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Options for episodic treatment of PTSD/anxiety?

Posted by TheTaoOfPhil on February 13, 2008, at 14:05:00

Hi,

I have a diagnosis of Complex PTSD. I can go for periods of time (4-8 weeks) managing reasonably well with meditation, yoga, and Chinese medicine. There are times, however, when my symptoms are overwhelming, the biggest problem being sleep. I use Xanax (usually around 0.5 mg) but have found that if I use it for more than three days or so, getting off it results in some nasty withdrawal symptoms (even when I taper down the dose). I would like to be able to use something for 1-2 weeks at a time without serious side-effects. Also my pdoc is very anti-benzo and gets freaked out about me overusing Xanax (my pdoc's anxiety is an issue that will probably lead me to find another pdoc; it's enough for me dealing with my own anxiety).

My pdoc has suggested that I try something longer acting. So I also tried Neurontin and Buspar. Neurontin's effect even at just 100mg was too much for me: it just made me feel drugged up and dissociated, and even caused me to have more flashbacks. I tried a tiny dose of Buspar (2.5 mg, on the way to ramping up to 10 mg) and found that, along with some side effects that would probably go away (headache, stomache upset, spaceyness), it also just made me feel deadened -- my body felt dull.

My conclusion is that I really need to stick with meds that are used episodically because the side effects of anything else are too scary. I get the impression that vallium, while in the benzo family, is relatively less addicting than Xanax (which seems to be the fastest addicting of all of them). Is this so? Or does anyone have any other suggestions?

Thanks.


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poster:TheTaoOfPhil thread:812502
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20080207/msgs/812502.html