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Mental Health Good Anxiety Medication

Loots

Greenlighter
Joined
May 2, 2013
Messages
14
So I have been dealing with a social phobia for about as long as I can remember. I have tried multiple barbiturates, (valiam, xanax, klonopin) but the memory loss and waking up across town are a bit to much to deal with. Opiates give me a good repieve that lets me stay social and act like me, but the cost and gradually having to dose up make me want to stay away.

So my question to you is, are there any real effective pharms. other these two and lithium, for anxiety disorders?

Sorry if placed this in the wrong place or it brakes a rule, I'm new.

Thanks, Loots:\
 
LORAZEPAM

I recommend it EVERYONE who has anxiety issues, I use it myself and It hits you fast like Valium but it does not put you in that haze that most people chase
 
The drugs you took were called benzodiazepines, not barbiturates. It seems as though you are looking for medications outside of that class. Most doctors will prescribe an SSRI such as zoloft, paxil, or prozac for anxiety. You can give those a try.

I'm going to move this to the proper forum.

NASADD --> Mental Health
 
try and find some CBD

it may be available to you or not, just search for it.
 
i would say lyrica or gabapentin. Less risk of developing severe addiction and still does the trick without the fogginess and high addiction potential of most benzos.
 
Yeah, it looks like im just going to stick with kush, alcohol, and a couple of methadone every now and then :p
And, thanks for the corect Tommy. I always get those two mixed up. But it seems like all SSRI's barbiturates and benzodiazepines make me go a bit to crazy.
 
Try a fairly high dose of 5-HTP (Say in the range of 300-500mg) and see if that works. Although it's way above the recommended amount I find it helps to beat anxiety short term. So if you have a stressful event coming up (like public speaking) taking a bunch of 5-HTP pills could possible help!
 
So my question to you is, are there any real effective pharms. other these two and lithium, for anxiety disorders?

Honestly, we haven't yet developed anxiolytics that retain efficacy in the long term when taken regularly. Beta-blockers are your best shot, but they just remove the physiological correlates of anxiety.

I would pursue cognitive behavioral therapy. It's difficult and scary, but it works.

chinky said:
forreal just smoke some weed and just chill out

This advice is just awful, as cannabis tends to exacerbate social anxiety for most people.

ebola
 
If the benzos are making you blackout, then <snip> take a lower dosage that is appropriate for social anxiety. They are definitely the most effective class of drugs for treating anxiety, opiates and alcohol are a close second. Weed is HORRIBLE for me, it elevates my anxiety 100x. I just don't smoke much at all anymore.. and if I do, I make sure to either have been high on opiates, drunk, or have a benzo to pop right before or after I smoke to let me somewhat enjoy the high. I don't know why, but I was an everyday smoker for years, no problems whatsoever. I went through daily life, took care of everything, and was a very normal and functioning person.. but after those 3 years, these last 3 years its nothing but a huge spike in anxiety when I smoke (unless I've taken something to counteract the anxiety, then I can enjoy the weed like old times)..

So yeah, apparently something in my brain chemistry changed to make me become super anxious when I smoke.. The only thing I could guess is that around the time I began getting the anxiety spike from smoking was around the time when I began using opiates semi-regularly/then developed a huge habit shortly thereafter which lasted for a couple years.. Maybe that habit changed my brain chemistry and is the cause for the anxiety from smoking.
 
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Weed is like smoking pure anxiety for me. tried so many times since i was 13 ( i wish i could smoke and relax ME TOO!!!!) but its like a free ticket for paranoia land! loll I want to try wellbutrin asap . I am on strattera right now ( 10 weeks 80mg/day) and i hate it. It makes me so tired, bored and lazy and does not help for my anxiety problem or adhd at all. Clonazepam was cool to calm down for insomnia but ciao memory and welcome foginess the morning after.....

I completely quit caffeine 2 months ago, doesnt' change anything....
 
