Propranolol

Anyone else take this for anxiety? I was just prescribed this today because of my history my doctor won't give me benzos so this was the next best thing he could think of. Anyone have any luck on this? How fast did you notice a difference?

About 5 years ago I had a complete breakdown and it manifested mostly in severe, relentless anxiety. My pdoc called it "dysphoric mania". I was prescribed propanalol. It helped take the slightest edge off the anxiety for a few months. After that, it was pretty useless. I took it for quite a while, but finally stopped.

Works great for me. I much prefer it to benzos, no merry go round moods on it.

I was prescribed propanolol, but it caused insomnia and triggered mania.

My daughter isn’t bipolar-she takes it and says it helps anxiety.

I prefer gabapentin. It’s not addictive but can be abused. I haven’t felt any need to do that. I find them very potent and relaxing.

It can take the edge off of a panic attack but not much. I find benzo's much more useful for anxiety and panic. Sorry you can't get them prescribed to you.

I know a lot of musicians who take it, or other beta blockers, before a performance to take the edge off performance anxiety.

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I take it and it keeps me calm. I'm weaning now because it makes me tired and cold. I also take fluoxetine

It works well for physical symptoms of anxiety like heart racing, trembling, sweating, which is why it works well for performance anxiety. It doesn't do anything for other anxiety symptoms.

I LOVE IT!!! My neurologist prescribed it for migraine prevention. I love that it slows my tachycardia.

My psychiatrist, because of my history, won't prescribe benzos either, so I feel your pain. I took propranolol for awhile for anxiety. Helped with heart palpitations, but not much else for me. So I got a divorce, and have been fine since!

I’ve been on it almost 11 years for anxiety.

I tried going off it in 2016, and my pulse went up to 135, and my heart was beating really fast. I went back on it pretty quickly.

It helps me some.

My anxiety lately has been more heart pounding so I've been taking extra propranolol to avoid Xanax. I figure the lesser of two evils. After necessary research I found out that too much propranolol can cause scalp psoriasis. Too much being at least or beyond my 160mg when I double up.

I took propranolol for akithisia.

I take a slightly different beta blocker (metoprolol), but the effect is very similar. It's been helpful for me in terms of my physical anxiety symptoms.

Before, I'd get physical anxiety symptoms and feelings, which made it very difficult to shift my focus away from the anxiety and the anxious thoughts, which would in turn make my physical anxiety symptoms worse, and so on.
The beta blocker didn't really do much for the thoughts themselves, but it at least made it so that I didn't have my body constantly reminding me of the anxiety. As a bonus, it also made my hands a bit steadier, which makes my work in a lab easier.

It only took me a day or two to notice the difference. It's not like SSRIs which take 4-6 weeks. You'll most likely know within a few days whether or not it's helping. Have you tried SSRIs? Those are generally the first thing tried for anxiety, even before benzos.

It would also be a bad idea for me to take benzos because of the abuse potential, and SSRIs/SNRIs make me super sleepy. If you haven't tried them yet, buspar and gabapentin are two other meds commonly used for anxiety that work in different ways than SSRIs/SNRIs and don't have the same abuse potential as benzos (buspar didn't work for me, but gabapentin has been helpful ... of course different meds work differently for different people)