What otc medicine is good for anxiety

What otc medicine is good for anxiety

http://www.chacha.com/question/what-otc-medicine-is-good-for-anxiety

There are currently no over the counter medication for anxiety. The herbal supplement St. Johns Wort has been said to relive depression and anxiety. ChaCha back!

Related Questions Answered on Y!Answers

I need help please with SSRI medicine?

Q: I have visited a psychiatrist twice now. I explain my problem with social anxiety but I could not bring myself to discuss my depression and daily suicidal thoughts. The first day the psychiatrist prescibed me Inderal. This medicine lowers the heart rate to help me stay calm when I need to for a few hours. My pulse was fast in his office with no one else. This medicine does not make me feel better but it helps me control my physical symptoms of tremors and shaking uncontrollably a little.He also recommended Melatonin. This is an OTC sleep aid. The first night I was able to fall asleep in under 2 hours, this was an improvement for me and I was able to get 4 hours of sleep.The second day the doctor gave me a prescription for SSRI prozac. My parents do not want to give me this medication because of side effects they have read. I am 18 but I have no job and cannot pay for this medicine. I don’t know what to do. I don’t think I can handle a job without this medicine. This scares me.

A: You’ll have to communicate better with your parents about your situation. It truly sounds like you need the Prozac. Can’t they help you pay for it? I have experience with Prozac, and it’s extremely effective for depression and social anxiety disorder. If you’re already 18, you’re pretty well out of the danger zone for suicide from Prozac. That’s more of a concern for people much younger than you. Another SSRI that’s great for your symptoms is Celexa. It has the least amount of side effects, as it’s one of the latest SSRI’s on the market. Maybe your parents would feel better with that drug, as opposed to Prozac. You could ask your doctor to change your medicine. Just explain to the doctor that your parents would like a different, safer drug for you. I’d highly recommend Celexa, as that’s what I’m on now, and several of my friends. All say they’re doing well, as am I. I was on Prozac for awhile, but it gave me stomach aches, so my doctor switched me to Celexa. I haven’t looked back since. I’m sure your doctor will not mind giving you something different. However, your parents should not be expecting you to pay for your meds when you don’t even have a job. Don’t they have an insurance plan that covers you if you’re still at home under their roof? All you have to put on the form is that you’re a student. Who’d know you’re still not in high school at your age? I don’t know, but if you were my child, I’d certainly pay for your meds. Your health and well-being should be more important to them than a few dollars. I hope for your sake, that they’ll reconsider and help you. In the meantime, you need to do something about your feelings of self-worth and self-esteem. I know that in your present state, until your medicine starts helping you, you probably feel pretty worthless at the moment. Please try and keep a proper perspective on how you feel. You are as worthy as any other human being on this planet. Your life is not for nothing. You belong here and you were born for a purpose. Have you heard the saying, “God don’t make no junk!”? Please take that to heart and realize you’re as important and as equal to anyone else out there. Too bad too many people spend a lot of their time hating others and living to be better than everyone else, but that’s not what it’s really all about! You’ve got to discover and realize there is purpose to all life, and that includes you! You’re only 18, as is my son, and he’s pretty lost too in many ways. But don’t beat yourself up before you’ve even begun your life. It all takes time and understanding and enough life experience, to build up enough self-confidence in yourself. I would suggest you go to a website that’s all about finding out who you are in this big world. It’s called www.andrewcohen.org and www.wie.org. You’ve got to start somewhere. Don’t keep yourself naive about who you are and why you’re alive. We all need to find ourselves. Yes, some have done it faster and easier, but that means nothing in the big scheme of things. We are all individuals who are special and unique. So when you look at it that way, how can anyone compare themselves to anyone else, if we’re all unique? You can’t compare unique to unique, can you? Your identity truly goes to the core of your being. No one else is quite like you. So start educating yourself on how to increase your feelings of self-acceptance. Read anything by Dr. Wayne Dyer, for instance. He’s right on course with attaining self-realization. Don’t be discouraged. You should love and accept everything about yourself. Make the best of what you’ve been given. You’re not the only one who has to learn how to do this. But begin now…..it all starts with love and understanding of yourself. Once you get going on that, it gets easier to understand other people. Let your feelings of fear lead you to self-knowledge. You’ve got a computer, so use it to learn how to help yourself. Your medicine will help you a great deal, but still, you’ll help yourself so much more, if you start finding out more about life and who you are. We don’t all come into the world knowing everything. Please reach out so you can understand things, like what fear represents, where it comes from, and why it keeps happening. There are reasons for everything. This is not haphazard or helter skelter. There is an underlying foundation and stability to all of existence, but you’ve got to come to realize that yourself. Do you know what depression is all about? It’s a chemical imbalance in the brain that occurs for reasons we don’t totally understand yet, but stress or certain triggers in your environment or the genes you were born with, all contribute to the condition. It’s not your fault. You’re not defective because you’re like this. We all inherit our DNA, which determines our personalities, from all of the gene pools from our parents, our parents’ parents, and so on. So how can you alone, feel responsible for who you are? You shouldn’t. But to remain in this bad state or not, will be a choice you can do something about. You can do a lot to get out of your present predicament. There is a lot of help out there. But you’ve got to reach out and begin the search for answers to help yourself. Don’t ever give up! I once felt like you. So I saw a doc, got the meds, and started reading, watching, listening and learning, all I could about life, the self, love, self-worth, you name it. I found all my answers with time. So remember, even though you may feel totally lost and alone right now, that will improve, the more you apply yourself to finding some answers. And don’t ever feel afraid to talk to your doctor. You’re among hundreds, maybe thousands, that he sees on a daily basis, all in a similar state such as yours. No need for embarassment at all. It’s called the human condition! All the best to you, take care!

