Posted by sdb on February 23, 2005, at 14:16:53
I have some bipolar tendencies combined with social phobia. I have taken many meds including SSRIS and betablockers. SSRIS are often said to be standard therapy, but i disagree with that. I think SSRIS could be as dangerous as Benzodiazepines. I personally devolopped OCD tendencies with ssris, citalopram was bad, escitalopram was worse. On escitalopram i felt like a zombie and had a bad panic attack. Only trazodone had good properties for depression in low dosages, with the benefit to increase sex drive (but in normal dosages i also developed OCD thougts) Betablockers were the most usefull in case of situations which can trigger anxiety (for example performance anxiety).
40mg nadolol, 40mg slow oxprenolol and 5-10mg Pindolol are all effective for anxiety, especially performance anxiety. Pindolol is very very usefull for short term (0.5h-1h before performance anxiety) but it causes headache and can cause chest pain (it is also a extremely strong beta2 blocker), Nadolol is a bit less effective because because it has less cardiodepressant effect (MSA) but that can be a benefit for active, sportive persons and it has a very long half life (20h) which is positive for long term use, by the way the nadolol even increased sex drive after a week ;-) , oxprenolol (slow-Trasicor) is also very effective, it has more cardiodepressant (MSA) properties and is therefore very good for performance anxiety. Unfortunately it is not available in US. Propranolol was too sedating, many beta1-selective absolutely uneffective, atenolol effective only in very, very high dosages.
For me betablockers gave me the best force to live more "normal" and i have found it usefull. Your mind is also not impaired and i find this is important (I am a big reader). But betablockers do not cure the primary problem. Maybe there will be relief with crh1 blocking substances some times. I suppose that many sufferers of anxiety and depression have an overactive stresssystem (crh->acth->adrenal medulla->adrenaline and cortisol elevate... Serotonin is complex mediated and it does NOT mean that elevated serotonin in synaptosomes cure psychiatric disorders (as many doctors believe and the pharmaceutical industry postulate). It's much more complex.I have also taken Klonopin only in very stressfull situations. 2mg Klonopin gave good relief 1-2 hours before stressfull event. It calmed muscles and i felt more connected with the floor thus heavier, less nervous. 1mg Klonopin gave me controversaly more anxiety in one case. Xanax XR sedated my only in low dosages.
Kind regards
sdb
poster:sdb
thread:462303
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050222/msgs/462303.html