11 replies to this topic

[Kathleen Carlson]

Hi Everyone,

 

I'm posting on here because I really have reached my wits end with anxiety! I've had generalized anxiety since I was 4 years old but it wasn't really recognized or diagnosed until I was 18. (I'm 23 now) I spent a long time with a psychologist talking with her and she diagnosed me with GAD. I was reluctantly put on SSRI's, which do help a lot but I am so sick of feeling numb to everything, it has ruined relationships and I feel no emotions a lot of the time. I have been on Lexapro, Prozac, and Zoloft and typically don't experience bad side effects for about a year. So they work really well (besides the numb feeling) and then suddenly I get hit with the fatigue, insomnia, etc. 

 

Anyways... I would really love to be off prescription drugs but I also live a relatively stressful life (I'm in nursing school). I do my best to exercise at least 4 times a week, eat pretty dang well, and try to relax (yoga, music, breathing)

I take a multivitamin and have tried Theanine with no result that I could notice.

 

I've been taking 5-HTP before bedtime (low dose) and I take 5mg of Lexapro in the AM (I am educated about serotonin syndrome and have been maintaining a good balance of these so I dont get too much serotonin)

 

For about 2 weeks the 5-HTP made me feel great, anxiety free, and not nearly as numb as normal. Then it just seemed to drop off to where I felt numb and just dull all the time like I had before. Has anyone experienced this before? 

 

I guess what I'm looking for is any advice on what I can try or change specifically related to GAD, not depression or social anxiety or OCD or any other condition. 

[tunt01]

I repeatedly tell everyone the same thing that show up here in these boards posting similar issues:

 

1.  Anxiety can be due to a mis-programmed HPA (hypothalumus pituitary adrenal) axis.

2.  Excessive flight-or-fight response (due to misprogrammed HPA) can be viewed as anxiety disorder.

3.  Beta-blockers (kill adrenaline) interfere with this response and can make a person "flat".

 

I think there are a lot of other reasons why beta blockers are interesting as an intervention.  Beta blockers have been shown to extend life in F1 mouse.  They are shown to be protective against a wide range of ailments like prostate cancer (interfering with over-active stress pathways).

 

If you are looking for an alternative approach to the anxiety issue, I would suggest taking a look at beta blockers.  

 

I don't want to sound like Tom Cruise, but I think a lot of psychologist/mental health people who prescribe SSRIs are idiots and would be better off prescribing cardiac drugs like beta blockers or even Telmisartan (ARB).

 

 

Edited by prophets, 08 May 2014 - 03:48 AM.

[mealz13]

I agree with the beta blocker approach if your anxiety is physical-- racing heart, sweating, etc.  However, they do shit for mental anxiety in my experience,,, worrying, obsessing, racing thoughts... have you tried being on a very low dose of an SSRI?  IN my opinion, pdocs overprescribe SSRIs.. I was able to take only 25mg of zoloft and experienced huge relief, without any numbing effect.  That's weird that 5htp stopped working-- it could be not enough is getting to your brain but is instead going to your gut; there's a way to help alleviate that but I forget what it is, some sort of supplement.  I'll let you know if I find out.  Also, taking collagen with 5htp helps reduce the inflammation it can cause, which also may be why you started feeling shitty again.  Good luck in finding something that works!

[Major Legend]

Anxiety is one of the trickiest things to deal with, you can read my other posts on my thoughts about treatment.

 

What about MAIOS? Tandospirone, Amitryptiline etc SSRI's arn't the only hardcore option. How bad is your anxiety? if its only sparingly then alpha GPC or colouracetam can help, these deal well with irritability in my experience.

 

It depends how bad it is? Have you cross checked yourself with other stuff that could cause anxiety such as ADHD, Autism, or other disorders?

 

Do you have bad mental habits?  I think the thing with psychotherapy is everyone has different things that work for them. For some people traditional therapy works (you do not need to see a therapist, can easily read up on these), these usually center around reframing, changing thought patterns, visual imaging etc. For other people tactile/body methods prove more instructive.

 

To figure out what works for you, figure out your triggers, the actual feeling of your anxiety, do you lose your thoughts? is it a bodily reaction? is it brain noise? do you wallow in negativity? these will help you identify both the psychological techniques and medications that would be suitable for you? The supplements/drugs you put in your body is about what you want your life to be like, as much as what you wish to prevent. E.g SSRI's make you anxietyless but they make you flat emotionally.

