prozac for my panic/anxiety/ocd disorder

[beavermatic]

i've had panic attacks since the age of 18 (im now 23)... i wasn't diagnosed until i was 19, and during that time i was very close to ending it all... no matter where i was, what i did, the panic attacks would arrive due to constant fear/anxiety of them.... and during that time, they were the most horrid.... light headness, "europhia", matrix-feeling of "Unreality", palpatations, fear of choking or tongue-swallowing [which is not possible i've come to learn.... thank heavens for small favors], loss of breath, racing heart, agoraphobia/fear of impeding doom, sleepness from fear.....etc etc... i'd have them about 20+ times a week during that time.

Since being diagnosed when i was 19, I have not only improved significantly from the above disorders, but enjoy things without being afraid and can somewhat control anxiety/panic when it appears.... i now only have a major panic attack once every 6 months to a year... with a few minor ones a month. I have cleared mainly everything that would induce panic/anxiety on me with the exception of driving on large highways and interstates (even today, i panic severely driving on such roads, nearly blacking out from fear... so i keep to the smaller backroads) So obvisouly, the therapy from my therapist/neurologist was not misspent, nor was the treatment i received from medication... but here lays the problem.... for all the help they have done, is it time to reconsider using them?

I started off with klonopin.... basically slowed me down during panic, made me tired.... broke my concentration so i could think about other things.... but, like other benzodiazepines, its highly addictive and is more of a tranquilizer than anything... as well as severely damaging to ones liver. I then moved onto Zoloft + Klonopin..... which relieved me from taking so much klonopin. After a bit, and someissues with the Zoloft, i switched over to Prozac + Klonopin. Seeing how the amount of klonopin i was taking a week anymore was slim to none, i was allowed to discontinue taking it after asking my doctor since it was at that time used "as needed".

Being off klonopin for about 5 months, i have not had the need for it since.... I am taking 60mg of Prozac a day, and feel much like myself before the panic/anxiety disorder ever occured.... which is a damn good thing!

Recently, however, i've been reading alot on the net about how prozac/zoloft affects the mind.... increasing mania, violence, depression, anxiety, suicidical thoughts and abnormal dreams all too often. While this information comes from many 3rd party sites which seem intent on proving some sort of "psych-drug" evil, both eli-lilly (prozac's manufacturer) and my doctor say its safe and if i have not had problems now with it, then theres nothing to worry about.

Thing is, i have had some significant oddities in my thought pattern since taking Prozac.... though i sleep much better now, my dreams are all freaky and weird, not nightmares, but flat out odd! they seem to take place in the same area (or environment) night after night, almost like a "to be continued" effect...

Though i have not had any suicidal thoughts (and homicidal), i have noticed to take interest in something i was absouletley horrified of before begining prozac.... death and gore... It seems i browse sites that contain many pictures of death and dismemberment all too often, and it bugs me that i am curious to see stuff like this.

Though the prozac has helped tremendously, i fear what these early side effects may become, and wonder if i am ready to discontiue prozac use without telling my doctor.... because i doubt he would knowingly let me stop use.... but i am fearful that although my anxiety and panic are coming to a crawl, the prozac may be starting something that could jeporadize my non-violent state of mind....

opinions?

[Meg]

HI Beavermatic,

Glad you're feeling better with less anxiety and able to be without klonipin and able to control panic if it arises suddenly.

**and wonder if i am ready to discontiue prozac use without telling my doctor**

The most important point to know when using these SSRI's which have had bad press is that most of the real issues arise when either going on or coming off these drugs and not in the maintenance phase of using it so it is universally agreed now that these drugs need very gentle tapering and weaning off and he worst thing for your wellbeing would be to take yourself off them quickly.

Your dose is not a low one either so you have a lot of weaning to do before you come off it. You can discuss this with your doctor and see if he would agree to try to lower the dose initially and see how that goes.

Often with these conditions we get obsessive about things and your one may be the pictures of death. You can voluntarily counter it by getting involved in other activities which take you away from being online so much and busy you in other ways - jigsaws,reading, model building, sports, extra studies etc

I do hope that along with your medication you are also having some form of therapy to help you too and you can discuss these issues with your therapist.



