Anxiety or what?

Hi Patman. When you say you take diazepam-is this constant , or do you come off it and then go back on it? Its seems a heavy duty amount of meds to be on......but im no expert. concerned about the diazepam thing though :? Ive taken citalopram/diazepam and zoplicone. out of them all , from my own experiences, I found the zoplicone stuff made me worse-Id expect to sleep, but didint and Im sure I had hallucintaions on it-Weird stuff. I think if you are feeling that low, there is only one way/relax-( this is a really hard word for me to undersatnd. Relax?????? How can I relax? Thats when I look at others and think , are you comletely mad????????/If you feel worse still, my advice ( but pls remeber im not an expert, ) that you should take your sleeping tablet and replace it with either a really good book-lol, war and peace, and let your body get used to the other meds. You may be awake for a while, but your body will switch off from the heavy stiff when its good and ready. I know , mine is now on shut down and if I have to saty awakr for longer than 5 hours I am really crabbie. Getting up at 5 am sdoesnt help. Anyway, hope you get better soon....it takes time! Im having a dvd day...Then back to work tomorrow! Take care.

Thanks, I don't read though, it takes 2 days to read a newspaper, always been that way. Most days before this anxiety (?) came on big time I would take 1/2 or 1 5mg diazepam per day which controlled my feelings pretty well. My GP says that diazepam is like \"painting over rust\" and that I should eventually try to get off it, but it's the only thing keeping me sane just now.

Hi Patman

The only thing i can suggest is you go back to your g.p or crisis team and tell them the tablets aren't working for you. It does take a while for the citalopram to start too work. it took about 8 weeks for me to feel the affects. althohgh having said that they didn't work as well as my g.p and I thought they would, so i am now on sertraline.

I guess your g.p and crisis team know all of the tablets you are taking. perhaps the conbination of tablets is wrong and a change may do the trick.

stick with it.

madmouse

Thanks, forgot to mention I was on Sertraline to start with and the side effects were even worse. Now I have a theory, as I don't think I'm at all depressed, and the medical experts(?) suggest not to take alcohol with SSRIs, why does alcohol make me feel better? I assume that SSRIs (Citalopram etc) are \"uppers\" and alcohol is a \"downer\" and what I need is another \"downer\" rather than an \"upper\"? Anyway, I am having another visit from the Crisis team doctor soon so hope to discuss with him.

Hi mr bonce,

All SSRI's take time to work (In my case it took about 3months to feel normal again) but they shouldn't be seen as the magical cure for depression and or anxiety. They egt you to a point where you can start to address the reasons behind the depression/anxiety (these can vary widly from person to person).

SSRI's are not really \"uppers\" as such they just make the serotonin stay around for longer, so they gradually lift mood.

Alcohol actually makes the brain temporarily increase the levels of serotonin, but it is only short term. This article explains it alot better than I can!

http://stresshelp.tripod.com/id13.html

Have you been offered any sort of councilling? I was one of the most reluctant people and very dubious about seeing a councillor but in my case that has enabled me to work on the causes of my depression and anxiety and has had as much of an impact as the Cit.

Thanks, counselling and CBT have both been suggested but I don't think they will work. I am very reluctant to talk about some of the weird thoughts I have been having! I don't mind paying for something that will help but does it I wonder?

I am still not convinced that citalopram is right for me but need to persevere I suppose. Too much seems to make me feel \"out of it\", too little and I feel edgy and irritable.

I was one of the most sceptical people about councilling and I've never been one to open up to people.

But I have to say that has been a huge help to me, my councillor practices CBT and it has helped immensly I am feeling more myself than I have for years and that is due to the combination of Cit and councilling I don't believe I'd be anything like this with only one or the other...

When I started to take Cit I was on 20mg and to start with felt out of it, didn't sleep etc etc.. That started to settle down then they upped me to 30mg and the side effects returned but not to the same extent (I'm only little so 30mg is plenty for me!). It takes time but they do get better.

What dose are you on? (Also you shouldn't vary it it should be the prescribed amount and it will take 4-6 weeks to have any impact)

I can't really comment on the Linden method as I know very little about it and whether it works or not, but also because in my case anxiety was a symptom of depression.