[MINIME]

I am trying to talk my therapist in allowing me to have a prn during this hard triggering season. She is past the no part and now she is in the we will talk next week and maybe fill out the papers. I have to have something. So I was wondering what works the best for u? What should I ask for? Not ativan for sure yuck. I dont want alot of side effects. Just want something that I can use to settle me when I need it.

[ECHOES]

I use Xanax as needed for disabling panic that I can't resolve in any other way. My physician prescribes 0.5mg for 3 times per day but I take it only when needed (the prescription gets me more for my money). He prescribed 1/day and monitored my usage when I began due to my history of drug use long ago. I have no desire to abuse the Xanax. One prescription lasts me for at least several months.

I take what I need of the 0.5mg tablet. Sometimes when sleep won't come in spite of autogenics/relaxation CD's and other attempts at falling asleep, I take a whole tablet. Other times when panic is rising rapidly, I begin with a quarter tablet and take more if needed. Taking a bit like that really helps keep the panic level down and doesn't make me drowsy at work. Often now only a quarter or a half is all I need.
Sometimes just knowing I have the Xanax available is relieving in itself and I don't even need to take any

Treatment for PTSD: Look into a trained person (psychiatrist or psychologist) who does EMDR. If you have a VA Hospital near you, call them to find out. They don't know WHY it works, but it works. Several friends from my support group have gotten great relief & I went to a NAMI conference & heard a VA psychiatrist who is a PTSD specialist speak & he said the same thing: EMDR for PTSD.--Suzy

[MINIME]

suzy thanks I am doing emdr

I've heard some really good results from it. Glad you have found a competent provider. I have some symptoms of ptsd & was dxed by a therapist but she just happened to have that as her specialty so I got a little skeptical about it (maybe she saw it everywhere or maybe that is what she was comfortable treating; I don't know). I am reacting to past trauma in the same strength of the emotions & get triggered easily, but I don't have flashbacks or dreams. I have to have a trigger from the environment (or my thoughts trigger me a lot) so I'm not sure what the deal is so I'm not with that therapist & don't have that dx. I do have bipolar 1 (take a combo of meds for that) & anxiety (which I take Klonopin for) & ADHD (Concerta) & go to indiv. therapy & DBT group so I'm learning some tools to try to calm down the quickly escalating emotions which bring on unhealthy & rash behaviors to try to relieve these emotions.

I hope your treatment is effective. Take care.--Suzy

[splitimage]

I've been treated with EMDR and found it very effective. As far as meds go, I take clonazapam for anxiety. I'm diagnosed with cptsd. I was on 1 mg a day three times a day for about a year, but now I'm down to .5-1 mg as needed and I rarely take more than 1 mg a day. I've found therapy to be the most helpful.

---splitimage

[ScaredSad]

This is old but I want to say that my drug of choice is propanolol. It's a beta blocker or a blood pressure pill. It treats all of the physiological responses to anxiety from my PTSD.

My problem is that after 18 years of severe abuse, my body is wired to survival mode and doesn't have any in between responses. The propanolol forces it to slow the heck down, chill, so I can think and react instead of holing up for protection.

I have tried ativan and xanax and they really didn't do anything for me. If I took 2, I got sleepy, but I didn't notice any relief of symptoms. It just slowed me down but it didn't stop the bad parts of the anxiety.

For me, propanolol STOPS the bad parts of the my anxiety cold. In fact, I'm going to take one in just a minute because I can't seem to shake this anxiety this morning.

There were some trials testing propanolol with people who have experienced recent trauma to try and prevent PTSD from ever occuring. Those were successful but not sure if they were ever replicated. I think there was at least one miliatry trial testing propanolol as well and I know there's some research on them giving it to people with speaking anxiety before they are asked to present in public.

As far as other medications that no one has mentioned, a doctor once prescribed me a trial of risperdal for PTSD, I took it for 2 nights and decided it was too risky to continue. He gave it to me out of an offshoot of more military research where they gave risperdal to a lot of veterans with combat PTSD to help with the dreams, stress reactions, etc. I can't speak as to whether or not it worked because I only took it for 2 nights and it was right after I had a super bad experience w/another medicine, so I wasn't up for experimentation.

Glad to hear the EMDR is working for you. My clinical supervisor is a specialist and she swears by it but my last supervisor swore it off... I like to believe it does work really well for some people but I have no professional or personal experience with it just yet. I wanted to try it the last time I went to therapy but my psychologist didn't believe in it... so, there ya go.

[Zen888]

Originally Posted by MINIME

I am trying to talk my therapist in allowing me to have a prn during this hard triggering season. She is past the no part and now she is in the we will talk next week and maybe fill out the papers. I have to have something. So I was wondering what works the best for u? What should I ask for? Not ativan for sure yuck. I dont want alot of side effects. Just want something that I can use to settle me when I need it.

I can't spell it correctly but its called clonzopam...works wonders!!