Could sucralose really be the cause of my problems?

Q: I’ve been experiencing some gastrointestinal issues for the last couple of months. The biggest problem was severe bloating and pressure that led to nausea and feeling sick. It would usually start right after eating (even if I ate a very small meal) but didn’t seem to be affected by what I ate. It would usually last a few hours or so and then go away gradually. At one point, I actually experienced dry heaves when the pressure got so bad. I drink–or I did drink, anyway–a lot of water with a drink mix added to it. The one I almost always use is basically the Great Value brand of Propel, which is a vitamin-enhanced drink mix (the flavor I always use is kiwi strawberry, but I doubt that’s important). I don’t like water by itself. In college, it wasn’t unusual for me to drink a Mountain Dew for every meal as well as in between, but despite the obvious bad idea that was, I never experienced any problems from it. This fall, I moved into my own apartment and since I was in total control of all of the food/drinks I bought, I started drinking more of the water/propel (off brand) than I had been, limiting my caffeine to one Mountain Dew a day. Around that time (and I can’t pinpoint whether it was an exact coincidence or not, since at the time I thought nothing of it) I started experiencing these problems. I’ve been drinking this stuff for a couple of years now and I’ve had some other increasing symptoms, but nothing all that severe–I thought it was mostly anxiety. It wasn’t until this fall–around November–that they got unbearable and actually made me nearly sick, and that’s about when I started drinking a whole lot more of this drink (and the worse I felt, the more I drank, thinking it was better for me than caffeine!). I tried a variety of OTC medicines–Gas-X, Tums, Maalox, Acid Reducers, Prevacid (at the recommendation of a doctor), and Phazyme. The Phazyme (a high dose of simethicone) seemed to help a tiny bit with the bloating, but didn’t make it go away. My doctor thought it was just anxiety that was increasing, even though I’m actually much less anxious now than I’ve been in a long time (financially independent, exercise daily, have a great hobby, absolutely love my job, etc.). He prescribed Lexapro, which I took for about a month. I noticed that I started feeling better, and while I started feeling better before the Lexapro could have really kicked in, I just assumed that something had finally clicked. However, I was still experiencing the problem occasionally. I also stopped taking the Lexapro (too expensive and didn’t really notice a difference anyway) and didn’t have any increase in my symptoms. While doing some reading/researching online, I noticed a link to the sucralose/stomach issues. About a month ago–when I first started feeling better–I had also decided to go back to drinking my regular Mt. Dew and less of the other drink, since drinking more of the water didn’t seem to be helping anyway. I was still drinking a good bit of it, but not as much as I had been. I was still having occasional symptoms, but not on a daily basis as I was before (I could actually go out and do things without being constantly afraid of being sick/feeling miserable). Today is Monday. I had one bottle of the water/mix on Saturday night. I had some slight discomfort Sunday, but nothing major. I felt great all day today–and I ate normally (which for me is probably more than the average person…I always had a big appetite, despite being thin). It’s only been two days since the last water/propel drink, so I know it may be too soon to tell, but I’m holding out hope that the sucralose (I checked the ingredients and sucralose was in it) may have been the cause–and that this problem of mine isn’t going to be something I deal with for the rest of my life. Sorry for the lengthy question, but I’m very hopeful at this point. Does anyone have any experience with this? Any ideas or input as to whether that could be the culprit?Thought I’d add some of the less bothersome symptoms I’ve had…not sure if they’re related or not (just noticed some of them in my reading):chapped lipsshortness of breath/tightness in chestfeeling of choking/like something’s in throatrandom constipation or diarrheagasheadaches (not that often)

