Anxiety Help

[jschlichtin]

hi everyone!
I'm fairly new to anxiety. I've had it my whole life but I am just now getting help for it and I have to be honest, it's a little scary. I'm 23 years old Female. I'm not THE healthiest person, but I am 5'1 and about 30 pounds overweight (175). About a two months ago I went to get help from my primary care doctor and she prescirbed me 5mg of Buspar, twice a day. I am always so worried about side effects and long term effects and I was relieved to hear that there weren't many serious risks associated with this medicine.. I so desperately wanted it to work. But even when she increased it to 10mg, I got a lot of brain fog and I cut it back down. Now, she just started me on 5 mg of Lexapro (generic version), once a day. She told me to take buspar as needed but I am so worried about Serotonin Syndrome and I wont take the buspar with the Lexapro.. or at least I'm trying not too. Am I ridiculous for worrying about it if they are such low doses? (both are 5mg) I'm terrible for googling all side effects and questions I have and I've seen some scary stories online. I'm afraid Lexapro is going to have some adverse effect on me and just kill me out of the blue. Especially if I combine it with Buspar. I guess I'm just looking for some sort of answers or to hear someones experience with Lexapro. I'm so afraid of something healthwise but I know I need at least temporary help with my anxiety. I'm hoping to stop medicine in about 6 months and try to deal with it on my own again, but it's gotten out of control and I just need some help. I have feelings of shortness of breath, headaches, and just an overall on edge feeling. I also feel emotionless sometimes. I go to the ER at least once every two weeks with some sort of crazy symptom and it always turns out to be nothing. This whole thing is crazy since I have a pretty good life and I'm getting married soon and I'm happy overall with life, I'm just exhausted from feeling so anxious. I often feel throat tighness and I feel like I can't swallow or that my throat is going to close just because I'm so anxious. Do anyone have any advice, experience with these medications, or just any overall knowledge for me?

[Paxiled]

First, my long experience with this is that primary care physicians aren't the best people to do this with.  You should have been directed first to a psychologist who specializes in anxiety treatment, and if no progress was being made your therapist would probably send you to a psychiatrist, the specialists in these medications.  This is important because these meds can be very hard to stop taking to take correctly.  Second, buspar doesn't really work very well by itself -- it's not done well in clinical trials -- but is tried often because it's easier to take and to quit taking than drugs that work much better.  But it is often used after you start on an antidepressant and it's working but not working well enough.  This is called augmentation, and your regular doc won't know much about it.  Your dosage of Lexapro isn't enough to do anything, but this combination won't cause Serotonin Syndrome, which is very rare in any case.  But I'd suggest seeing a therapist, because if that works you're cured.  Drugs never cure, they just tamp down the symptoms, and they have side effects.  But if you decide you do want to try meds, they aren't magic bullets -- they won't solve all your problems in life.  They just make life easier.  But you need ones that actually work, and for that psychiatrists are the ones who know these meds best, though that's no guarantee the first one you see will be a good one.  Be persistent and do your homework and see if you can't figure this out with a therapist -- a short-term stay on antidepressants and anxiety meds doesn't always end up that way.