What works

I've noticed that many people are asking the same questions in different topics, mainly - what works for you?, What have you tried, Does therapy work for you, etc.

I've posted the medication that took away my social phobia and has kept me anxiety free on a few of the topics, but few people seem to stray from their favorite topics.

Hopefully, this topic will attract those people who have answers from their own experience, and give them a single place to post those answers where everyone can find them without searching through several topics.

Let's try it and see if it works...

I've posted this in the medication topic, and in the "I have social phobia please help me" topic, but to start off this topic, I will repeat the highlights here.

The MAOI class of medications have been shown to help many people with social phobia, including me. The particular medication which helped me is Nardil. It only took one month to cause the social phobia, anxiety, and depression to disappear after starting this medication.

I have been anxiety free for 16 years on this medication.

Another person in the "I have social phobia please help me" topic has had the same results from an MAOI called Parnate, but has been using it for a shorter time.

Please look up the posts in the other topics mentioned, and if you have a success story to tell, please post in this forum what helped you.

There is hope, let's help each other!

Hi Jaybird,

I have just joined this forum and this is my first post.
I must thank you for posting about Nardil.
I have suffered from social phobia since my late teens.
I am now 42 years old and feel that I have wasted half of my life.
I often think about how different my life could have been and still could be without social phobia.
In my early twenties I saw a psychiatrist who diagnosed SP (I already knew I had this and needed help) and prescribed the antidepressant Dosulepin (Dothiepin then) and Melleril for anxiety I took one dose of each and realised this was not going to help.

Now, 20 years later I still have SP. I have two young children (one with autism), and although my children are very well cared for, I know I cannot give them the benefits of childhood experiences I could were it not for my social phobia.

I am deeply depressed and now taking the original antidepressant recommended by the psychiatrist twenty years ago just to help me stop crying every morning. I cannot tolerate SSRI's which don't help anyway. I also take beta blockers and have to make 60, 2mg diazepam last me four months to prove to my doctor that I'm not addicted to them.

I have researched medications for social phobia and was so optimistic to come across Nardil and Klonopin, and studies showing a 50 to 85 % improvement rate.
It has taken me a year to pluck up the courage to see my doctor about these meds, but after discovering this sight and reading your posts, yesterday I went with all of my research, references, studies and highlighted passages showing efficacy etc, only to be flatly told that "we no longer prescribe those old style antidepressants" and that Klonopin is too "addictive" to prescribe.
I handed him all my paperwork (research) and left. He has been my doctor for over twenty years, and I felt like yelling, "I have a serious problem that is ruining my life that you have failed to address for twenty years. I feel like I'm serving a prison sentence, you are the one that can let me out of this prison but won't because you don't have the financial incentive to prescribe "old style" antidepressants. I wanted to thump him.

I don't know where to go from here, but please keep posting about Nardil. Someone may be reading who has a more understanding doctor than mine.

Wilko.
[/quote]