What a wonderful forum. I joined last night after reading for a few days. I may be older than the average forum member at age 52. I've danced through all the inital stuff with PD and it was an ordeal to get me onto a medication combination of any kind as I FEAR meds. I've been on the same combo for 10 years with only minor adjustments along the way. I've not experienced an actual panic attack in many years now. However this past year I have experienced the depression side of the house, something I never saw coming.
I currently take Nefazodone (generic Serzone) 350mg a day in an uneven split dose and Clonazepam (generic Klonopin) 2mg and night a .25 PRN. I suspect I have a wee filing cabinet in my head that's full of excuses for why I ignore my own symptoms, keep hoping they'll magically disappear or some miracle will occur. I finally called my doc this week. She has always written the my meds, but this time refered me to a psychiatrist. She wants me off any sort of benzo except for possibly .5 mg to use as PRN and to switch the Serzone to Celexa. The Serzone has black box warnings about liver issues and is banned in many countires. But, overall it did give me my life back. There seems to be trend in my area against the use of benzos.
I am hoping to hang around here a bit as we slowly step through this process. The wean down from Klonopin began three nights ago with generic Remeron being the subsitue. I take comfort in the fact that the psychaitrist stressed "slow" change. The biggest fear, of course, is that the panic and anxiety will ramp back up again as all this is happening.