Paxil over prozac?

julz · Guest

I'm responding to your question about paxil. I have never been on prozac, but I was on zoloft for my social anxiety. Zoloft was not very effective, but since I've been on PAXIL CR I have seen a huge difference. The CR means controlled release. Everyone is different, and I am not being treated for depression, but so far I think Paxil CR is working for me and my social anxiety. Ask your doctor, it may help you.-Julz

victim · Guest

Please remember that most of what you guys are talking about is the placeboe effect. We go seek out help at the very worst times in our lives.
Things will get better with or without happy pills. Things are at their worst just before the storm lifts. Long-term social anxiety/shyness has nothing to do with "depression". If there was a drug for shyness or social anxiety, I would take it in a minute. I hope someday they develop such a drug.

Lisa · Guest

Hi, I was on Paxil for almost 4.5 years for SA and chronic depression and it was great. Sadly, it stopped working about 8 months ago. I have switched to Effexor, which is helping some, but I really don't feel as good as I did on Paxil. I didn't have any withdrawl symptoms as I tapered down from Paxil and I tapered up Effexor at the same time. It may just be that I haven't found the correct dose of Effexor yet.

On Paxil I stopped the constant replaying of conversations -- before during and after the actual conversations -- stopped having intrusive visions of horrible accidents while driving or walking down stairs -- stopped being constantly concerned that people might KNOW something about me. These are all things that started coming back as the Paxil stopped being effective. I don't think that the placebo effect is actually what was going on.

Lisa

j · Guest

hey all--

I had a lousy Paxil experience (side effects like nervousness, depression, impotence), but everyone reacts differently. (I was also paranoid about withdrawal.) Bear in mind that my problem is probably avoidant personality disorder, meaning that I don't respond to antidepressants the way folks with "pure" depression or SA do...

I took Effexor for a while. It was great for depression (no trace of it most days!) and OK for SA (I could deal with things better), but it also eventually removed my emotions from me (I was at a funeral, thinking to myself, "Ya know, I should feel sad right now, but I just don't..."). When I got off it I had to taper slowly because of the crazy strange withdrawal syndrome--brain zaps, wierd psychotic feelings, dizziness, anxiety/panic attacks, general bizarrerie like that. To get off it I had to wean myself down to taking five of the tiny time-release balls inside one of the capsules (I took me over a week to take that whole capsule! lol) before I could stop with a tolerable level of side effects.

Victim: I know about the placebo studies. But I've been on a number of meds... and some things (like my Paxil and Effexor experiences) are certainly NOT placebo effects. For most folks these drugs do *something* (good or bad). I'm not attacking you, I just wanted to clarify a little so that folks don't think meds are pure BS or something.
I presume that Victim is referring to the studies that show that about 30% of people given placebo meds improve over 6 weeks (about the same amount who do nothing and improve). Statistically meds tend to not do much better, but they do slightly better in a statistically significant fashion (in my understanding; feel free to elaborate/clarify/debunk/call me an idiot Smile

).

Unfortunately AVPD has no good treatments from what I read, and that not much improvement is truly expected... those with pure SA may be lucky because it CAN be overcome... methinks with AVPD I'm just screwed... someone shoot me now. It sucks. But I digress...

LeapFrog · Newbie User Joined: Sep 20, 2005 Posts: 49

Can I purchase Paxil online? If so, where?