Medications for Anxiety-You Won’t Even Believe It
What in the world can sufferers of unrelenting panic attacks, generalized anxiety attacks, social anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorders, and posttraumatic stress disorder do to restore sanity to their lives! If you are one of the 40 million or so Americans who fit any one of those categories, stay with us to find some answers. Even in this very first paragraph we are offering you hope, information, and direction.
Let’s take a look at the solutions out there for you, and there’s more than one. This is not an advanced course in psychology or medicine - it’s just to help simplify your way to getting help. Our information is from the ADAA, the Anxiety Association of America. You will learn the names of specific medications, briefly see what they do and how they do it. First a word of caution: medications for anxiety are to be used only under a doctor’s care; and they are not a cure unto themselves. They are usually used before other therapies are introduced to reduce the debilitating symptoms so the individual is able to receive effective benefits from other therapies.
We’ll introduce you first to the antidepressants whose function is to alter something called serotonin, a neurotransmitter. These antidepressant drugs are the….You can check that name with your doctor - we’ll just call them SSRIs. The three SSRIs that you probably recognize are Zoloft, Paxil and Prozac and what they do is to treat all the disorders listed in our first paragraph. How they do it is to increase the output of serotonin level to the brain which should decrease your anxiety level.
Next let’s look briefly at the Tricylic (TCA) antidepressants, also effective in treating anxirty, which are Doxeprin, Anafranil and Vivactil. These antidepressants work in a similar way to the SSRIs and target basically the same disorders. In addition to increasing the concentration of serotonin, the TCA also affects the activity of a substance called norepinepherine. Medical reports indicate that while TCAs are effective medicines, their unpleasant side effects make them less preferable than the SSRIs.
Finally, the MAOI which are the first or the oldest of the antidepressants are Marplan, Nardil and Parnate, and are classified as inhibitors, because they work by blocking or inhibiting the influence of an important brain enzyme. The MAOI are generally prescribed by doctors in the treatment of panic disorder, post traumatic stress disorder and social anxiety disorder.
Again, we recommend that before beginning any treatment including medication, you consult your doctor concerning both the benefits and the side effects of each of these drugs. There are other medical interventions such as beta-blockers and anti anxiety medication that are effective in relieving the symptoms of anxiety, but are usually short term treatment, and also carry some unpleasant side effects such as dependency and withdrawal symptoms.
One of the main obstacles to be overcome in the decision to use medications for anxiety is the fear of the after effects - the fear and stigma that you may become addicted to the drug and will have withdrawal symptoms. While that is a real possibility, fear that you may become addicted to the drug and will have withdrawal symptoms. While that is a real possibility, just make sure you have a doctor well qualified to treat your specific anxiety disorder and that he knows his medicines and their side effects.
I hope by reading this article, your fears have been somewhat allayed, you understand that there are treatments available just for you, both through the use of medications for anxiety and psychotherapy and that you can be on the way to peace of mind and freedom from anxiety.
