Suggest Medication For Anxiety

Posted on Sat, 31 May 2014

Medically reviewed by Ask A Doctor - 24x7 Medical Review Team

Sat, 31 May 2014 Answered on

Tue, 17 Jun 2014 Last reviewed on

Question : Well, it's Saturday so I can't contact my APN Psych doc about a medication question. I'm almost 61 and have been a psych patient for many years battling PD/Dep/OCD Anxiety - post Grave's disease in 1977 but symptoms have been with me since childhood. Anyway, I've been on a lot of different meds since the early 80's. Zoloft and Xanax (PRN) worked for about 10 years, then Effexor XR worked for about 13 yrs then I got sick with a stomach flu and everything stopped and I started having bad PD again along with horrible withdrawal from the Effexor. I then tried Pristiq (not much help) and Lexapro (not much help) and then was on Tofranil (62mg/day divided into 3 doses) and low dose Ativan (1mg per day divided into 3 doses) for past 8 months which did help everything but the OCD which seem to get worse and developed into S-OCD - so I just made the change to Anafranil (50mg) yesterday. My doc said the switch between the two Tricyclics would be easy enough that no titration would be needed and that I could take a little more Ativan for anxiety if needed. So I took my last Tofranil (25mg) yesterday morning, skipped my usual half tablet at noon (because Anafranil only comes in capsules so can't be halved of course), picked up my new RX from the pharmacy and took the first 25mg dose of Anafranil last night. Didn't sleep much. I get very apprehensive and worry alot when starting new meds until I see how they make me feel (side-effects). I woke up this morning feeling panicky so I took my morning dose of Anafranil and 0.25mg of Ativan, then another 0.25mg of Ativan and 1pm. I'm doing better but I just need some reassurance that doing the switch of those meds like I did was ok....??

Answered by Dr. Srikanth Reddy (1 hour later)

Brief Answer:
Yes you are right

Detailed Answer:
Hello,

Thanks for choosing health care magic for posting your query.

I have gone through your question in detail and I can understand what you are going through.

What you have done is absolutely right. There is no second thought. This is how it was supposed to be done. Infact you managed to do so with only 2 doses of lorazepam. At 0.25mg you can easily take 2 more doses for anxiety if required. Anafranil is a good antidepressant with good anti OCD profile. So things should go well.
Take some good sleep and eat healthy meanwhile. Now you may continue with your regular doses of anafranil..

Hope I am able to answer your concerns.

If you have any further query, I would be glad to help you.

If not, you may close the discussion and if possible you may rate the answer for me, so that I get a good feedback.

In future if you wish to contact me directly, you can use the below mentioned link:

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Wish you good health,

Kind regards

Dr. Srikanth Reddy M.D.

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar