Tomorrow I go to the Doctor

he is ending my paxil treatment on feb. 14 because i want off. i'm being tampered. i'm on 5mg/day. i've been still having a steady stream of anxienty and horrid nightmare. overall still feel like total ****. my anxiety attacks are bad when working and when i come home from work i turn into a real ******* to anyone near me so i lock myself in my room. i'm pretty much a hermit now. should i ask my doctor for another type of medication for anxiety tomorrow? do you guys recommend anything that works and is just temp when you have an attack? i don't want to be dependant again.

[safarigal]

Billy,

This is something that cannot be repeated enough. Taper slowly off Paxil!

What was your original dose? How fast did you decrease to 5mg?

I can tell you from experience that those nightmares and high anxiety are a result of coming off Paxil too fast. If you want to feel much better, increase your dose of Paxil back up to the original dose, stay there for 2 weeks and your symptoms subside. Then start decreasing slowly, say 2.5mg at a time over 2 weeks.

I don't think the doc is going to tell you anything you haven't heard on this board before.

[JulieG]

I agree with Julie - and I don't know of any docs out there that understand what the heck we are going thru enough to tell us to go slow enough. My doc thinks I'm going AGONIZINGLY slow - but my brain still says GO SLOWER. As much as we want it, there is just no quick fix to this and you're going to have to go slow. If your body or brain is reacting this strongly it is telling you to slow down - the brain is very delicate - treat it gently. Sure your doc can put you on something to help with anxiety - buspar actually helped me to a degree so I could leave the house, but you always pay for it with something else - headaches for example. It takes a while to start working and you have to stay on it for a while. I think what you're asking for is like a "pop a pill when I'm having a bad moment" kind of thing and I don't know about anything like that. Anyone??

I have a "pop-a-pill-when-you-have-a-bad-moment" drug.

I consider myself lucky to have found one that works, too.
Now if only there wasn't the risk of addiction....

But if you're careful not to use it more than a couple times a week when you're really having an emergency:

XANAX. I take the .25mg pills and cut them in half. THEY WORK IMMEDIATELY on disabling anxiety, but be careful because they're tranquilzers and can put you to sleep.

Just remember, Xanax is commonly abused so your doctor will have to get the impression you really need it and have no plans of getting addicted or selling it.