Meg
www.anxietymanagementltd.com

Your anxiety is the human representation of the pictures that you paint using your many vivid colours of revolving and reoccurring thoughts.
How big is your gallery ?

[beavermatic]

reading that, it makes me feel a bit better about prozac... knowing if it was suddenly going to make some rapid change to my mind and cause dementia, it would more often than not happen when starting/quitting prozac.... my doctor said this as well... that during the course of it you have not much to worry about... but i wanted another opinion.

I have been lied to before by doctors... such as my klonopin... the first time i was rushed to an emergency room, they acknowledged what i was having as a "severe panic attack" and wrote me a prescription for my first fill of klonopin. I become nervous when it comes to such drugs, and i asked them face to face "Is klonopin addicitive? Will it make me feel funny? Is it bad for me?". They basically responded with "Oh, no.... its safe, non addictive... it will help your anxiety and calm you down in a panic attack...".
When I started seeing my therapist for the first time, i told him the ER room gave me Klonopin.... he was a bit frustrated with me saying that, and said "they shouldnt have prescribed you this, its highly addictive and has been known to cause alot of damage to the liver on daily use."

Needless to say, i was pretty pissed finding out they lied to me... pretty much hiding the truth so i'd shutup and take it. Shure, it helped, but its addiction was hard to break, and caused a relatively "high" feeling i couldnt seem to shake until i stopped using it.

So anytime i am prescribed something from then on out, i now check info on the net to make shure the doc's are telling me the WHOLE truth to my questions.

As far as prozac.... while zoloft helped a bit, it hasnt done such a great job as prozac. I dont understand how one can be better than the other (given the fact that they are both SSRI's and control serotonin levels in the brain), but they are.
While i did not have weird dreams on zoloft, alot of panic and anxiety was still there, along with alot of phobias.

Im willing to live with the weird dreams, because they are just that... dreams. Nothing more. As long as i can live happy when awake, i dont really care what goes on in my imagination when i sleep.

While Prozac has caused me to gain 50-60lbs (i weighed like 180lbs. before using prozac), that i can deal with by working out and eating healthy on my own to slim myself down again.

However, the thing with death and such used to be a horrid phobia... i was so afraid of death and gore i was unable to attend my own fathers funeral just because of the fear of seeing a dead body and being a house full of dead people... i couldnt even look at a picture of a dead person from a distance. Now, after a few years of prozac.... i am looking at death pics, blood, guts and gore all the time... some of the worst to, and not even bothered with it. Hell, my girlfriends family own a funeral home and i'm in their quite often. Maybe the prozac is raising my tolerance for such things, and helping me from my phobia?

[Lottie32]

I have been taking Prozac for over a year now, and I can honestly say that it has made an incredible difference to my life.

I was very very dubious about taking it to start with, particularly like you I had read a lot of bad press. However, after talking a lot with Meg, my CBT therapist and my GP, I decided to give it a go. To be honest, I took mine for depression, and I just decided that I had to do SOMETHING to stop bursting into tears at any point, for no reason, and usually when most inappropriate.

After a couple of months, I noticed that not only had my depression improved, but also, my anxiety, panic attacks and the other things that were bothering me.

I too dream a lot more than I ever have done.

Being curious about death is not particularly unusual. In our society, death isn't particularly discussed, and is almost a taboo subject. What happens to the body after death is a science and is studied in the same way as people study to be a doctor. I am fascinated by forensic science, and love reading books that feature crimes solved by studying the maggots found in the body!!! This doesn't make me a freak, and I personally think that it is better for you NOT to be scared of death.

I too have put weight on taking Prozac, but I have been assured that once I stop taking them I will loose the extra pounds.

I am down to 20mg per day, and seem to be managing fine on this. Maybe you should discuss with your doc dropping your dose slightly. Please remember that a lot of the horror stories associated with Prozac involve people coming off the medication, and not using medical guidance!

Best wishes

Charlie

Nemesis - I JFDI'd IT!!!!!!