Posted by cache-monkey on December 20, 2004, at 18:29:32
In reply to Re: BuSpar = increased anxiety? (alpha-2 antag.?), posted by olysi79 on December 20, 2004, at 16:57:34
"Buspar is a frustrating medication. It can ause anxiety for two reasons, the first being exactly what Linkadge said. Second is that is can block Dopamine and cause akathisia. I had something wierd happen to me when I tried Buspar for a second time... I went into an episode of agitation and depression... at first I thought that it was typical old akathisia, but my pdoc thinks otherwise. No one is really sure how this med works, and on top of that, it doesn't work very well. Perhaps you should ask to try something different."
Hmm. I didn't think that BuSpar typically reduced dopamine; I remember reading somewhere that it acutally increases DA somehow... But, I did experience quite a bit of jitteriness when I first started it. That went away, but nowadays my physical and mental tension/anxiety seems to come creeping up about half and hour after dosing BuSpar and then slowly dminish.
I agree that it's probably not the best drug for me. My pdoc (for a variety of reasons) started me on a trial of Lamictal that seems to be actually working right now. Hopefully it continues to do so. As far as the BuSpar, I'm on a small dose (7.5 mg/day having reduced from 10 mg), but my pdoc wants me to keep it constant so we can sort out what the Lamictal's doing. I'm actually tempted to reduce a tad further (to 5 mg/day), anyway...
Anyway, I'm just rambling now. Sorry to hear that your second round with BuSpar was so bad. If it wasn't akathisia, what does your pdoc think it was?
Best,
cache-monkey
poster:cache-monkey
thread:432065
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20041217/msgs/432173.html