Worried

[Benjii]

Hi everyone let introduce myself im Benji 24 years old and have been suffering with harsh anxiety for about 8 years with mostly phsyical symptoms gagging 24/7, panic, dry mouth, serve ingestion etc. I have been on amtripyline 150mg for 3 years and to be honest I haven't been really 100% on it ups and downs. Around xmas time sysptoms slowly coming back to the point I couldn't eat and lost a stone on weight which my doctor wasn't happy about so needed to change. I also take propanol and lorazepam taken as needed and work for a couple of hours.

I have tried to switch a number of times from amtripyline with about 8 other anxiety, deppression drugs which have failed as the side effects were just to serve for me. I feel like my doctor might be loosing patience with me so really hoping this one will work just so worried.

Worried about the sexual side effects and that I won't be able to have sex, and worrying when I have to come off them with the serve withdraw I have been hearing.

I have taken one 37.5mg yesterday with my tea I felt it slowly kick in and had a 5mins felt like I was going to puke and couldn't stand! Laid down for 5mins and felt great apart from the odd wave of nausea feeling and like a Hungry feeling in my belly. To be honest I feel like most of my anxiety gone already and most of syspmtoms have gone and I'm eating again just so worried that when I take my 2nd one im going to get real sick from side effects or when I go to have sex nothing going to work! And the withdrawal ��

[spamvicious]

The sickness wears off quickly Benji. Its worth trying, it will be difficult to get through the first few weeks but it might help you a lot. I am on 112mg of Venlafaxine, just been increased from 75mg. I'm at the end of second week and I'm having side effects of heart palpitations and generally feeling uneasy but I know I might feel better so it has to be worth it. I've never had any issues with sexual dysfunction or libido problems but I'm a woman so obviously it would be more extreme for a man. I think the most important thing is to remember: Just because it says it might happen, doesn't mean it WILL happen.

[Davit]

If you are taking lorazepam (Ativan) once a day you should get that changed to valium. It will handle the side effects better. Lorazepam has only a four hour half life and is not for long term use. (not more than a month) After that you get changes that are hard to reverse.

---------- Post added at 11:24 ---------- Previous post was at 11:16 ----------

As for sex, what blocks pain blocks pleasure, you just have to think about it more and be patient. SSRIs do make physical changes but not mental so go slow or the worry will get to you. You may have to decide if you want sex for an hour or your life back.
My doctor just said "there are other ways you know". Function does come back when you no longer take SSRIs. Lorazepam does not help.

[spamvicious]

If you are taking lorazepam (Ativan) once a day you should get that changed to valium. It will handle the side effects better. Lorazepam has only a four hour half life and is not for long term use. (not more than a month) After that you get changes that are hard to reverse.[COLOR="blue"]



What do you mean by the Davit? I've been on 3mg daily lorazepam for 8 months now. I was prescribed it to help with my crippling anxiety and when I tried to even cut down by half a tablet, last month on advice of pdoc I had really bad anxiety again. I had to go back to 3 tablets a day again. Can you switch to something else or do you need to be weaned off Lorazepam first?. I don't want to be on this drug but I know I'm not stable enough to go through bad withdrawal.

[Davit]

No you don't need to wean off. The way my therapist explained it is that lorazepam build a priority pathway by shutting down neurotransmitters so all information uses that one. So there is no information overload, but when they come back on there is massive anxiety. If you go to the site Benzo Buddies there is information on lorazepam. You just switch to an equivalent dose of Valium. Valium is the benzo of choice for getting off lorazepam. It is easier than any of them to quit. Once you quit valium can be used as needed. After a month on lorazepam it is almost impossible to get off it. Your mind doesn't know how to use any other pathway. Don't worry this does work. You will be better with the longer half life of valium. Dosage is usually 5 mg (equivalent to 1 mg lorazepam) twice a day tapering to 2mg twice a day if it proves to be enough. As a young man in a high stress job I used valium for a year and had no trouble quitting it.
The problem with lorazepam having a short half life (one hour, out of your system in four) is that you get ups and downs in a twenty four hour period. four is the max, that covers 16 hours, what do you do with the other eight.

---------- Post added at 14:43 ---------- Previous post was at 14:38 ----------

I didn't explain that very well, replace the lorazepam with diazepam, which is valium. Valium is the oldest, safest benzo. The others are designer drugs for specific conditions. You might want to see if one of them would work better for you.

[spamvicious]

Thanks Davit, I joined the forum you suggested and it scared me a bit. The two people who replied basically said they thought I was on too much medication and it is bad to be on long term :/

[pulisa]

Diazepam isn't a "safe" benzo. No benzos are safe when used longterm unfortunately. I know they can help but they should never be taken regularly over a long period of time.