Help/Advice Regarding Anxiety Medication Options

Hi all. Question for anyone who can help.

I am a passionate oenophile (aka a very big fan of wine in all its varieties). I love it. I have a glass almost every evening, and frequently go on wine tours and even tech some local community classes.

However I also have suffered from anxiety disorder nearly my entire life. Every single day I wake up and feel that dull rumbling in my stomach. I never feel at peace. It's like, if a regular person is at a 1 or 2 on a stress level of 1 to 10 all the time, I am at a 5 or 6...and when small stressors would just start to worry a regular person, they get me to a 9 or 10 and I start to lose it.

I have always tried to avoid taking medication. I just dont like being under the influence of a chemical so dependently. I also, as a 35 year old man, am horrible at remembering to take things regularly. However, about a year ago I finally sucumbed and decided to try Paxil. However, I explained my wine situation above to my doctor and she said that 1 glass of wine should be fine. Whatever.

Long story short...after taking the medication for about 1 month, I had a glass of wine with dinner one night when out with friends. I ended up passing out, and giving myself a concussion, smashing my head on the sidewalk.

I took the medication for another month or so. it helped some, but very minimally...but probably would have needed to be tweaked if I wanted to continue on it, Thing is, I was a little depressed, having lost one of my passions. Eventually, I asked the doctor to phase me off of it (it was a VERY low dose, so it was done easily and pretty quickly).

In recent months, we've been going through some hard times for so many reasons (health of the kids, money nightmares, etc.) and I gotta admit, its been really hard for me to cope. I've been thinking about whether I need to give up this love of mine and finally succumb to having to fo on a regular med.

My question here is...are there any meds at ALL that don't need to be taken every single day, but instead, can only be talen when the stress level is very high? You hear of people "popping a valium" when stress is particularly high (pardon the term...note, I am not asking about Valium in particular...its just a common expression...I have no affinity for any particular med)...Is this a valid and medically viable pharmacological treatment option? or is the only effective way to pharmacologically manage stress to take a pill every single day?

Sorry if this is a silly question.

Any help would be appreciated...
- t

ask your doctor about seroquel. some people consider it the worlds most expensive sleeping pill. but it can cut your anxiety fast. i wouldn't drink wine the day i take the pill. but you wont need it every day.
pi

The best is to treat the anxiety and depression at the root cause and not by medication. You can do so by yourself by going on a hypoglycemic diet, plus the necessary nutritional supplements.

Please read:

Depression is a Nutritional Disorder

Beating Anxiety and Phobias

and http://www.hastingspress.co.uk/hypo/
http://www.alternativementalhealth.c...poglycemia.htm

Sigh!

seroquel will make you sleep too much i take clonazepam aka klonipin i take a very low dose i mg and it helps me so much i also with take lexapro for depression but my dose of klonipn is very low the lowest is 0.5 mg but u take one in the morn and one at night but it helps alot i feel like a new woman since i started taking it

Hi Tony, I took Buspar for anxiety. It is a different class of drug than the benzodiazepines (klonipin, xanax, valium, ativan). The benzos can result in drowsiness and addiction, but many people use them very successfully longterm. Buspar is not a benzo and it does not help quite a few people who try it. But it does help some. The advantage is it is relatively benign and does not cause drowsiness or addiction. It might be worth a try just because it is so harmless. But you need to take it each day. (I took it for only 3 months, then stopped, as it lost its effectiveness.)

The benzos can be taken every day or on as "as needed" basis so if you are looking for something just for spot use, this may be a good bet. I have a Xanax prescription and rarely take it as I've got my anxiety under better control now. I take it when an extremely stressful situation is coming up or when I am lying awake endlessly at night obsessing about something. It acts within minutes. I think I end up taking it only about 2-3 times each month. The problem is even the lowest dose tends to knock me out, so it is a great sleeping pill, but hard to take during the day (for me, YMMV).

I've taken Ativan, and loved it at first because it's so fast acting. But I got addicted to it, and wound up abusing it. I'm on clonazapam now and taking it strictly as the dr. ordered it's not as fast acting as the ativan but it last longer in your system. I take 1 mg 3 X per day and 2 mg at night. Actually that's not quite true, that's my prescription, but I sometimes forget to take it during the day so I'm usually only taking 2 mg and sometimes only 1 mg a day, but I always take the 2 at night. I find mindfullness based meditation has really helped with my anxiety - I got CD's by Jon Kabat-Zinn that I listen to, and that's really helped me managed my anxiety better.

--splitimage

i hate taking meds too

Wow, I just almost posted a new strand on this same question. Glad I didn't. Thanks to all for the info.

Ativan/lorazapam and families are effective as needed meds. They can be habit forming, and alcohol is discouraged with any of these meds.