medication for anxiety

[waine]

do you know of any anxiety specific medications other than ssris? i mean there are benzos but they are addictive. i was just wondering whether anyone takes anything more for general anxiety and found it helped with social anxiety?

[endgame]

For my depression, I was prescribed the usual lot of SSRIs.
When the depression was dealt with, I broached the subject of the extreme anxiety of sweating, jitteriness, and anxiety of dealing with people.

My GP put me on Venlafaxine, which is used to treat both depression, and anxiety states.
Can't comment on whether it's specific for SA, but if you google it, a wiki entry can be found for it.
hope that helps.
(when discussing my anxiety, she originally suggested beta-blockers, but have side-efects of making you drowsy, as they lower your blood pressure. I refused them, as at the time lethargy from depression was bad in itself, didn't want anything that made me feel more sluggish.)

my experience to date is the excessive sweating is much reduced. however, I still fidget and stress over going out (eg, to library or shopping), and my stomach still churns, but my mind doesn't race as much with the meds.

[GottaGetBetter]

Beta blockers like propanolol are very useful. I take it now and again. It's often used by musicians and actors for auditions. It's great for difficult social situations.

Seroquel really helped me too, it has a sedative effect a lot like alchohol/weed that really calms down anxiety. But, it's usually prescribed for serious mood disorders or psychosis.

It can be used off-label for anxiety, but doctors don't usually prescribe it for anxiety unless they've tried the usual stuff (prozac, citalopram, etc) first and those haven't worked. Also incredibly addictive, I went without it for 3 days recently and I got the shakes bad.

[kastra]

I'm on venlafaxine/effexor which is a SNRI and affects dopamine as well as serotonin. I've definitely found it more effective for depression, not so sure about anxiety directly but it's helped at least because being less depressed means more motivation to work on the anxiety.

[Duke of Prunes]

Stimulants work for me, but I don't think they work for anxiety in general, just some types of SA.