Upped dose still feel dreadful if not worse :(

[Mrs Anxious]

I am on day 28 of upped dose from 20mg to 40mg I am soo jittery and edgy my hands are shaky and my heart is racing all the time I am also being woken in the night with a panic attack, I can't go on like this I feel utter despair I can't see my gp until 21st June but I don't think I can carry on like this... The first couple of weeks I wasn't so bad but it's getting worse I am taking a 2mg diazepam at night to prevent being woken in a panic but I know this is a slippery slope I just feel scared all the time can someone please tell me if this is normal after 4 weeks and will it subside soon? I am also on week 3 of quitting cigarettes high I don't think is helping :(

[lisa2512]

can you not ring gp first thing in the morning and get an appt, well it would be monday now, they normally keep so many spare, why have you gone from 20mg to 40mg instead of 20mg to 30mg

and did you change from 20mg after only two weeks, thats not long enough to see if the 20mg will work. i would say the 40mg is to high if its getting worse after being on it 2 weeks, you should see some improvement even only if its a little, i would ring gp and ask if u can drop to 30mg, im not a doc but if it was me i would drop to 30mg straight away, i dont understand why u have gone to 40mg after only 2 weeks of 20mg, you need to be on that dose for at least 6 weeks and then if its not having any effect up the dose to 30mg


sorry your feeling this was, im on day 15 of only 10mg and my anxiety is now very very minor and only a couple times a day for 10 minutes or so

---------- Post added at 16:53 ---------- Previous post was at 16:52 ----------

sorry i think i miss read that, looks like you may have been on 20mg for a while, but it does sound like 40mg is just to high for you, i would drop it back and see how u go, speak to your gp x

[Mrs Anxious]

Thanks for ur reply I have been on 20mg for a year doctor said to go up to 40 until my CBT comes through as 20 was not helping at all... I'm wondering if its the nicotine patch I have on but when I took it off that's when the massive panic attacks started I just don't feel like myself at all it's horrible I don't know whether to persevere with 40 or not? Xx

[lisa2512]

nicotine being a stimulant doesnt really help, but its damn hard to quite cold turkey.

not having the nicotine will prob make you feel anxious aswell, maybe try a lower dose patch like the 7mg one if your on higher

but your doc should have put you on 30mg and if that was still not working raise to 40mg.

did the 20mg work before, is the raise in anxiety a recent thing ?

[AlexandriaUK]

Hi I gave up 3 and half years ago CT and its the best thing I have ever done, my anxiety did go up at first but so glad I quit, try this web site its run by The British heart foundation, nothing scary:D as for the nicotine patches and citalaprin I have no knowledge sorry, ring local walk in center if you are worried, but I would say that after looking online I couldn't find anything bad about the combination, don't worry about taking the diazepam at night it will see you through a bad patch and if you are just using them at night you will be fine.

http://forum.nosmokingday.org.uk/

[steveo]

I was reading something today about nicotine that might be of some use to this conversation.

Infact you can read it for yourselves! - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antidepressant#Nicotine