If the benzos are making you blackout, then stop being an idiot and take a lower dosage that is appropriate for social anxiety. They are definitely the most effective class of drugs for treating anxiety, opiates and alcohol are a close second. Weed is HORRIBLE for me, it elevates my anxiety 100x. I just don't smoke much at all anymore.. and if I do, I make sure to either have been high on opiates, drunk, or have a benzo to pop right before or after I smoke to let me somewhat enjoy the high. I don't know why, but I was an everyday smoker for years, no problems whatsoever. I went through daily life, took care of everything, and was a very normal and functioning person.. but after those 3 years, these last 3 years its nothing but a huge spike in anxiety when I smoke (unless I've taken something to counteract the anxiety, then I can enjoy the weed like old times)..

So yeah, apparently something in my brain chemistry changed to make me become super anxious when I smoke.. The only thing I could guess is that around the time I began getting the anxiety spike from smoking was around the time when I began using opiates semi-regularly/then developed a huge habit shortly thereafter which lasted for a couple years.. Maybe that habit changed my brain chemistry and is the cause for the anxiety from smoking.

This is my stoty as well, pretty much word for word.



As far as responding to the OP:

The drugs you mentioned are Benzodiazepines, not barbituates (as someone else mentioned already). Doctors will commonly try to prescribe SSRIs which are mainly anti-depressants, and they also try to prescribe anti-psychotics as well. I guess if they script them out so commonly it must work for some people, but does absolutely nothing for me but make me feel empty and shitty and depressed. I have pretty bad anxiety myself, and the only things that truly actually help my anxiety (rather than just cover it up or allow me to hide from it like I do with alcohol and opiates) are benzos.

When it comes to Benzos they pretty much all work great for me, but I prefer Lorazepam (generic Ativan) the best as it works pretty strong but isn't as sedating as Valium or Xanax (idk how else to word it, it makes you less loopy, the same reason that people who try to use them to get high don't find ativan as recreational as xanax or valium). It is fast acting, can (and should) be taken on an as-needed basis so you don't have to worry about taking pills every day multiple times a day, and you don't have to wait for them to build up in your system to start working. I find that there are little side effects when taking something only a couple times a week as needed when compared to drugs that you have a constant stream of in your system because you take them every day. I think it's really nice to only have to take them when you feel the need. I'd rather try to live life and deal with my problems without relying on prescriptions, but for the times it gets out of hand I can pop a benzo and be back at baseline in a couple minutes. Even if I am in the midst of a huge panic attack that is so bad its about to damage my heart, I dissolve a pill under my tongue and quickly go back to normal. This allows me to live without fear of attacks and greatly reduces my anxiety solely on principle. It allows me to enjoy life more which once again makes my anxiety even a little bit less.

A lot of people are afraid of taking benzos because they can be physically addictive and the withdrawals are just as dangerous as alcohol w/d. But just because you take them once in a while does not mean you will become addicted. Like any other drug, you will become physically dependent after longer periods of constant use. If you take them multiple times a day every day for a few weeks, you will begin to become slightly addicted. It becomes dangerous when people binge and take large doses recreationally for a while and then abruptly stop. If you are taking normal doses according to your script you will be fine. Especially if you're only taking them as needed in small doses a few times a week (like before social situations or wherever you're prone to having issues, or what I do just as a way to stop a panic attack if you feel one coming on) you have absolutely nothing to worry about. Your body can't come to depend on something that it is not expecting to have a constant supply of on regular basis.

If you are having memory loss or feeling "fucked up" from thewm then you are simply taking too high of a dose. I have seen doctors prescribe nutty doses, you do not need a whole 2mg xanax just to maintain daily function. I usually take .25-.5mg (for xanax, double the dose for ativan because it's equivelant 2 to 1) and will only take larger doses if I am having a hardcore panic attack that is physically harming me (sometimes I'll get a heartrate of 190+, loss of feeling in limbs, unable to breathe, etc) and I need to kill it quick. Especially if you are a small person, your body doesn't need much for this stuff to work. I don't see why people like to try to get a "high" from benzos because I agree, falling down stairs and blacking out is not a fun time. But if used in small doses as needed for legitimate treatment of anxiety I couldn't ask for anything better. It's frustrating because I can not get a prescription of my own, if I come out and ask for it doctors assume that I am just drug seeking, my extensive knowledge about pharms does not help my case either. Unfortunately this just means a bunch of prescriptions for shit that doesn't help so I have stopped trying the new meds they keep suggesting and rarely go back to the doctor. I have to buy all of my anxiety medication illegally so I don't always have them on hand, and often I have to settle for something other than ativan which doesn't work as well for me (but beggars can't be choosers). If you have (or are able to have) a legitimate prescription for them, you've got a golden ticket. Just try taking a much smaller dose and I'm sure it will help.

