Posted by Kathleen6674 on August 30, 2001, at 20:59:21
In reply to I Need to know what kind of paranoia this is.., posted by AVR on August 30, 2001, at 19:50:25
> Is this a weird reaction to an srri??? This doesn't happen anymore because I am off Paxil but when I was on Paxil I would get these weird paranoid feelings that people were looking at me. Everytime I was driving my car with people in the back seat I couldn't stop thinking that they were starring at me in the rear veiw and/or side mirrors and I would keep on thinking that they were starring at me and this affected my driving because I couldn't get it off my mind. Whenever I walked out of my house I got paranoid feelings that my neigbours were starring at me. I didn't get this paranoia on low doses , only on high doses. But the low doses didn't do much for my problems. Paxil helped me a lot with my depression, ocd, anxiety and panic attacks and made me a social person. I have been off paxil now for over a month. All the terrible withdrawal symptoms are gone. I am about to try prozac. What should I take with prozac if these paranoid feelings return?
I think Paxil et.al can cause paranoia in very rare cases -
"very rare" means nothing if you happen to be that
case. My dad got EXTREMELY paranoid on Paxil - he
had underlying undiagnosed schizophrenia/delusional
disorder (we're still not sure which), and we're not
entirely sure the Paxil set it off, but the doc did
take him off it.It was probably a good idea to switch meds. I think
you may not have any underlying disorder bc a)you
recognized the paranoia as a drug side effect, rather
than believing it was a feeling grounded in reality
(the key difference between being psychotic and not)
and b)that symptom skipped town along with the paxil.I hope you don't get a return of the symptoms with
Prozac, but if you do you could either switch to yet
another anti-d (trying, I know, I've been on four different
ones in succession with seemingly no end in sight!) or
add an antipsychotic such as Risperdal or Zyprexa,
depending on what your doctor thinks and whether or
not the Prozac actually works for your depression
(it's hard to fathom feeling cheery and upbeat while
convinced others are scrutinizing you, after all!).Anyway, at the very least you know what side effect
to monitor yourself for and can tell your docs you
had it on paxil, that way they can take it into consideration
when determining dosages and/or adding or switching meds.
poster:Kathleen6674
thread:77010
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010828/msgs/77019.html