Posted by RobertDavid on April 5, 2006, at 18:52:11
In reply to ANXIETY really sucks. HELP ME., posted by dimple on April 5, 2006, at 16:15:33
I too have SAD and GAD. Went un-diagnosed for years. As for wellbutrin, it's not known to be good for anxiety, I'm not sure why that would a drug your doctor would choose for you. I've tried it, just more anxiety.
What's worked for me is Klonopin, brand not generic(that's a long story, you can look at an above recent post on brand vs generics). The key with klonopin is finding the right dose which is typically somewhere between about 1 and 5 mgs a day for GAD/SAD. In my opinion, those that fail to respond on klonopin typically just never take a theraputic dose.
I take 2mgs at night. I played around with different doses, split doses, etc. and that's what's ended up working best for me. You may not be taking enough. You can always drop down if you want, just need to do it slowly.
So since you're already taking klonopin you might want to increase .25 to .5 every week or so and see if it tackles the anxiety better. Taking more at night helps with the sedation, helps with sleep and since it's got a long half life you may find you only need to take it at bedtime.
You probably will need another med to deal with depression should that be an issue for you. If you've failed to respond to other anti depressants you might try EMSAM which was just approved. I'll be trying it with klonopin to help with a mild depression I deal with (seems most that have GAD/SAD have some depression that comes from the anxiety).
Keep in mind all this is just my take, I'm not a doctor and everyone is different. That said I've been trying meds for anxiety for over 10 years after I got little relief from therapy (did get some insight though). For me, therapy alone was not the answer.
Good luck
Rob
poster:RobertDavid
thread:629344
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060403/msgs/629397.html