No, I had been on paxil, but my best friend had to taper off loranzepan because of the health risks to the fetus. Her and I both had severe anxiety but I have always tried to stay off the drugs as much as possible because I just don't do well on them. So for her, she moved to wellbutrin after about 8 weeks and she has stayed on it since because it does the trick for her and she wants to try and get pregnant again soon. She is actually a yoga instructor, but we live in different towns, so she told me to try a pre-natal yoga class. Now I have my degree in psychology and I whole-heartedly believe that depression and anxiety disorders are medical problems just like diabetes, but since I started doing yoga I was able to get off the paxil (during pregnancy) as a just-in-case and control for the most part my anxiety.
You will probably still need drugs since it sounds like you have pretty severe anxiety (I understand I come from a family with agoraphobia and I had trich as a teenager), but you may be able to go on a safer drug that works by holding onto seretonine as opposed to loranzepan which works with GABA receptors to help calm you down. Have you seen a psychiatrist as opposed to a general medical doctor? In your case your insurance will probably cover it and they can more effectively find something safer that will help you. Good luck and congrats. I hope I can help jodi-mesa@hotmail.com.
Submitted 333 days ago...
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Submitted 332 days ago...
Hi Jodi-Mesa. How did your friend go about weening off of lorazepam. I am so sorry to be asking so many questions but the psychiatrists and doctors around where I live at are not really used to treating pregnant women with addictions. unless it would be an illegal drug like crack cocaine, heroin something of that nature. These docs would rather me stop cold turkey or deal with the baby's addiction when she gets here. I don't want her coming into this world with a bad experience I want my girl's coming in to be joyous. I am already on wellbutin 300mg and lexapro 20mg also. If you can offer anything about how to go about doing this please let me know. I know what I have to do but I don't know how, because believe me I've tried before and it wasn't good. Okay thank you and Godbless
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Submitted 329 days ago...
No problem I would love to help if I can!
You know I meant to give her a call to ask her this weekend. I'll give her a call tonight and see the actual doses that they had her taper off with if that will help. I do know that she switched in about 6 weeks and she was also doing cognitive therapy and had started practicing yoga. People who are on lorazepam usually have a problem with GABA receptors which is what puts them in a class of their own and why meditation, biofeedback and relaxation techniques are particularly helpful.
As you know we have this primitive part of our brain that elicits "fight or flight" responses in our central nervous system. So when we feel a threat, our heart races, our digestive system stops, our breathing speeds up, pupils dilate - you've had panic attacks so I don't need to tell you what happens as you have felt it obviously.
People with anxiety disorder either have lower levels of seritonine which causes the parasympathetic nervous system (that causes those reactions in the body "panic attacks") to start easily, but we can calm ourselves down because we have plenty of GABA - this is the kind that I have.
The kind that you have is that when you have anxiety, you can't make yourself calm down because the GABA that tells your parasympathetic nervous system to calm down doesn't have enough and you have to either create GABA (lorazepam) or use skills to cognitively tell your brain there is no threat. See why meditation and relaxation techniques are key for your kind of anxiety disorder whether you take meds or not.
I hope I can help - I'll aks my friend for specifics tonight. Take care!
It sounds like your doctors are doing the right thing to switch you off.
One thing that I can offer from my own experience and studies as well is that people with anxiety disorders have anxiety about coming off or switching the drugs. It's like the fear of the fear. This part is very cognitive and by trying methods to control our thinking, we can often conquor these problems as well.
I am curious, what happened when you tried to go off your meds?
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