Hello, First I must stress that I am not a physician and can only share what I know from personal experience. From your post I am going on the assumption that you are being treated for anxiety with depression, is that correct? First off, No one can FORCE you to switch your medications. The worst your Dr could do is refuse to refill or prescribe the med. If you are comfortable with your current treatment and are responding to it well, there is no need to change it. Do I understand correctly that you are using 2 different benzo's and an antidepressant? If that is the case you will have difficulty weaning from the benzo's. The benzo's you mentioned are longer acting and have a slower onset. Everyone reacts to meds differently. My husband has adverse reaction to
Lorazepam in that it makes him VERY ANXIOUS. Personaly I would recomend
xanax, it has a shorter life and quicker onset. This means you can take it more frequently should you need to. For myself, when I feel a panic attack comming on and I take a xanax; I feel its effect within 15 to 20 minutes and relief lasts 4-6 hours. There are many who will caution about benzo addiction however, In my experience when a person uses this drug for panic attack relief and only as needed (vs. daily use when not having symptoms ie:schedualed doses) addiction is generaly not an issue. If you have panic/anxiety there are certain members of the SSRI family that have more of a tendency toward anxious side effects.
Prozac,
zoloft,
wellbutrin and
cymbalta are more successfull at treating depression than anxiety as they appear to have a bit of a stimulating affect on panic. ( Again this is my experience/ research)
Effexor at lower doses is an SSRI at higher doses it works more like an SNRI. SNRI's have slightly more tendency to adversly affect people with panic disorder symptoms. A word of caution: ALL antidepressants have potential for discontinuation/withdrawl symptoms, especially the longer you are on them. Lexepro is one in this class of drugs which has some potentialy nasty side effects/withdrawl. Again, not all people react the same. (It was a tough one for me) I have personaly run the gamut of these meds for panic/anxiety and had success with
Paxil and
Celexa. I was on Paxil for 6 years with no problems and one day it just stopped working for me. After many trials I had success with Celexa. As for drinking: No one that I know has ever "blacked out" from having one or two drinks while on this class of med. I would be more concerned about mixing alcohol with benzos as there is great potential for respiritory depression when combining the two. Only you know your level of tollerance and sensativity. SSRI's are famous for their potential sexual side effects so, you realy wont know if that will be an issue for you with a certain drug until you try it. Wish I could help you more on that one.
. Lastly I will tell you that the longer you are on antidepressants the more difficult it is to discontinue them. Most doctors will down play this problem or tell you that it is rare. It is not. It is fact. When an SSRI is discontinued, especially cold turkey or tapering to quickly you will likely experience symptoms of the problem you were originaly treated for.(as well as symptoms you may have never had) If upon reinstating the med, the symptoms go away then, it is a withdrawl/ discontinuation syndrom. If the condition you were diagnosed with still exists you would not likely relapse to it for a few months after the meds are stopped. ( not trying to scare you, just want you to be informed) I have been on these meds for 11 years and trying like h*ll to get off of them. No Doctor can say with absolute certainty that I still have or ever realy did have Panic disorder if I have never been off of the meds! Best of luck to you and I hope this has been helpful. Erin...