At random times during the day, I have these anxiety attacks at times. It's not when there is a crisis. Then I'm fine since there's action that needs to be taken. It's the in between times. It's the anxiety about what could happen that does it. I just find myself with a loudly beating heart and cold with fear.
Each and every person has a right to decide how to deal with the anxiety. Whatever it takes to help you. But the taboo attached to psychotropics is a moot point at this stage of the game.
I have a calm partner and he can always talk me briefly down off the ceiling. He asks about the honest possibility of all I imagine could go wrong. Shortly after he did that re my brother's demolished and towed truck it all went bad in just the way I imagined it. Hee hee. And not so funny.
Finally they convinced me that is what they were, which in itself helped. When I felt one coming on I could sort of control it by not panicking and been taking a very low does of an SSRI.
They are scary when you first experience them.
One person could be experiencing no stress at all and still get them, where another person could experience all kind of stress in their environment and not get them.
SSRI basically restore the proper chemical balance, they are not like a benzo like Xanax which tranquilize you, they more fix the problem and are not dangerous or addicting. (again, I am not a medical pro, so this is just what I have learned on my own, take the advice as such)
But the last couple of days in particular have been really bad. The dentist prescribed me amoxicillin and for some reason it's been bothering me and causing a strange reaction. I don't fault anyone for taking SSRI's for anxiety. In fact I went to my doc on Wednesday and asked him for a few Ativan. He is very against taking this and tried to convince me to go on another antidepressant but I just got through weaning myself off of Effexor and don't want to go down this route again so soon. Maybe in the future. Never say never.
Has anyone on here taken an SSRI that had fewer side effects cause it's the side effects that really bother me.
I take a very small dose of Fluvoxamine (Luvox) for the fibro pain. Years ago I took a higher dose as an antidepressant. There were a number of antidepressants I tried but could not take due to side effects. Luvox is not commonly used as far as I can tell but has an anti anxiety effect as well as being an anti depressant. It is used for OCD - a problem I certainly don't have, but works well for me for fibro with little side effects. Might be worth you asking about it. Antidepressants aren't addictive as anti anxiety meds can be. They simply get your brain chemicals back into the right balance. Good luck.