Posted by bretbe on April 17, 2003, at 23:19:45
In reply to Re: Non-panic Anxiety...Do others experience too?, posted by sueT on April 17, 2003, at 22:08:41
Hi Sue,
Okay, we need to stick together here because I don't find many people with same symptoms...maybe I just need to look more. But, besides my illness having driven me nuts, so is how the diagnosis of depression is so generally applied to what I see as quite different illnesses. It's hard to talk with other "sufferers" of depression because the symptoms are so different.
So, please tell me, how would you describe your illness and how long have you had it? I too have tried dozens of ad's, including TCAs, SSRI's, MAOI's, Welbutrin and Buspar...Welbutrin was by far the worst! It racheted up my mental pain so high I thought my head would explode but I didn't want to go to the ER because I had no physical symptoms...it was all subjective but oh, so real and painful. Lamictal was also especially painful. I hypothesize that many of the meds make me worse because they ARE great anti-depressants in the "activation" sense of the word. And I theorize that this activation from ad's makes me worse because it just heightens, or activates my anxiety (again, this is all a subjective feeling in my head/emotion centers...I'm not panicky, etc.) That's why I think what I (we?) have is different because I don't suffer from low energy and kthus don't need to be activated. Rather, I need is to de-activate this pain and misery in my head/emotional center.
Lately, I've been trying the bp meds like tegrital, depakote, and now trileptal. Both tegrital and depakote were nice at first at very low quanities (new approach by my pdoc is to take 1/3 pills and slowly move up to avoid over-activation) but seemed to poop out after a few months. They were GREAT at reducing irritability!
ah, but alas, the effects have worn off and I'm back to the drawing board now hedging my bets for the likes of substance P antagonists.Anyway, as for Klonopin, I would recommend at least you try it, maybe just 1mg at night which will help you sleep initially. If it's going to work, it should world relatively fast (in a few days). The one draw back is if you take every day for about a month, you may be on it for quite some time trying to slowly taper off because of its propensity for dependance (NOT same as addiction) and rebound (temporary worsening of original symptoms if go off too fast). However, if you're like me and desperate to find anything that works, try it...it has a very long safety record and if it helps, think of it like a diabetic takes insulin...your brain just needs it to function the way it's supposed to.
poster:bretbe
thread:218402
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030417/msgs/220253.html