Paroxitine

[Jocarter]

Hi ,  I have taken paroxetine [paxil] on two occasions for severe anxiety .  Both times they lifted my mood and anxiety .  Fir 10 years I was on 10mg and had no symptoms.  For the last year I have been on no medication and was fine .  Last week had a panic attack and anxiety is back and low mood .  I’m scared to go back on meds’ incase they don’t work this time

[Jocarter]

I did try counselling .  I lost my sister to cancer, than I had to have a preventative mastectomy. Also my other sister got cancer but has survived .  I developed a fear of dying and worried about my health .  I went on paroxetine at the age of 28 -20 mg for over 10 years .  I then developed flu and following this had another period of depression and anxiety increased med to 30 mg and again settled down and led a normal life .  I then reduced over the next 10 years to 5 mg and eventually stopped taking , no withdrawal symptoms at all .  I did have counselling but it was always when I felt well so did not really feel the benefit .  I know it’s only been a week but all the awful

[Paxiled]

In your case, therapy probably would have been a very good idea right at the beginning, as this was triggered by known events.  Most of us get anxious or depressed and have no idea why.  When you know why, that's when therapy rather than medication is the place to start, as we all have problems when our health suffers and we suffer grief.  One of the possibilities here is that when you've been on an antidepressant for a long time, or a benzo for anxiety sufferers, your brain can have a more difficult time reacting to stresses.  It's one of the side effects of long-term use.  Sometimes the brain has a harder time with stuff because it's been functioning the way the drug directs it to for so long rather than the way nature intended.  It's a cost that is often worth it for those who just can't beat the problem any other way, because they get to have a life.  Having to take drugs isn't the worst thing in the world.  Now, I can't say if this is happening  to you, only that researchers have warned about these meds and their increasingly widespread and long-term use because of this issue.  It doesn't mean that's what's going on with you.  As to what you're going to do about it, that depends on whether the problem continues and starts affecting your life in a big way or whether you're just going to have some temporarily difficult times in life, which everyone does but which you're more sensitive to.  We are who we are until we learn, if we can, to be enough different to not react this way.  I'm unlucky, I'm therapy resistant, I've tried it and tried it and tried it but it just never did it for me.  But it takes time and work to find out if it will help or not.  As to whether meds would work again or not, it's possible Paxil might not work again, for some reason it has a reputation for not working again for a lot of people once they stop it, but it did work again for you.  But only trial and error will answer that question.  Whatever you decide, I hope you get back your footing.

[Paxiled]

You've been through this before, so that makes it different.  One panic attack shouldn't necessarily make you the same as you were before, but again, you've been through this before.  Nobody can guarantee meds will work.  But nobody could guarantee that the first two times, either, yet you were able to do it and it worked.  But I would ask, given medication doesn't cure this problem, it only tamps down the symptoms, did you ever try other means of getting past the problem?  Such as therapy?  Just asking.  Everyone has down times in their lives.  Everyone has a phobia to something.  But as you've been down this road before, you know yourself and why you ended up with medication.