Clonidine

I have started taking clonidine in the morning to help with anxiety symptoms, blushing is the main thing I am trying to reduce.  I am 31 years old and play soccer twice a week.  For some reason I have in my head that Clonidine effects my stamina when I play soccer (the reason I think this is because clonidine slows your heart rate). The several times I have felt fatigued I do remember having super stressful days at work.

Can Clonidine effect a persons Stamina?  Or do you thing my stamina is effected from the anxiety/stress from that particular day.  I am only on .1mg of Clonidine, which I believe is a small dose.

Any feedback is appreciated.

[Michael J. McWilliams, M.D.]

Clonidine can cause fatigue/loss of stanima but so can stress.  My guess is that if you can't shake out the fatigue with exercise, it is from the clonidine.  That is a pretty low dose.  There are many other drugs that are often used to treat anxiety -- clonidine is not used that often, but i guess if it works, it works.  If the side effects are intolerable, it might be worth trying an SSRI like paxil, zoloft, effexor, etc.