Has anyone got better without medication?

[cattia]

My anxiety has been ramping up for about a year now but since September I've had only a couple of days when I've felt normal. The rest of the time it's been feeling faint, fatigue, dizziness, brain fog, derealisation and tight chested feelings 24/7. Because these symptoms are so non specific I am of course constantly thinking something physical is causing them. I've had two normal blood tests plus negative test for Lyme's.
I was on Sertraline for five weeks and it made me feel horrible so I stopped taking it.
Lately I feel like it's one step forward and three steps back. I'll have the odd better day only to be followed by another run of awful ones. I'm in therapy and trying really hard to make positive changes. My Dr has suggested fluoxetine which I've taken before but I would so much rather do this without meds. I hate the side effects, the start up and the idea of withdrawal when I eventually come off them. The trouble is I just don't know if it's even possible to climb out of this without meds. I'm getting to the point where staying in work is difficult and I'm incredibly worn down by it all. I would love to know others' thoughts and experiences.

[lofwyr]

Yeah, for me HA comes and goes in episodes or waves. Eventually it just burns itself out with me, and I go into a normal state for a while. I have skipped medication all together.

[cattia]

How long do the episodes last? I just can't shake this one and the physical symptoms are pretty debilitating.

[tmckenzie-orr]

I have never taken any medication and have anxiety for years I also have it in waves mainly if I get super stressed or something big has happened I sort of get the anxiety it’s horribke lol but I always thought taking medication is just masking the problem cbt really helped me but I’d suggest not doing tablets ever bad for ya

[au Lait]

I’ve tried quite a few different meds and nothing has really helped me in the long run. I had some good luck in the short term with a few, but overall I find more success with behavior modification techniques. I’m not currently on any meds, and I’ve recently pulled myself out of a pretty bad HA episode. The episode lasted a few months, and I still can’t say I’m 100% clear yet. But I’m getting there slowly by learning how to change the way I think and react to my anxiety.

Nomorepanic has a lot of great resources for free CBT programs. I’ve also had success with the anxiety guy’s YouTube videos. He’s a former HA sufferer who now makes videos about how he overcame HA. I’m currently reading a book called “The Worry Trick” which is pretty helpful as well. It’s not HA specific, so anyone with any kind of anxiety disorder could find it useful.

[cattia]

Thanks for the suggestions. I am already finding counselling helpful but I do think it's going to be more of along term thing. I'm hoping I can pull myself out of this on my own somehow but it's so hard to believe that anxiety can do so much to your body.

[tmckenzie-orr]

Deffo try without medication you can do it will make you feel much better in the long run especially realising you can cope without

[swajj]

Me. I never took anti-anxiety meds at all. I’m recovered.

[pulisa]

I certainly don't think they are essential to recovery and I think it's important to have confidence in yourself that you can manage anxiety without the help of meds.

[emmegee]

Yeah, for me HA comes and goes in episodes or waves. Eventually it just burns itself out with me, and I go into a normal state for a while.

This is how it works for me too. My episodes usually last about two months. A few weeks of it building up with some symptom until I spiral into panic and catastrophizing. I never recognize that it is happening until the spiral. Then it is a slow gradual recovery. I have never had a quick overnight recovery. Once I reach panic state, the fear is so fresh in my mind that it takes time to build up my confidence in functioning normally.

Sometimes I go years between episodes, this latest came on just a year after the previous one.

I have not found relief without medication. My health anxiety began in adolescence so I do believe I have an inherent chemical imbalance.

[cattia]

Thanks for sharing your experiences everyone. I don't have anything against people taking meds, It's just that I feel my anxiety is caused by a faulty reaction to stress and I'd like to tackle it longer term. I see a lot of people who are on meds but still have the same anxious thinking and indeed I have also been on them in the past and found they helped me through a crisis but I have ended up back in the same place. Since I don't want to be on them forever I feel my only hope is to try to address the underlying issues but then sometimes I wonder if I'm kidding myself that that's even possible.

[pulisa]

It's very possible, cattia, but you need to believe it and have faith in your own ability to manage anxiety without meds.

[cattia]

Thank you pulisa, my counselling is starting to change my perspective and I feel like I get little glimpses of a different way of thinking about things but because I have been stuck in this way for so long (I'm 40 years old now) it's hard for me to hang on to something different. But I do believe people can change so I hope it's possible for me too.

[lior]

You can change - you got the power!!

For me, I was too severely depressed and anxious to be able to process things, so citalopram made a world of a difference to me. Yes there were side effects, but nothing unbearable. Better to have odd side effects than to have stayed in my state of mental anguish for longer. It was hellish, and I was suicidal for quite a while before I took them and before they started working.

I believe psychotherapy can be a long term answer for some people. I've been doing it for 3 years to process traumas in my childhood and adult life, and it is working. Psychotherapy goes deeper than counselling. It helps you find the long term patterns in your life, so that you can change them. I didn't think of my past as traumatic until through therapy I could see the effect it had on me. I didn't have anything else to compare it to. For me, my depression and anxiety is situational - triggered by life events. So it's possible that I'll get better and never get depressed again (unless something awful happens).

Re: meds - there is no one right answer. No one answer for everyone, not even one right answer for you. You will change through your life. Whatever you do, just trust that you're doing the right thing, the best you can. And if you need to change your mind, you're allowed to :)