Medication-Phobia

[JaysKristina]

What to do...I have been having mild to severe anxiety since March 09. I know that anxiety starts with our thinking and lately my thinking has became worse because of my ridiculous catastrophic thoughts. I am starting to have trouble sleeping. I wish I could take medication but because I have had a bad reaction to a medication in March (or maybe it wasn't the medication, just me knowing it was in my system) I have refused all medication. Even tylenol unless I am in terrible pain. I have a phobia to ax medication and anti dep. medication, I feel like it won't work or it will work but eventually I will grow tolerant to it and need more. I don't want to go on that journey, I can just imagine taking medication and going into severe panic, not being able to work, go to school or take care of my child...Feel like I am the worse case senario... So I continue with my "talk therapy" and will start some much needed exercise hoping for relief... Any thoughts??

[paradoxos]

This is a common phobia. I suffer from it somewhat, but not to the extent I once did.  If your anxiety issues are more often mild than severe then your "talk therapy" may be sufficient to get you through. If you find (as I did) the anxiety increasing in severity and threatening to completely overtake your life, you may get over your aversion and be willing to give pretty much any anti-anxiety medication a try.

-DAVID

[imantee09]

at moment steve is on clonidine,75mg a day,very good at controlling ticks but no good with behaviour,have your kids tried any medication which helped both ticks and behaviour?

[imantee09]

I know there's alot of these threads but i thought maybe have this one as an update, since many threads are old and people have either started a new medication or discontinued past medication. So what are you currently taking, what dose, to what effect?

[CleverScreenName]

I have a similar phobia. Mine actually applies to all drugs capable of effecting my cognition and behavior, including recreational drugs. Even alcohol and caffeine. I never touch any of it. Probably never will.

But I've had a few panic attacks lately that were bad enough to think about anxiety meds. I have a med eval scheduled for next week. I don't want to have to take something every day, but something to take the edge off an occasional attack might be nice. But the phobia is a bit of a hurdle to get over.

[paradoxos]

CSN,

Most people tolerate Xanax and Ativan very well. Those seem to be the two most commonly prescribed drugs for taking the edge off anxiety, so one of those may be what your doctor would suggest you try. In my own experience, Valium is THE drug for relief from anxiety. It soothes me like nothing else can, and doesn't make me sleepy the way Xanax and Ativan do.

[CleverScreenName]

Thanks. My med eval is this Wednesday, and I'm actually looking forward to having relatively easy relief from panic attacks. The last one was pretty nasty.

[CleverScreenName]

I had my med eval yesterday. I've been prescribed clonazepam on an as-needed basis, which I can live with. I still don't like the idea of being medicated, but I'll only be taking it when I have an anxiety attack, which is infrequently enough that I probably won't end up addicted.

And apparently clonazepam is one of the least-addicted anti-anxiety meds anyway, so that's comforting. I'm paranoid about being addicted to anything, medical or not.

[JaysKristina]

I have only taken Ativan once and that was last year when my anxiety wasn't even as bad as it is now. My biggest fear is becomming addicted or requiring a higher dosage but my Dr. helped me with that fear, she said that it takes 3 weeks of using the Benzo's everyday consistently for your receptors to start to recognize the meds so like when I fly out next week I might take one before the flight but we will see :-) I am all about facing my fears so that I can get over them faster... Good luck to you all, I am always here if you need to vent.