Buspirone

[Danath]

does anyone have any experience with this medication and know why my doc will only prescrice it for 2 weeks?

[Danath]

guess they dont prescribe this very often then huh? odd since it seems to be one of a few drugs that are licensed for generalized anxiety disorder

[KK77]

I've never taken it Danath but I know that it apparently takes 2-4 weeks to kick in so I'm not sure why your doctor would prescribe you such a short course - seems pointless to me.

I would speak to your doc again mate.

[alias_kev]

Had this for quite a long while.

The bad theory is that short prescription could be the doctor getting confused to be honest! Some of the benefits are meant to be very fast - If I remember correctly it has a very short half life, which means its in and out of the body (and hopefully brain) quickly. So some writeups compare it to the 'azepams. That may get the Drs confused as they are now only meant to give 'azepams for short duration.

The good theory is that they simply want to review dosage and side effects after two weeks. I've had a couple of meds that the GP started this way.

Found it low on side-effects - less than the SSRI (escitalopram). Worked quite well on GAD but when I stopped I either needed to increase my dose and was on 10mgx3 already, or try something else. I also has a lot of stuff adding depression into my mix and its pretty much a pure anti-anxiety drug so it didn't do much to stop the depression forming.

Reviews online were contradictory. The USA ones seemed most confused. It seemed to get used for anxieties that were not GAD and oddly enough didn't do much for those patients. I suspect some are also expecting the power of an 'azepam and really its more subtle than that. I think the subtlety helps with GAD as we need moderate balance all the time rather than highs and lows.

[KK77]

The main disadvantage of buspirone is that it may take several weeks before its anxiolytic effects become noticeable.

I would hope that Kev's right in that your doctor wants to see how you get on with it first and review SEs etc rather than take you off it, because it seems to take as long as standard SSRIs for it to reach its full effect. It's totally unrelated to benzos and I too hope your doctor hasn't confused the two.

[Danath]

no the fool simply says he can only give it mer for two weeks as it says short term only in the BNF

[abc9]

i took this for 6 months - it really really helped me. i was only taking a low dose though, 3 x 5mg a day and at the worst 4 a day for a few weeks. i now rarely suffer with anxiety- probably once every few weeks for an hour or so! I did have CBT alongside this, and propranolol if needed but rarely took it. I also took motilium 10 for the anxiety side effects I had.