Posted by 3 Beer Effect on January 17, 2005, at 20:37:13
In reply to 3 Beer Effect: Top Ten List Please!, posted by smith562 on January 13, 2005, at 19:03:52
Since I have social phobia, I have always been looking for good anxiety meds in psychiatry. Unfortunately, there really arenīt any that work as well as alcohol. I think this might be because alcohol has effects on serotonin, dopamine, gaba, & perhaps the opoidergic reward system giving an unbeatable sense of well being, reward, & self confidence that is even better than any street drugs I have tried (cocaine etc.), although Dextrostat in low doses works well too.
I have had some success with the SSRIs Prozac 20 mg or Zoloft 100 mg. They make you less sensitive to slights & more outgoing & confident.
A combo many people on this board have benefited from is Dextrostat + Klonopin. (I personally despise the benzodiazepines however since they are said to make you 10% dumber & if you try to stop taking them they give you a rebound anxiety from hell). Use caution with that combo because in the long term both amphetamines & benzos cause depression. It might be most effective to take them with an SSRI.
The MAOI Nardil has effects on both Serotonin & Gaba & is actually said to be one of the best meds for anxiety & social phobia in particular. But most doctors wonīt prescribe it because of its well known interaction with tyramine containing foods. Plus it has pretty bad side effects.
Do not bother with selegeline/eldepryl/l-deprenyl. It makes anxiety much much worse & causes the worst dry mouth I have ever experienced. After trying selegeline I am beginning to have doubts about the dopaminergic theory of social phobia. I think social phobia & anxiety may be more related to serotonin & gaba than anything else. Wellbutrin & Effexor also increase anxiety.
I am going to try fiorecet w/ codeine eventually. I have a feeling this med may help with social phobia because opoids are supposed to help in that area plus it has a barbituate in it, which are rarely prescribed anymore. Although Iīve never tried any barbituates I think they may be better for anxiety than benzos because they seem to have many more similarities to alcohol.
An important thing is to limit your caffeine intake to 100 mg a day or less. Caffeine is one of the most anxiety inducing drugs this side of ephedrine. Also a tall glass of milk or chocolate milk an hour before bed + a centrum multivitamin seems to help relax you, helps you sleep, & keeps your serotonin levels up.
So in summary, the best combo might be an SSRI + low dose dextrostat (5-10 mg 2x per day) & perhaps Klonopin if you are inclined to take benzos (although I donīt recommend them, you donīt want to live your life in a fog & not remember anything do you?). It is good to try to limit the number of medications you are taking to 3 or preferably 2 or less. Psychiatrist have a tendency to overprescribe & prescribe drugs to counteract the effects of other drugs. But when you are on 3 psychoactive drugs at the same time, it seems to cause memory problems & lower the quality of life.
If Prozac or Zoloft is too stimulating you might want to try Celexa instead. (Remeron is also supposed to be an anxiolytic but when I took it it just made me foggy & had no antidepressant effect).
There are some new GABAergic drugs such as Gabatril & a few others, but I havenīt been following psychiatry much lately (It is good to find hobbies & leisure pursuits & limit your time worrying about psychiatry or psychiatric drugs in order to improve your quality of life) & so I donīt know much about them. One of them is sort of like an MAOI of GABA but I donīt remember what that one is called.
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Thanks,
3 Beer Effect
Hey 3 Beer Effect,
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> I follow you posts from time to time ... agreed with SSRIs and their 1.5 beer effect. Seems like you have alot of knowledge about meds for anxiety ... can you list your top 10 (or five) meds or med combos for anxiety?
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> Thanks a million,
> Still looking for *MY* 3 beer effect combo,
>
> Smith
poster:3 Beer Effect
thread:441826
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050113/msgs/443447.html