 

 

[Kathleen Carlson]

I agree with the beta blocker approach if your anxiety is physical-- racing heart, sweating, etc.  However, they do shit for mental anxiety in my experience,,, worrying, obsessing, racing thoughts... have you tried being on a very low dose of an SSRI?  IN my opinion, pdocs overprescribe SSRIs.. I was able to take only 25mg of zoloft and experienced huge relief, without any numbing effect.  That's weird that 5htp stopped working-- it could be not enough is getting to your brain but is instead going to your gut; there's a way to help alleviate that but I forget what it is, some sort of supplement.  I'll let you know if I find out.  Also, taking collagen with 5htp helps reduce the inflammation it can cause, which also may be why you started feeling shitty again.  Good luck in finding something that works!

 

Hey,

Yeah I should have clarified, I'm looking for alternatives to ALL prescription medications. I've never tried beta blockers but I have none of the symptoms that beta blockers would alleviate (sweating, racing heart). I have the obsessed worrying about nothing and just the general feeling of panic for no reason. It's pretty constant. I'm on only 5mg of Lexapro and have tried the low low doses of Zoloft and Prozac (prozac actually GAVE me panic attacks which is not normal for me). 

I just really do not want to be taking any prescription medications anymore, I am sick of that struggle. If you happen to remember the supplement that helps 5-HTP absorb, please let me know because you might be right about it not getting to my brain! 

[Kathleen Carlson]

Anxiety is one of the trickiest things to deal with, you can read my other posts on my thoughts about treatment.

 

What about MAIOS? Tandospirone, Amitryptiline etc SSRI's arn't the only hardcore option. How bad is your anxiety? if its only sparingly then alpha GPC or colouracetam can help, these deal well with irritability in my experience.

 

It depends how bad it is? Have you cross checked yourself with other stuff that could cause anxiety such as ADHD, Autism, or other disorders?

 

Do you have bad mental habits?  I think the thing with psychotherapy is everyone has different things that work for them. For some people traditional therapy works (you do not need to see a therapist, can easily read up on these), these usually center around reframing, changing thought patterns, visual imaging etc. For other people tactile/body methods prove more instructive.

 

To figure out what works for you, figure out your triggers, the actual feeling of your anxiety, do you lose your thoughts? is it a bodily reaction? is it brain noise? do you wallow in negativity? these will help you identify both the psychological techniques and medications that would be suitable for you? The supplements/drugs you put in your body is about what you want your life to be like, as much as what you wish to prevent. E.g SSRI's make you anxietyless but they make you flat emotionally.

 

 

 

I will go look into your post and see what you have to say, anything helps!

 

I've went through intense psychological testing before she prescribed me anything and she tested for all those things such as ADHD, ADD, OCD, all sorts of stuff and it wasn't any of those things. I think psychotherapy COULD work for me but I've done the traditional therapy with no luck. My anxiety is incredibly hard to pinpoint besides the fact that stress makes it exponentially worse. It's pretty much a 24/7 general anxious feeling/worrying about nothing in specific, so I have a lot of trouble concentrating. Sometimes it manifests as some tightness in the chest but I rarely have full blown panic attacks with all of the physical symptoms.  

 

The fact that it's so hard to pinpoint is I think why I have so much trouble with psychotherapy because truly where do I start?

 

Thanks for your post!

[Major Legend]

 

Anxiety is one of the trickiest things to deal with, you can read my other posts on my thoughts about treatment.

 

What about MAIOS? Tandospirone, Amitryptiline etc SSRI's arn't the only hardcore option. How bad is your anxiety? if its only sparingly then alpha GPC or colouracetam can help, these deal well with irritability in my experience.

 

It depends how bad it is? Have you cross checked yourself with other stuff that could cause anxiety such as ADHD, Autism, or other disorders?

 

Do you have bad mental habits?  I think the thing with psychotherapy is everyone has different things that work for them. For some people traditional therapy works (you do not need to see a therapist, can easily read up on these), these usually center around reframing, changing thought patterns, visual imaging etc. For other people tactile/body methods prove more instructive.

 

To figure out what works for you, figure out your triggers, the actual feeling of your anxiety, do you lose your thoughts? is it a bodily reaction? is it brain noise? do you wallow in negativity? these will help you identify both the psychological techniques and medications that would be suitable for you? The supplements/drugs you put in your body is about what you want your life to be like, as much as what you wish to prevent. E.g SSRI's make you anxietyless but they make you flat emotionally.

