Medication

What medication do you think work the best for anxiety? I have tried different types and nothing seems to work on me.

Hi LonelyMe

Unfortunately there is no magic formula for choosing the right medication. What works brilliantly for one person can be useless to another person, having no effect on symptoms or have side effects too extreme for them.

I've tried a lot of different types- my doctors and I have settled with a low dose of an antipsychotic medication because I can't seem to tolerate antidepressants- the only one I could tolerate well was costing me more money than I could afford. This seems to work for me reasonably well though with the most tolerable/manageable of side effects I've had. It takes enough of the edge off the depression/anxiety so I can function.

At one point I had a doctor who only seemed to believed in SSRI meds and nothing else. When I'd tried all the current ones, which made me extremely ill, he said "which do you want to go back on, because that's all your options". It was only when I went to see someone else on his day off that I found out there were other options to try.

Don't give up with it. It often takes a bit of trialling for most people to find something that works for them. I have long envied the people who find one that works for them first go- I seem to have tried every other option available before landing on this one. I know how disheartening it is when they don't work for you. Hugs.

Thank you lilyfairy. It is indeed a difficult road of trial and error, like with everything. I guess that at some point I gave up and decided to feel anxiety thinking that you need to feel it to understand it and cure it. Unfortunately, that approach doesn’t always work and it can damage your health, as anxiety produces some sort of toxics and destroy your body.

The medication I tried caused me headaches, so I use sedatives when I feel too anxious. I will see a psychiatrist and see what they say.

LonelyMe wrote:I guess that at some point I gave up and decided to feel anxiety thinking that you need to feel it to understand it and cure it. Unfortunately, that approach doesn’t always work and it can damage your health, as anxiety produces some sort of toxics and destroy your body.

To a degree, yes, that approach could work. And in someone without an anxiety disorder, anxious moments, and I mean situation-related moments, probably keep them more in tune with what is going on in the world around them. But it becomes a problem when it's part of your everyday and won't go away.

Constant anxiety though does start to mess with your body physically. There's only so long you can keep dealing with your heart racing and your brain being foggy from being in an anxious state. Last few years I've been through some really crappy stuff with problem neighbours where I don't feel safe in my home. It comes out in my body, jamming up muscles and joints and I become hypersensitive to touch, especially through my back, all up and down my spine. I go to a physiotherapist regularly, and he can tell when things are bad, without me even saying what's going on.

I hope you can find something that helps you. I've found personally that meds haven't always totally gotten rid of the anxiety, but the difference between managing my everyday with mild symptoms compared to severe is definitely more comfortable.