Why don’t anxiety meds work for me?

To @jschwing
No treatment plan. Just a follow up visit in April.
Claudia

Claudia just checking to see how you're coping with what you're going through... I bought a scale to start doing 5% tapering off of each of my .5 mg doses and plan to hold there for a few weeks. I'm still not well, terrible depression, insomnia but sleep has improved somewhat; I get a little sleep each night. Truly 🙏 praying always.

A very good psychrist can probably be your best shot, You may try many that do not help before finding the right one

@rick98
Hello Rick, today is my birthday and it means nothing to me. One of my brothers and 3 long time friends (70+ and 40+ years) called to wish me a happy birthday but all I could do was try and explain what my life has been like the past 6 months through my crying and sobbing and hyperventilating. No one understands anxiety. They mean well but because they’ve never experienced it, it’s almost like I can hear them thinking, “just snap out of it.” I had a terrible night last night and wish there was some way I could send you a private message but I know there isn’t. I think you would understand what happened. March 15 is our wedding anniversary, and again, I feel nothing. Tomorrow my husband has to do some important banking and I can’t go with him due to this dreaded anxiety. Wishing you the best always.
Claudia

@rick98
Rick, after tapering off, will you be on any medication? How do you taper by 5%. Do you cut the pill? Are you following the Ashton protocol? I wrote to you in a previous message that last night, I did something I am very ashamed of. My husband was so disappointed in me and rightly so. Right now, I am feeling sick to my stomach over the pain I am causing him.
Claudia

Claudia:

You are not alone with the debilitating anxiety. I have been dealing with this for nine months now. Tried varios SSRI and SNRI but my body is rejecting the medications. Mine impacts me every day and has forced me out of work. Are you able to take any medication to bear with the anxiety? Doing all the protocols including trauma therapy and Neuro feedback. Already tried TMS. Not sure anything is working. I have super high frequency beta waves that seem to be stuck in this mode. Fairly certain that this is driving the intensity of the anxiety with tremors, no focus, etc

To @jschwing
John,
Today is/was a horrible day for me. We picked up our taxes and I noticed that the ID.me PIN numbers that our accountant is using don’t match the numbers that were generated on line by him earlier this year. Well, now my blood pressure is going crazy and you can practically hear my heartbeat across the room. This little incident will take 1 year out of my already shortened lifespan. Every little stinkin’ thing makes me c-r-a-z-y. I see my cardiologist tomorrow and he’s going to wonder why I haven’t had a heart attack or stroke yet. I read somewhere on line recently that it’s very dangerous to have constant heart palpitations ~ you could ultimately die. You and I are very similar in that none of the many, many combinations of meds worked. I’m sure my prescribers thought I wasn’t being truthful when asked if they helped. Some of the meds I only took for a day or two - this really annoyed the prescribers, but knew they weren’t right for me. I don’t have any medication for the anxiety. I used to take Ativan but I had to stop. I did go to in-house treatment to “detox” but I wasn’t very successful on the outside. I still battle with wanting to use the Ativan because of the fast relief you get but it doesn’t last long enough. I have battled with anxiety (Social Phobia) my whole life. I started medication more than 40 years ago. Prior to that, I was still very anxious but I managed to work and have a small social life. I worked in LA years ago and I had the responsibility of being a Notary. The four men who were waiting for me to write their name in the Notary Log must have wondered what drug I was on as my hands flew across the page. Unfortunately, things like this rule my life.
p.s. besides talk therapy, I have never tried any other treatment
Claudia

I have to wait another three weeks to see the AFIB specialist as the first cardiologist diagnosed it but did not treat it and referred me. I am consistently doing therapy work as well. I just feel like the anxiety at this severe of a level is causing all these additional issues.

Claudia: please hang in there and have hope and faith that the anxiety will get better. I will be praying for you.

One thing to keep in mind is that some of the additional anxiety may be from going off of the SSRI medications you were trying to get on even if you were only on them for a short time.

To @jschwing
John, I am trying to keep positive but I have been disappointed so many times already with meds not working. I have had some severe side effects like a popping noise in my head and it can be frightening. Our neighbors keep asking my husband where I am and he just keeps saying I’m at home and I don’t feel well. My anxiety has caused me embarrassment with some of our neighbors but there is nothing I can do except apologize. It’s hard feeling like a total misfit.
Claudia

Claudia I understand. I have the same type of anhedonia (loss of interest and love for things in life); it's a struggle getting through each moment of every day. Some moments are a bit calmer than others but it's constant torment and torture. I'm not sure what is happening to me and why. I'm thinking it's due to life issues but the torture is really more of a result of the Benzo Clonezepam I've used inconsistently for 10 years or so. As I said sometimes I wouldn't take it for days, even weeks and when I did it was .5mg on and off. I've come to understand that how I used it was very damaging to my Central Nervous System and that's probably why I am so debilitated with severe depression, insomnia and anxiety.
It was suggested to me by an experienced member of Benzo Buddies to use 1mg split in .5mg every day at exactly the same time 10am and 10pm to try to get some stabilization. I've done it for 6 weeks as a hold and 2 days ago I got the microscale and I cut my daily dose by 8%. 10% is the highest recommended reduction on a taper cut and a taper cut should be held for 2 to 4 weeks for the brain to slowly adapt to less but even so withdrawal symptoms will be experienced. The idea is to go slow, steady, precisely making taper cuts with a microscale over a long period of time to do it the safest possible way to minimize the risk of severe withdrawals. It gets even more complicated when low dose tapers are reached and it's recommended to get a pharmacy to give the medication in liquid form and the patient uses syringes to get more exact small cuts the last months before jumping off. Sadly the medical field and system here in the States with few exceptions doesn't understand this and doesn't recognize that the standard fast taper off of benzos or psych medication like antidepressants, etc. causes great arm by provoking acute withdrawals and long term protracted withdrawals. It's terrible and I never understood until now listening to dozens of Dr. Josef Witt Doerring's podcasts and being on forums like Benzo Buddies and other Facebook Benzo support groups learning in order to prepare myself if possible for the best outcome possibly. I'm not sure about your situation but it sounds like the Benzo and other psych medications in your life have put you in the same hell I am in. It's best to find an understanding, willing prescriber to possibly put you on some Benzo to stabilize you with precise daily doses at the same times each day and then try doing a safe taper as I described above. There's so much to learn about this and tapering is very complicated over a long period of time to minimize the damage to our brains. You're a good person that got mishandled by the medical field like me and it's awful. Now we try to survive this crippling c daily condition.
Nevertheless Happy Birthday and I'm glad to have met you and share in our suffering. It's best to have connections with people who truly understand. I will offer anything I can that I am learning that may be of use to you. My 💜 heart goes out to you and I completely understand.