Thanks all, it was a little too much there for a while.
Too many things going wrong at the same time, none of which was as catastrophic.
Meds for anxiety are pretty essential tools for stopping it long enough to sort anxiety out when you are having attacks that are debilitating.
They overlap with panic attacks and even those have some more necessary evil meds for them.
The problems with those kinds of meds is that they can cover up the symptoms so well that it's easier for some Drs. to just let you keep taking them.
Most if given the chance to get you off them, will. They aren't ever meant to be long term, unless somebody has come up with one.
I doubt that is even necessary, given what therapists and psychology have to offer in the last few years.
If you are not able to function usefully for your lifestyle, then they can and do work in the short term.
But like everything that is prescribed, they come with risks, and some of them are as bad as anxiety itself.
Nothing like taking to strong a dose to get you where you want to be, but also keeping you in a state of mind that when they wear off, you go right back to wanting or needing more of the same.
The smallest dose possible is the dose that will allow you to get back to your life, while not making you so numb that you really have gone the other way.
Trouble is that they are usually given out as a higher dose, to make sure you get enough.
This is so illogical in itself, that it's were those horror stories of addiction come true.
If you can tell that you have taken them, you have taken to much.
In other words, if you feel at all 'high' from them, feel just even a little to good, it's to high a dose.
'Benzo's' are the most common and the most addictive. Next is opiates, which should never be used for anxiety, but work well.
To easy to be using to much of those good things. They are formulated in doses for pain and not anxiety.
A little will go a long long way in slowing down anxiety.
I have yet to feel even a little bit anxious when I use them to help with pain.
And I use low doses, usually half what is prescribed.
If you don't need them to stop attacks, and just want them for general anxiety, you are making a mistake.
You are much better off with talk therapy. Get to the root of the problem, never mask it.
That's the real danger in being prescribed anxiety meds. (from someone who calls themself, Ativan Prescribed....).
I started using them for up to and including panic attacks that seemed to come out of nowhere.
As soon as I figured out the cause, I have pretty much used them only when I really need them.
Only on those few occasions that having a panic attack just won't do in front of the general public.
It's not a pretty sight. Especially from me, I've heard. Don't know so much about that, though.
Ativan
