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View Full Version : A little advice please....



SamIam
17-03-09, 11:39
hi there, i haven't been on here for a while. last year i my panic attacks came back whilst i was on 10mg of cipralex. my dossage was upped but didn't seem to do anything until i started to regularly practice relaxtion techniques and that phrase known as acceptence. it worked a treat and in january i was feeling so much better that i made the decision to come of my meds. i went to my surgery and my doctor said to start taking one every other day. i did that for two and a half weeks and it was fine. after a while though i started to get niggles, so i used the relaxation techniques i had learnt but they didn't seem to be working. i thought that maybe it was because i was suffering from some kind of withdrawal from the cipralex so i went back to the doctors. i saw a different doctor (unintentionally) and he said that maybe rather than take one every other day that i should just take 10mg daily. so i did this for a week, all the while the anxiety was getting stronger. for the past week i have not been able to calm myself down with any of the relaxation techniques i have learnt. i am now sitting in my bed shaking. I know that sometimes these things take time but i am where i was before i upped my dosage despite the techniques i have learned. interestingly i am not afraid of having a panic attack as i know it will pass, but i am still anxious and shaky, tingly, depressed and downtrodden. i really don't know what to do. i called my doctors yesterday and the advice he gave was to pop some diazepam (which i have in my drawer but haven't used yet). I'm loathed to do that as it is such a short term fix and will only calm me down for a hour or so and then i will be back to where i am now. I don't understand why the relaxtion techniques that worked before aren't working. it makes me wonder if they worked in the first place or whether it was just my upped dosage finally kicking in. so my question is, what to do? should i just sit here and bear it for another week or so hoping that the meds will level out (although it's been like, 8 or 9 days since i've been on the 10mg daily) or should i just go back up to 20mg and start again. you see, going back up to 20mg feels like a defeat. but saying that i cannot function properly at all at the moment and have lost all desire to anything at all. i've listened to about 10 self help audio books and whilst i am listening to all the information, it doesn't seem like they are helping at all. I know if i call my doctors they'll just say take the diazepam and call back later. now is that really advice? i mean, when i apoke to the doctor yesterday he asked me if i wanted to go back to the 20mg dosage. i explained to him that it would feel like a step backwards and i want to move forwards, and all he said was "hmmm, well take a couple of those diazepam and call back later." thing is, if i do call back i just feel he's just going to say up the dosage and take it from there. as you can see i am really bewildered right now and cannot make a desicion. so if anyone is there, your advice would be appreciated. hopefully it won't be "you have to do what you think is right" though as i kind of get that.

i guess what i'm asking is, if you were me, in my situation, what would you do?:unsure::unsure::unsure:

SamIam
17-03-09, 11:55
as i am really anxious i am going to copy and paste this into the anxiety sections too so that someone might read it. i'm sorry if this annoys anyone.

Forrest Gump
17-03-09, 19:24
It's difficult to say, but there's no defeat in going back to your previous dose if it works. If you want to quit your meds, I think you should be confident that you really don't need them anymore, that they have basically cured you.
I was on Citalopram for 3 years, and when I quit them it was rather easy phasing them out, except for some expected side effects like mood swings and such. If it hadn't been, then I would have continued using them. There's no point in ending a medication that is helping, it's like throwing away a crutch before the cast on the leg has come off. Having said that, I did have to try a couple of different SSRI meds before I finally found the one that was working for me, as this seems to be rather individual.

All the best