A: sorry if i’m no help, but no one’s answered, so i figured i would try! it’s possible your issue is the propel type thing-i’m not sure what it is in it, but flavored water always makes me feel sick. your best bet is to not drink it for the next week or so, then see if you feel better. then drink it again and see if your issues come back.have you actually seen a GI doctor about this? you’re definitely (obviously) talking about a GI issue. i highly doubt it’s anxiety related. the tightness in the chest could be heart burn, and feeling like you have something in your throat could be caused by swelling (happens when you have enough acid build up, that you get scar tissue in your esophagus) and the others are obvious GI issues too. it could be brought on by stress, but you could also have an underlying issue. i would just go see your GI doctor, see what he/she has to say.good luck!

Do I have IBS? Bloating, fullness, diarrhea?

Q: I recently went to the doctor (last week) because of some acid-reflux type symptoms. The doctor told me I did have some acid reflux and that I also had anxiety, which complicated it. I’m taking OTC Prevacid (I have a prescription for a stronger form, but haven’t needed it) as well as Lexapro. It seems to be working, as I haven’t experienced the reflux symptoms (feeling like I’m going to vomit after every meal).However, I still have one problem that doesn’t seem to be related to the reflux. When eating, I get full very quickly–even though I used to be able to outeat a football player. The fullness isn’t the typical fullness you get after eating a huge meal. I get bloated and the pressure is worst in the upper abdomen, around the lower half of my rib cage. It’s very painful and uncomfortable. When the pressure gets bad enough, I do start to feel a little sick, mostly as if I’ve eaten so much no more will fit and so it has to come out somehow (sorry, that’s the best description I can think of!). My chest also feels full at this point. I usually have several sudden urges to go to the bathroom for a bowel movement (again, this didn’t used to be true for me until the last couple of months), which usually results in diarrhea. I usually feel a little better after each movement, but it’s usually several hours before the pressure goes away completely. My mother has IBS–so if there’s a genetic link, that would be it. These symptoms have become chronic over the last couple of months. I have been to the doctor, as I said, but mostly for reflux symptoms as those were hiding everything. If anyone with IBS experience can tell me what this sounds like, that would be appreciated. Also, if you know of an OTC medicine that would help relieve the problem, please share!

A: I have IBS, and I know sometimes symptoms differ from person to person. For you, it could very well be IBS.I take a gas reliever and an anti-diarrheal. Brand names of PhaZyme (gas)and Immodium (diarrhea), although the generics work just as well.