I understand you were asking for another alternative, but I have nothing better to suggest that works as well as benzos or even close to it. If you truly do not like them then that is your choice, but I think you may just need to give them another chance. You've got a great tool there to help, it's a shame to see them kicked to the curb over an incorrect dose.

Good luck with your anxiety, and figuring out a good solution. I know how much it can suck, I feel you. Even if you can't get to the bottom of the issue and resolve it I hope you find something that helps.
 
kava root sumtimes will work better than many prescriptions and its an otc herbal supplement.i think weeds helps anxiety alot but it depends on the person.
 
weed generaly helps with anxiety.

This is not great advice, I would not recommend anyone suffering with anxiety to smoke weed, TBH I would avoid it for any significant mental health issue.

IMHO it's easy to get carried away about the virtues of weed, whilst it may have it's uses in pain relief and such it can and does bring on paranoia and panic in a sizable percentage of people, the effects may well be temporary but the results are too unpredictable to make it useful.

Just to give this some context I smoked everyday for over 15years so I'm not anti recreational use
 
i would say lyrica or gabapentin. Less risk of developing severe addiction and still does the trick without the fogginess and high addiction potential of most benzos.

Is it as effective as benzodiazapines? Like Diazepam for example?

I'm currently taking Diazepam in an effort to quell my anxiety because its been the fucking bane of my existance since I was 14. Its had that much of a destructive effect on my life that I'm now 26 and I've never worked a day in my life. Not one single day. Ever. Yet I still cant find a doctor who will prescribe me anything for my evidently chronic anxiety. I get my prescription every two weeks off a family member who's a nurse but I'm befinning to feel like a cunt putting them in a position where they could loose their job (or worse) but they do it for me because they're worried shitless about me.

I know taking diazepam for such a long time cant be good for me so I'd like to try something like lyrica...but is it as effective?
 
Is it as effective as benzodiazapines? Like Diazepam for example?

In my experience, for some people it can be more effective than benzos with less side-effects. Some get more nasty side-effects. Some have extremely bad withdrawals to the point of saying it's worse than benzo wd's for them. I tried pregabalin (lyrica) for my anxiety for a while and while I found it to be very effective in a different way compared to benzos, it gave me rather hellish withdrawals after using for several weeks. Worst panic attacks of my life. It's a very strange drug that's for sure, I would advise extreme caution with it, sometimes it can seem way more benign than it actually is imho.
 
kava root sumtimes will work better than many prescriptions and its an otc herbal supplement.i think weeds helps anxiety alot but it depends on the person.

i have found kava root to work great! when drinking it i find that it tastes very bitter and makes my lips/gums feel tingly, but it's bearable.


weed can be hit or miss. i have found that for me personally weed has induced very sever anxiety attacks that not even benzodiazepines could help me snap out of. i just had to wait for the effects to wear off which seemed like forever. it also seemed like i was stuck in an endless thought loop one time i had weed. for me it's too overwhelming and psychedelic for me to handle. but of course everyone is different :)

l-theanine works very well for anxiety too. just like kava kava it's natural so you can obtain it without a prescription. i was able to come across these little dissolving tablets which work very well.

i currently use xanax as needed for my anxiety which works well for me.
 
Usually it's an antidepressant except for anxiety disorders the dosage is much higher than for depression
 
used to just take clonazepam symptomatically, but recently added low dose, (25mg), zoloft (Sertraline).

The zoloft has really helped so far.

Hope this helps!
 
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