Hi all - I suffer from social anxiety when it comes to business meetings and when meeting someone I wantt to make a good impression with. With other people where I feel no pressure, I feel and act calm and actually am very talkative. However, if there's a tiny bit of pressure I can go to pieces, my voice breaks and I almost have a panic attack. Currently on fluoxetine (5 weeks in) plus a short course of diazepam but wondering if there's a better SSRI or other medication to help with this? I hear sertraline is effective. It's my main anxiety problem at the moment and would love to hear some success stories.
I review the fluoxetine with my GP in two weeks and am keen to take the most effective meds. Many Thanks.
i was on fluoxetine for depression a few years ago, didn't do anything for me, didn't make me any better at all, so i came off it, sertraline has been the most effective medication i've tried to date, i've been on it for 10 months david, and when i first went on it, i was a mess, my depression and self esteem was worse than it's ever been, life at home was hell, wasn't interested in doing anything at all apart from cry, be moody and and feel awful all the time. i'd turned into a completely different person, a monster i thought at the time.
10 months on and i'm back to old self, enjoying life and feeling happy, in my opinion, sertraline has saved me from years of suffering with depression and anxiety over all sorts of things, no matter how small, even down to things like emptying the washing machine and hanging it up, i am normally really domesicated and love doing stuff like that, but no, it was horrendous, i didn't clean my house for weeks, i just couldn't face it, or anyone, stayed indoors for the best part of weeks, but i'm back to normal now. can't believe things got that bad for me to be honest :-)
Thanks for the reply very useful info - fluoextine has a soothing effect but only if I'm feeling OK - if I'm in a panic it doesn't seem to work.
Then there's citalopram which I've considered but ultimately my main two problems are sleep and social anxiety - bloody plague me so not sure what's best for me. If I could ease these two problems I'd be happy!
you might be able to solve both with sertraline though and if you don't try it you'll never know, some people have suffered with lack of sleep on sertraline to begin with but i didn't i slept even better with it because it was my racing thoughts that kept me awake all night and when the meds had settled down, i slept all the way though again and now i sleep great :-)