Upping medicine dosage.

I went to my doctor today because my anxiety is kind of bad again. He upped my dosage of Paxil from 40mg to 60mg & gave me a prescription for Klonopin. The Klonopin is only as needed but he had me take one tonight to see how it would affect me, that went fine. Now I am nervous about upping my dosage of Paxil tomorrow. I am going to take 40mg in the morning & 20mg in the afternoon, as that is what my Dr. suggested. Whenever I first started Paxil I had horrible side effects, I woke up in the middle of the night vomiting & had hot flashes often. Is this going to happen again? Also, my friend told me that if you take AD's & aren't depressed then they can make you depressed. So if I'm "better" & don't need medicine anymore could this possibly make me worse? I don't know a whole lot of details about this stuff so ANY help, or even some of your own experiences with upping dosages on Paxil would be SO awesome!! Thanks so much!!

[mammo]

What you went thru in starting the Paxil to begin with isn't good, and is an extreme reaction.  You don't say how long you've been on it, so I assume that things improved and you felt better?  It's common that at some point we need to have our medication dosage increased, and you should do fine since you are already on it.  I hope your medications are being prescribed by a psychiatrist and not your GP.  They are much more knowledgeable when it comes to these types of meds.  I thought Klonopin needed to be prescribed 2 x a day, and not on an as needed basis, we have other medications that do well on an as needed basis.  But I may be wrong, and hopefully someone will enlighten us both on this.  We all respond differently to these types of medications so when one has a bad experience another has a good one, it's really an individual thing.  I do think upping the Paxil will be fine since you've now adjusted to it.  Stay with us as others offer some sound advice on this.  Take care.

[Paxiled]

Klonopin can be sued as needed, but it does take longer to take effect than other benzos, which is why it's usually taken regularly to keep it in the body.  It also wears off more slowly.  It does seem strange to go up to that high a dosage of Paxil at the same time as adding a benzo, and as mammo said, because it takes longer to take effect klonopin isn't usually the best choice as needed but we're all different.  When you add two drugs at the same time, as you're doing essentially by upping the dose of one at the same time as adding another, you won't know which is working.  Or if either is working.  And ssris, though anti-depressants, are used for both anxiety and depression because of their action on serotonin, thought to affect both conditions.  My guess is you won't get your original side effects again, but you could get them and you could get others.  Any time you change a dose up or down there's the possibility of new side effects.  Hope it all works out.  By the way, you were mentioning you might think of stopping Paxil -- if you do, make sure your psychiatrist knows how to do this, and mammo, again, is right about psychiatrists vs. general docs, though even then many psychiatrists are clueless about medication -- their info is basically from the pharmaceutical company sales staff, not any independent knowledge, unless you have a good one.  You can tell by questioning them and if they let out a few honkers, get a different shrink.

[meow_meow]

Thank you for your input guys! Mammo, yeah the Paxil did start to work, I only had those horrible side effects the first few nights. I don't have a psychiatrist because of money issues, however my Dr. has studided psychitary & used to be a pharmicist. I've never had any problems with him giving me bad advice &/or meds. He listens to everything I say & he takes his time with me. He is a great doctor & I really trust him. He is also an old family friend of sorts. I don't know if I'll be getting off the Paxil ever because I don't know how to tell if you need to or not. I assume I'm a "lifer" on these kinds of meds. I started the 60mg today & it seems to be going fine, my only problem is a terrible headache, but tbh I have those almost all the time anyways. Thanks again!!