cannabis. and a beer or 2. been dealing with ptsd for a while now. but if it is mild anxiety, exercise is your friend. go for a walk, lift heavy weights w/e.
Hydroxyzine may be an option. It can be sedating but lacks quite a bit of the confusion, brain fog, amnesia etc that benzos or SSRIs may cause.
Are we talking something you can take every day? Or just to be used occasionally, as needed?
If the latter, then low to medium doses of Phenibut, or Tianeptine. Tianeptine can be prescribed for daily use but I think most people would agree that it's probably not advisable. Both substances can be abusable if you are particularly prone to this sort of thing.
GAD. A mild one. I don't "worry" per se, but i avoid anything that is stressful. That includes any issue in my life. Cant sort out anything.Have you had any success with hydroxyzine? I've been prescribed it more than a few times but it never had any antixiolytic effect whatsoever. Definitely a bit sedating as well.
Benzos work great but certainly cause memory problems and just a general mental fogginess. Add to that the addiction potential and one can see why they aren't intended for long-term use. The same goes for barbiturates.
Phenibut was ok for me but had some generally nasty side effects.
Have you ever tried beta blockers such as propanolol? I take 20mg 3 times a day and though it is rather mild it does help. No mental fog IME.
Do you suffer from GAD or SAD or both? I have fairly severe SAD and have yet to find a drug that truly helps without negative side effects. SSRIs were of no use to me either.
GL
Hydroxyzine is an antihistamine that also has some serotonergic modulating behavior. The side effects are generally pretty mild with sedation being the primary one. The pamoate salt is the one generally used for anxiety/sleep (Vistaril) but Hydroxyzine Hcl (Atarax) should do the trick too and is a bit cheaper. Neither is wildly expensive though.
I would say yes but there is a possibility that the anxiety and OCD are caused depression, or that's what the doc thinks so.Is the anxiety/OCD worse than the depression and your primary complaint?
I am interested to know what they are.There are more treatments for depression that wont make you tired or have cognition issues but many treatments do overlap.
I guess im also more worried about the withdrawal symptoms of Propranolol .Most of the treatment options for anxiety carry sedation as a side effect to some degree. They're kinda meant to.
You're really not gonna find much that don't carry sedation (or any of your other noted)- your checklist exempts almost every option in the book really.
If you're really concerned with side effects, I really would at least give beta blockers a shot OP- even though somatic aspects really aren't your complaint, I'm sure you experience them to some degree and many times, alleviating them will also alleviate some of the mental aspects.
They're not much good to me personally, I generally require "strong" psychoactive effects to achieve relief, but I don't seem to experience as much impairment or drowsiness to them (benzos for example) as most people seem to, so side effects aren't an issue- or really even experienced (unless used/abused at unreasonably high dosages or in combination).
I wouldn't recommend phenibut as others have. But I only say this because it carries much of the same side effect profile of benzos that is undesirable to you. Plus, I strangely found it to be much more recreational/abusable than benzos...
Otherwise, it's a very useful and easily accessible tool.
-PA
I guess im also more worried about the withdrawal symptoms of Propranolol .
Off the top of my head drugs such as Wellbutrin (probably the least sedating), the SSNRIs like Effexor and Cymbalta (Cymbalta is actually indicated for both depression and anxiety) and the nutritional supplement SAM-e (its usefulness is debatable however) all are less prone to make you tired or not feel sharp.
I know you dont like SSRIs but fluvoxamine comes in a controlled release form and is useful not only for depression but also OCD and theoretically should cut down on side effects to a degree.