Anxiety Meds - Experience

Food is medicine.

Food is what has made my butt so big. :flowerforyou:

Ok I'm hoping you were being sarcastic, that's why my answer was. :bigsmile:

I wasn't trying to be sarcastic!

For example, things like garlic, honey and tumeric have all been linked to helping with depression.

If you eat healthy, well sourced food, it has positive effects on the body. If you eat unhealthy, processed crap, it has negative effects on the body.

A well-balanced diet can help some symptoms, however food is not the answer when symptoms are severe. In addition, a person eating "processed crap" can still have a well-balanced diet. At some point, meds and a tailored approach to therapy (unique to individual needs) is what is needed to see an improvement in symptoms. (Garlic, honey, and tumeric have nothing to do with the outcome.)

Well, I speak from personal experience, it's not just something I read and then regurgitated.

I used to be pretty much housebound at one point, paranoid about the way I looked, depressed and generally all round at an all time low. The meds I was prescribed did nothing but accelerate weight loss and leave me feeling like a zombie.

6 months of still feeling like crap, I looked to more natural remedies for depression and anxiety, and read an article on how food is medicine. (I didn't have severe weight issues then, was still overweight) and I started eating certain foods, which in turn lifted my mood, shifted my depression and made me feel all round healthier.

Perhaps it was a placebo effect? Perhaps just the idea of eating healthier made me think my anxiety/depression had lifted? Who knows. Either way, it worked for me, so I figured I would suggest certain foods. This was 6 years ago, since I put weight on, but that was through just being lazy and too comfortable with life.

Well, I am glad you are feeling better, but it was not specific foods. Many times it takes multiple tries to get the correct "cocktail" of meds and it takes time to get in the system and begin to "work" for a person. (and a correct diagnosis helps too). In addition, sometimes meds are not needed, depending on the severity of symptoms. (and different therapeutic approaches are used) Again, I am glad that you are feeling better, but food is not medicine and one personal experience can not be generalized for the entire population.

Yeah, I get that - it was only a suggestion.

Usually when there is a synthetic medicine, there is a natural counterpart. Like apples having pectin in, which helps suppress appetites. As does salmon.

Garlic and honey are near enough proven to combat flu and colds better than any kind of synthetic alternative.

Keep busy and distraction of any kind.

I'm coming off my latest attempt at medicating anxiety and pmdd. Everything made me so meh about life. I am keeping klonopin as a rescue med for severe anxiety, so we'll see if that works. I would joke with people that I couldn't cry cuz of the meds I was on, but it was true. Love the ferris wheel and train analogies. It's hard to describe to someone who doesn't have the same issues. My anxiety spikes monthly so hopefully with diet and exercise, it will be more controllable. I joke to my self that if I lived in caveman days I would have been the perfect lookout. It feels like in out current society that our rapid fire brains just don't have an outlet.

Are you sure it's just anxiety? I have a few friends who are bipolar (varying levels), both male and female and they have the up and down mood swings quite often. When they're up they're really up, and when they're down, they're pretty much depressed.

Workign out hard, regulalry has been my weapon for the last few years.
Otherwise I fight my GAD one alprazolam at a time. :P

I've been dealing with anxiety since I was young. I was the 6 year old kid in Grade One who was way too hard on herself, who would get incredibly stressed out if I was unable to do something "right" the first time - or if I was unable to finish something the way I wanted it in the time frame given. That anxious and stressed out inner child never fully left me (and really just developed into me worrying about ever little detail in my life) after being in an out of counseling through my school and outside professionals.

About a year ago I decided that I had enough with going to counselors and not feeling a major difference - I was curious and nervous but willing to take the step to try and medicate myself to deal with the stress, anxiety and depression that I had been constantly battling since I was literally 6 years old (and it blows my mind that I was like this so young too).

It may work for some people, but I wouldn't recommend it for anyone unless it's an extreme case. I know lots of people using anti-anxiety and/or anti-depressants who still aren't very happy with their lives or themselves, and are too afraid to ever go off of the stuff because of withdrawals, and I don't think that's right at all. I was on meds for about 8 months (I know - not really long enough at all to see if it had made a big difference) and then because I was feeling better, I decided to just quit, cold turkey. The withdrawl symptoms were MUCH MUCH MUCH worse than the initial anxiety/depression that I was feeling before I even when on medication. After researching about medications used for "mental disorders" I immediately felt regret in using them, and what I found really frightened me - these drugs permanently alter the chemistry in your brain so you cannot function properly without them, thus the problems with withdrawals.

For myself, I don't like the idea of putting something into my body that will physically change the chemistry of my brain forever. Coming off what the scariest experience I've ever had, and I wish I never had to go through with it, and I understand now why others fear ever going off medication once they've been on it (especially when they have for many many years). If you plan on giving it a try, do LOTS of research before hand to make sure it is what you want.

That being said, since being off meds, the absolute BEST changes I've made that have greatly minimized my anxiety, stress, and depression have been the simplest you could imagine: eating healthier and being more active. I've almost entirely cut out processed foods, eat a lot more fruits and vegetables, and get outside at least for one half hour walk every day. My mood has completely changed just doing that! I was surprised at first how much even just having an actual breakfast of eggs, toast, meat, and fruit everyday versus a bowl of cereal just made me more positive and less anxious throughout my day! Learning not to focus on the little things also helped - just ask yourself "will this situation matter 5 days from now/5 weeks/5 months/5 years from now?" and the answer more than often is that it won't, so why stress! Lifestyle changes in general (not just being more active and eating better) can also help reduce anxiety, or least it has for me. Most of my stress was because of the relationships I was in - once I got out of them, things slowly got much MUCH better!

Good luck, I hope your anxiety reduces soon enough! :flowerforyou:

As much as I hate to admit it.

Phentermine is the only thing that I've found or been prescribed that makes the waters part, yes that's what it felt like.... and allows ME to think, not the thoughts im my head to override and knock me off my concentration horse.

I currently am taking what they call ACE (Appetite Control + Energy), its some crap that they sell like Mary Kay, and say helps with weight loss. Bullcrap.
But it does give me enough I guess of a caffiene jolt to smack the thoughts out of my head and allow me to concentrate for a few hours.

Oh what I'd give to do phentermine agian, not for the weight loss but for the parting waters. That was amazing!!!!! AMAZING!!!!!

Maybe I just need some crack. - Ok bad thing to probably say,

Thank you for all of your responses, yes this is like a cage and I just need the key. It doesn't escalate as much as it did this weekend/this morning -everyday but it's too danged often that I get this. Everyday is just the annoying thoughts that won't shut up and allow me to get **** done.

NO wonder I'm freaking tired, I'm mentally tired. I've said that a million times. I'm mentally wiped. Of all of you that mentioned your meds what about the weight loss? Did you have negative effects?

This may sound odd....but have you been tested for ADHD or some similar diagnosis? (Perhaps OCD, as another poster mentioned). Your reaction to stimulants - as in it calms you down rather than speeds you up - suggests a brain chemistry reaction similar to those issues.

My advice would be to get to a doctor or a mental health specialist and speak to them. This could be run of the mill stress and it could be something more. BUT - spinning your wheels, wondering what's wrong, jumping from thought to thought without developing effective coping skills -

No matter what's wrong, that's only going to make things worse.