 

 

 

I will go look into your post and see what you have to say, anything helps!

 

I've went through intense psychological testing before she prescribed me anything and she tested for all those things such as ADHD, ADD, OCD, all sorts of stuff and it wasn't any of those things. I think psychotherapy COULD work for me but I've done the traditional therapy with no luck. My anxiety is incredibly hard to pinpoint besides the fact that stress makes it exponentially worse. It's pretty much a 24/7 general anxious feeling/worrying about nothing in specific, so I have a lot of trouble concentrating. Sometimes it manifests as some tightness in the chest but I rarely have full blown panic attacks with all of the physical symptoms.  

 

The fact that it's so hard to pinpoint is I think why I have so much trouble with psychotherapy because truly where do I start?

 

Thanks for your post!

 

 

For supplements, what about folate as metafolin, or sam-e?  I think supplements are generally weak in strength though.

 

For general noise, albeit requiring a ton of concentration when you first practice it, this is an exercise that helped me loads:

 

 

1. Lie down or sit down in a comfortable place 

2. Take a deep breath, and close your eyes 

3. Place your attention to your left foot 

4. Breath in, and then breathe out as you let all the tension out of your left foot 

5. Place your attention to the right foot 

6. Breath in, and then breathe out as you let all the tension out of your right foot 

7. Place your attention on the left leg from the knee down 

8. Breath in, and then breathe out as you let all the tension out of your left leg 

9. Place your attention on your right leg from the knee down 

10. Breath in, and then breathe out as you let all the tension out of your right leg 

11. Place your attention on the left thigh 

12. Breath in, and then breathe out as you let all the tension out of your left thigh 

 

13. Place your attention on the right thigh

14. Breath in, and then breathe out as you let all the tension out of your right thigh 

15. Place your attention your butt 

16. Breath in, and then breathe out as you let all the tension out of your buttocks and groin 

area 

17. Place your attention on your stomach 

18. Breath in, and then breathe out as you let all the tension out of your stomach 

19. Place your attention on your lower back 

20. Breath in, and then breathe out as you let all the tension out of your lower back 

21. Place your attention on your chest 

22. Breath in, and then breathe out as you let all the tension out of your chest 

23. Place your attention on your upper back 

24. Breath in, and then breathe out as you let all the tension out of your upper back 

25. Place your attention on your left shoulder 

26. Breath in, and then breathe out as you let all the tension out of your left shoulder 

27. Place your attention to the right shoulder 

28. Breath in, and then breathe out as you let all the tension out of your right shoulder 

29. Place your attention to your left arm down to the elbow 

30. Slowly breath in, and then slowly breathe out as you let all the tension out of your left arm 

31. Place your attention to your right arm down to the elbow 

32. Slowly breath in, and then slowly breathe out as you let all the tension out of your right 

arm 

33. Place your attention to the left forearm down to your wrist 

34. Slowly breath in, and then slowly breathe out as you let all the tension out of your left 

forearm 

35. Place your attention to your right forearm down to your wrist 

36. Slowly breath in, and then slowly breathe out as you let all the tension out of your right 

forearm 

37. Place your attention to your left hand and fingers 

38. Slowly breath in, and then slowly breathe out as you let all the tension out of your left 

hand and fingers 

39. Place your attention to your right hand and fingers 

40. Slowly breath in, and then slowly breathe out as you let all the tension out of your right 

hand and fingers 

41. Place your attention to those powerful muscles in the back of the neck 

42. Slowly breath in, and then slowly breathe out as you let all the tension out of those 

muscles 

43. Place your attention to the rest of your neck 

44. Slowly breath in, and then slowly breathe out as you let all the tension out of your neck 

45. Place your attention to your jaw and mouth 

46. Slowly breath in, and then slowly breathe out as you let all the tension out of your jaw and 

mouth 

47. Place your attention to your nose and ears 

48. Slowly breath in, and then slowly breathe out as you let all the tension out of your nose 

and ears 

49. Place your attention to your forehead 

50. Slowly breath in, and then slowly breathe out as you let all the tension out of your 

forehead 

51. Place your attention to the small muscles of the eyelids 

52. Slowly breath in, and then slowly breathe out as you let all the tension out of those 

muscles 

53. Place your attention your entire face and head 

54. Slowly breath in, and then slowly breathe out as you let all the tension out of your face 

and head 

55. Now place your attention on your ENTIRE body 

56. Slowly breath in, and then slowly breathe out as you let all the tension out of your entire 

body as you find yourself now in a state of mind and body that is appropriate for the rest 

of the techniques in the book to work. In fact, some people have found that doing this 

exercise every night before they sleep has been very beneficial for their health. 

