Posted by ravenstorm on October 22, 2004, at 20:43:18
Oh God, I don't know what to do! Over a year ago I went through severe paxil withdrawal after taking over five months to drop down the last 2mg. Ended up worse than I was before paxil.(Severe, severe anxiety and suicidal depression)
I've been on the med merry go round since last December.
Ended up on Remeron 15mg (can't get any higher without lapsing into a coma) which got rid of the anxiety but didn't do much for the depression and left me very apathetic.
Added in WB, which at first made me very tired, then had a week of anxiety. Then felt as close to normal as I have in a long time (NOT quite normal but incredibly good compared to how I had been--suicidal and pretty non functional).
My brilliant pdoc then decided that I should just get off remeron all together and go to 300mg WB since I was still having some side effects from the remeron. I bumped up to 250mg on the WB for a couple of weeks and started having heart palpitations but no out and out anxiety. Since this had happened when I first started on WB I wasn't too concerned. Then I bumped up to 300mg while simultaneously cutting back on the remeron and had a huge anxiety surge. Started at night and then woke up in the morning totally out of control. Bumped back down to 250mg and back up on the remeron and things calmed down but I still had the palpitations. Then, a week or so later, I had another huge anxiety surge--. I was going out of town for an extended weekend, so I dropped WB to 200mg started taking 1.0mg Lorazapam at night with the remeron and that squashed the anxiety back down. (Pdoc was notified of this and I made an appointment to see him on Monday). My husband was freaking out over addiction so I dropped to .5mg for two days then to nothing that Sunday night. Anxiety returned. Saw pdoc and he thought maybe the remeron was contributing to anxiety (!!!) so he prescribed neurontin 100mg capsules that I was to take at night starting with one and working up to three. For a week I took the 1.0mg Lorazapam and worked up to 300mg neurontin and again my anxiety seemed under control. The next week I cut the remeron in half and within eight days my mood had deteriorated rapidly, severe anxiety, crying all the time borderline suicidal etc etc. Bumped back up on the remeron and dropped the WB to 100mg and doctor prescribed xanax which he wants me to take three to four times a day!!!!!!!!! Ever since I tried the drop in remeron, addition of neurontin my anxiety has gotten worse. I only used to get flares in the evening which then sometimes impacted me the next day, but they always cleared up on their own (and that was only when I went above 200mg WB. Now I have anxiety all day long even though I am only taking 100mg WB and am back up to te 15mg remeron. I have been trying to only take the xanax once or twice a day, but I feel it wear off and then feel even more anxious and I think I will have to take it three times a day because I feel like I'm about to die. How could this have happened. Is my body so sensitive that I got bounce back anxiety immeditately from the neurontin/xanax?? (My previous pdoc indicated that none of her clients had had as much of a problem with paxil as I did) Now i feel like I'm not going to have achoice about taking the xanax because I can't function with this level of anxiety(It is very physical, not worrying, but not panic attacks either. To make matters worse, I have never done real well with benzos (I actually feel more anxious for anywhere from 15mins to an hour after taking them)
I would understand how I could get worse when I bumped up on the WB and down on the remeron, but now I am taking even less WB than I was when I wasn't having any anxiety on it and I'm having worse anxiety!!
That first weekend when I dropped to 200mg WB stayed on 15mg remeron and added 1.0 lorazapam my anxiety was totally under control. And when my anxiety had flared up the two times previously it was always at night. Now I have it all day long.
Did the neurontin or xanax do something really bad to me?? I know this sounds impossible but it has happened.
Also, the neurontin mellows me out more than the benzos but is way too sedating for me to take during the day.
I don't know what to do. I never wanted to take a benzo long term.
Basically, I was given WB to counteract side effects of remeron (and to help my depression) and now am being given anti-anxieties to counteract WB side effects, but my anxiety has gotten more pervasive with the addition of the anti anxieties.
Also, I don't know what is causing what because everytime I upped something, i cut or added something else. It seems like dropping the WB so low and reinstating the remeron should have taken care of things. What is going on???????????
poster:ravenstorm
thread:406164
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20041018/msgs/406164.html