Posted by DynaUnity333 on December 3, 2004, at 16:28:51
In reply to Re: anxiety » ed_uk, posted by corafree on December 1, 2004, at 11:39:22
If you look at this subjectively it would make sense to hypothesise that your anxieties are related to norepinephrine abnormalities more than anything else.
Owing to the fact that your anxiety doesnt respond to benzos you can safely count gaba deficieny out.
Prozac is likely to cause anxiety at first because it actually agonises serotonin at one of the receptors and blocks the reuptake of it, this is why Prozac (along with Zoloft but for other reasons) has the worst potential for anxiety related issues at start up of the SRRIs. the dramatic increases of serotonin and its blockade at the reuptake pump often causes anxiety if not full out panic with prozac upon intitiation, so its fair that you found it to cause anxiety.
If you took it for a prolonged period of time and still experienced anxiety then it would be safe to say that serotonin levels are probably not the cause of your anxiety problems, or that the blockade of the uptake pumps won't help you because you don't have enough serotonin in the first place to make blocking the pumps worth it.
It would make sense if you got relief using effexor to look into the norepinephrine medications,
although before doing that it might serve you well to check into the possibility of a low level serotonin issue, one that just blocking the reuptake of your current levels wont help out.
The amino acid l-Tryptohan is the best way to determine whther your problems are caused by a low level of serotonin.
I was suggesting 5-HTP until last week when i started reading literature to suggest that 5-htp raises blood serotonin levels rather than brain serotonin levels which would not help someone with anxiety due to low levels of brain serotonin, in fact the use of 5-HTP itself is starting to be questioned because consistent high levels of blood serotonin is being linked to heart problems.
l-Tryptophan is relatively easy to obtain and used with folic acid, B6, magnesium and niacin (a good multi-vitamin basically), very easily crosses the blood brain barrier and raises brain serotonin levels quickly but gently, and of course there is no blockade so the natural process the brain wants to go through is still avilable. It would be fair to say that if no relief was achieved after three weeks (or no noticeable improvement, no matter how small) that your anxiety has nothing at all to do with serotonin.
I would then look at pure norepinephrine medications
I don't know what you have tried before though in your history so this message could be redundant.
regards.
The Big D.
> Ed, Eff-XR is the only AD that has ever helped my anxiety. Prozac increased my anxiety.
>
> I look way back and see anxiety before the onset of depression. I mean anxiety began earlier in my life than depression.
>
> I'm so in an unhoho way this season; don't think there's any drug to help. I've been on 'em all! Only choice is to pray for some life change and try something else, maybe again; a time when I am closer to at least one person. Pretty on my own here. I'm going to ask P about Ativan anyway. Tks cf
>
> > Hi corafree :-)
> >
> > Lorazepam (Ativan) isn't any safer than any of the other benzos in general....... but I do prefer it personally. Everyone who has tried a variety of different benzos seems to have a favourite one....... I prefer lorazepam but other people might prefer alprazolam, clonazepam, diazepam, bromazepam etc. I also prefer diazepam (Valium) to Xanax.
> >
> > Since you don't seem to have responded very well to Xanax or Klonopin I suppose your pdoc is wary of giving you a different benzo. Perhaps you would see a greater improvement with a different type of medication altogether!
> >
> > Regards,
> > Ed.
>
>
poster:DynaUnity333
thread:410990
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20041201/msgs/424063.html