57. Go ahead and mentally state, "Now I am going to count from one to five… and as I count 

from one to five, I will awaken, alive, refreshed, and feeling much better than before…1… 

2… 3… 4… 5" 

58. If you are doing this exercise in preparation for any other exercise included in this book, 

just continue with the next step in the sequence you are following

 

^ Was from a "seduction book" I read when was 17! (more than 10 years ago), it helped me majorly in getting my first girlfriend. I didn't think of this exercise much at the time, but the more I did it I realise, this kind of relaxation is key to getting rid of any noise. This exercise actually works on multiple levels such as frontal lobe awareness on your breathing, intentional relaxation of your muscles which leads to the relaxation of your mind.

 

Feel free to ignore some BS step, like "I will awaken alive refreshed etc" lol 

 

Noise is tunnel vision, the opposite of tunnel vision is breathing properly and relaxing. When you have tunnel vision your thoughts go in a loop, repeating the same linear solution leading to poor ability to problem solve or see the big picture. This is what the fight or flight response is psychologically speaking.

 

Mental notes I added over the course of my life specifically whilst doing this exercise, just 3 and these 3 always work:

 

1. Concentrate on a certain point in your vision and don't allow your anxiety to remove your focus, best on a corner of an object etc.

 

2. You care too much about other peoples approval, you are seeking for approval.

3. You care too much about the environment you are currently in.

4. You are just way too sensitive.

[mealz13]

Hey, so just found out from Bonee on another thread what that supplement is-- it's actually a drug called carbidopa. EGCG also does the same thing it does apparently.  Hope this helps!

[5ht2a]

The only supplement which gave me some relief from anxiety is inositol. If you look it up, there is plenty of research which confirms that it's in one league with srris in regards to anxiety relief, but without typical mental side effects like emotional blunting.

Edited by 5ht2a, 13 May 2014 - 03:58 PM.

[Duchykins]

There's too much focus on serotonin support and not enough on GABA support. Going too deep into one without addressing the other will be ineffective for long term application and will just cause its own problems. The fact that she consistently gets the emotionally numb state with serotonin supports indicates that she is not really as low in serotonin as her docs think she is, and/or she gets low in dopamine after a while.

It's also probable that she is having some anticholinergic symptoms, or just has generally low ACh. This is an avenue that should be explored.

Knowing what's going on with her histamine would also help, either in treating or simply eliminating a possible cause.

For the record I am suspicious of psychiatric diagnoses to children under 5. Even children under 10.

Edit: I'm not advocating the use of benzos.

Edited by Duchykins, 13 May 2014 - 09:22 PM.

[Duchykins]

Kathleen I think that if you just have the anxiety rather than depression then you should get off the SSRI if practical until you learn more about the cause of your anxiety. You may not be able to learn more until you've gone through a gamut of trial and error. Regular use of 5-htp is almost as questionable as using SSRIs for all but the most serious cases.


Do some reading about lysine, taurine, magnesium, zinc, P5P, other B vitamins, methionine or SAMe and their relationships with serotonin, GABA, dopamine and histamine. It should help you identify any symptoms you may think are unrelated to your GAD but actually are not, thereby getting you one step closer to a more effective treatment regimen.

[world33]

Read the TREATING ANXIETY SAFELY & EFFECTIVELY post by ScienceGuy in this forum category.

For me the  supplements that work the most are:

400mg Rhodiola Rosea extract (standardized to 3% rosavins) in the morning

Propranolol 10mg in the morning (betablocker)

1 teaspoon of l-Tyrosine in the morning (precursor of dopamine)

200mg l-Theanine before bed (it increases GABA)

 

There are plenty of safe supplements you can try listed in the above mentioned forum post. I would recommend propranolol up to 20mg a day.

It is a question of trying the one(s) that work the best for you. Just avoid benzos. Nothing wrong with a low dose 10mg of SSRI (escitalopram is one of the best for GAD) if really needed when all other supplements tried before do not work.

I would also look at any food intolerance that might trigger your anxiety. Since I stopped eating wheat/gluten my morning anxiety has improved a lot. You can test it by taking the anti histamine hydroxyzine which has also sedative properties and it is prescribed for GAD.