feel happier, while the norepinephrine increase in someone with anxiety, is likely to make a person more anxious.

It is my opinion now that i think SNRI's perhaps should not be prescribed for people with anxiety disorders, as people with anxiety disorders already have elevated levels of this neurotransmitter already, so do not need any more.

I have watched videos on this SNRI made by qualified psychiatrists on youtube, who admit that norepinephrine isn't used to treat anxiety, but used to treat depression and other problems.

One Psychiatrist recommended that if a patient was on an SNRI for the treatment of anxiety, and found their anxiety getting worse, then they should prescribe the patient something to lower their norepinephrine or blood pressure, using something such as a beta blocker.

However, this sounds nuts to me.
Its a bit like saying to someone with anxiety to take speed or crack for their anxiety, and if their anxiety gets worse, then don't worry, cause you can always take valium or morphine to reduce your anxiety.

My answer however is... hey, why not get a doctor who isn't stupid and doesn't prescribe you a med that ruins your life in the first place!! !

its all a bit nuts if you ask me, and starts to make me wonder why the doctors are prescribing us these meds in the first place. are the pharmasuitical companies giving them free holidays or something,

nothing would surprise me to be honest.
personally i think that the state should take over medical research and take away the extreme capitalist aspect of the industry, then perhaps medical scientists would just make meds that we actually need that will save lives, instead of meds that just make money and make the world go mad!! !

DISCLAIMER***
Please note i am not a medical professional
I have no qualifications in medicine
I do have a degree in an engineering and technology subject
and have a good number of years being given all sorts of antidepressants

i have posted the information above with no other purpose but to help people out there who may be in the same situation as me
with anxiety

i hope the info helps
om mani padme hum

My experience of taking SNRI was all about shifting me from "I feel awful and want to curl up in some corner" to "I feel awful and want to punch someone in the face". And I started fainting.
My doc just decided the drug was not for me and tried something else until we found something that did help. Simple as that.

This is interesting. I'm on a lose dose NASSA which acts on norepinephrine and serotonin, a bit like a SNRI, and also helps with sleep.
It has not helped with anxiety - and I agree that norepinephrine meds are not likely to help - but it lets me care less about being anxious, if that makes sense, and hence not get depressed about it. And the extra sleep helps too.
I think the norepinephrine effect makes it easier for me to get up every day and do the things I need to do, but I do get irritated more easily.
Overall I'm happy with it, because I'm not an angry sort of person really, I'm more of a go-hide-in-my-bedroom-with-a-book kind of person, but I need to go work and take care of my kids. I think the norepinephrine helps with that.

After my first assessment, where I just got a vague result of having "features of autism", "features of avoidant personality disorder" and my struggle to get things done was due to "low mood", but didn't score enough points to actually get a diagnosis of anything, the psychiatrist prescribed Duloxetine, which I took for 18 months. One of the side effects can be suicidal thoughts, which I had mildly, but not strongly enough to do anything. After 18 months, I couldn't even get my act together to go to the chemist to collect my prescription, so just stopped taking them when I ran out. I felt a bit worse for a few days, but then started to realise I felt quite a lot better. A couple of months later I actually felt well enough to start trying to sort my life out (although that didn't work due to other reasons).

If someone tries to prescribe me drugs again, I think they're likely to get a very impolite suggestion of what part of their body they can shove them into! I need help to sort out my life, not nasty chemicals.

My girlfriend tried Cymbalta for depression, anxiety & fibromyalgia. She had some side-effects on it(don't remember what) & decided to quit but had BAD withdrawal symptoms even thou she only took Cymbalta for a couple months. She started breaking the capsules apart & taking some of the beads in them instead of going from a whole capsule to nothing & she also switched to an SSRI to help minimize the withdrawal symptoms. She tried one other SNRI before that(I don't remember which one thou) & after trying Cymbalta, she doesn't think SNRIs are for her. She tried LOTS of other antidepressants out & they either don't help much &/or have side-effects she cant really tolerate.

I've only been on prescription anti-depressants twice, both in the last 10 years. Before that I was taking St Johns Wort for a while, and that seemed to help. I tried to go back to it, but the law in the UK had changed, and banned the medicinal version. I tried one of the lifestyle pills but that was useless.