Opinions - clonazepam... or paxil (paroxetine) for anxiety?

[JaWill88]

okay swim went to treatment in california for three months. swim has already been on suboxone and clonazepam for a while. anyways while swim was down there he found a suboxone doctor who prescribed the suboxone and 18mg of clonazepam a day. 6mg morning, 6mg afternoon, 6mg evening. swim knows thats a lot. he was on that for three months. anyways swim came back and just saw his doctor he was seeing before he left. he prescribed swim 1mg of clonazepam twice a day! wtf! that does absolutely nothing. he also prescribed paxil! swim doesn't know enough about that stuff to just start taking it. swim doesn't know what to do. swim is assuming his doctor is thinking the paxil will eventually work, get rid of the anxiety, and stop the clonazepam. swim does not like that idea. he has heard of the side effects of it and all that. and why on earth would swim want to start something like that when he already has a perfectly good anxiolytic that works great for him and has for a long time. and he has no depression. so swim wants to avoid that road. any advice for swim? anyone took paxil for anxiety? swim gets anxiety just thinking about this. btw he mainly has social anxiety but has GAD and panic dissorder as well. seems to be hereditary.

[fizzle]

Swim was on Xanax and Paxil and got weened off the Xanax as that Paxil began to work, so I would imagine that is what would happen with swiy. After 3 months swim stopped taking the Paxil because it doesnt work for shit and only made swim more depressed because the great feelings that Paxil once gave him faded away so quickly. Getting off of Paxil is a real pain in the ass too.

If the clonazepam is working then swim would say stick with it. Swim has been off of Paxil and on clonazepam for almost two years and is doing great. He only takes 0.5-1mg of clonazepam a day so withdrawls are virtually nonexistent with such as low dose. It is perfectly understandable that one would not want to be on an antidpressant, especially when not eve depressed. SWIM would say use Paxil as an absolute last resort. Thinking of that stuff makes swim sick.

[cnsns2ccl2]

SWIM would prefer to take Paxil than Clonazepam to treat ongoing anxiety. SWIM cannot say which would work better for drug addictions, however, swim has taken both for GAD and panic disorder. Benzodiazapines are great for occasional panic attacks or to take occasionally with SSRIs (such as Paxil) when swim has overwhelming anxiety but they are fairly addictive and one builds up a tolerance so that after a while they begin to lose effect unless you take crazy high doses. Any decent medical practioner would not prescribe a patient these doses in order to sustain an addiction (at least not where swim lives).

SSRIs are anti-depressants but they are also effective in treating anxiety. The problem with these drugs is that they take up to 6 weeks or so before they start to work and for the first week (at least for swim) they make you feel a million times worse. Swim has found paxil VERY effective in the long run at keeping the anxiety and manageable levels. You don't build up a tolerance but you do go through withdrawl coming off them if you stop abruptly. You have to ween off these drugs. Swim's doctor came up with a schedule to slowly come off Paxil so that no withdrawl symptoms were experienced. When swim stopped Zoloft abruptly, dizziness and disorientation was experienced for a day. These drugs do have shitty side effects but not nearly as bad as panic attacks. Paxil causes more weight gain than any of the SSRIs so be prepared to gain A LOT of weight and to perhaps not be able to easily have an orgasm as easily and swiy will be thirsty a lot. These are the main things swim has experienced. Swim has found that Ciprilex, another SSRI, causes less weight gain and has less significant sexual side effects but is less effective in combating anxiety, mind you, swim suffers from SEVERE anxiety attacks.

[Politicalchalk]

Just for clarification, was the paxil prescribed *instead of Suboxone (buprenorphine/nalaxone), or in addition to it? If swiY was taken off of the bupe, than high dose benzodiazapines such as clonazepam may have been prescribed to combat withdrawal symptoms.