My experience of Buspirone

Hi everyone,

I'm really new to these forums, although I've been reading threads from the site over the last year or so - somehow I didn't know there was a particular topic for medication - anyway....

I wanted to share my very recent ( 1 week ) experience with Buspirone - so far it's been very positive until I tried to stop... I'll explain further:

At the moment, I am experiencing anxiety that is having a very negative affect on my day to day life. This is the second time within a year that I've had similar symptoms, however the triggers for this current time are very different to last and the depression I had last time is less severe currently. After taking Citalopram for about 5 months last year, I stopped taking it without consulting my gp - no need to flame me for this, I know it wasn't the wisest of decisions now :winks: - things were much better and I had about 6 months of much improved mood and quality of life. At the onset of the current anxiety i saw my gp who suggested and i agreed a return to the citalopram i was taking last year, I had been taking this for 3 weeks and it had yet to take effect and the symptoms were getting worse. On another visit to my gp, he recommended the short term use of Buspirone until the citalopram could take effect.

The effects were almost instant, I was prescribed 3 doses a day, I took two on the day of seeing the GP, slept well that night for the first time in three weeks and awoke the next day to feel that the symptoms of anxiety were really reduced. This continued for the next 3 days of taking this dose. Then the issue of stopping arose as the GP had stated only to use the drug for 3 days at most - the next day I dropped to 2 doses and felt an almost immediate return of the severe anxiety symptoms, this has continued for the last 4 days as I have tried to cope without them and been unable.

I have seen my gp today who has confirmed it may be too early to expect the citalopram to have an effect yet and has prescribed some more buspirone to take over the next week but I am to try each day to reduce the dose until I am able to do so.

This is a really short version of events for the sake of anyone reading and clearly I don't have a massive amount of experience (I also know that Buspirone shouldn't work in that short time frame, nor the positive effects leave so quickly - but they seem to for me) but I wanted to share this for the sake of anyone taking or about to take buspirone.

Hope this helps someone out there - if anyone is interested how this progresses, please let me know and I'll try and keep this updated.

Why has the doctor only prescribed ot for you on a short term basis? I was unaware that it was as bad as benzo's I didn't think they were addictive.

buster: honestly no idea

since takin them i've read the same thing so glad to hear it from someone else as well

going back to see another GP tomorrow for 2nd opinion on the options

Cheers

Maks