I am currently taking Zoloft 25mg. daily. And Xanax as needed. I hardly ever have to take the Xanax. I took a couple as my period approached this last week, but I think it was because I was anticipating feeling bad, and THAT made me anxious! :confuse: I ended up doing really well. The way I had felt before was very tense and scared all the time. Almost the same feeling you would have if you lost your child at the grocery store or something like that. Plus obessive worrying. At first they gave me Effexor XR. That seemed to do fine the first six weeks but then as my period approached the Effexor seemed to stop working. That's when I started looking on the internet for different medicines and found out about PMDD. Here's a link to the website I found: http://www.pmdd.factsforhealth.org/what/index.html
There is alot of good info on there. From what I understand (and I'm not a doctor, so someone correct me if I'm wrong) it's not the female hormones that DIRECTLY cause the symptoms of anxiety. It's the strong link between,and the effect female hormones have on seritonin. Here's another link to a page on their site that has more info. If you have Adobe Acrobat open Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder: A Guide (this is pretty much everything that is on the above website, but in printable form.) http://www.pmdd.factsforhealth.org/help/reading.html
It's not overwhelming to read. It has info on everything from symptoms, to how it's diagnosed to, meds that have been FDA approved to treat it. Like I said I did fine this month (this was my first period since switching to Zoloft from EffexorXR) so I'm hoping that next month goes as smoothly. :) I hope you get some relief soon! I know how bad it feels and how frustrating it can be.
Shannon
