kava kava

Has anyone here tried kava kava for anxiety?
I’ve been on lithium, buspar, effexor, zoloft, paxil, prozac, serzone, klonopin, valium, wellabutrine and wellabutrin sr to name but a few and NONE worked (yes most are for anti-depressants than anxiety, I realise this).
I refuse to go back on prescription drugs … so any thoughts on kava kava?

reverb

Those few hours between when I had ended my last entry and went to my shrinks were the longest in my life. Or so it felt. Once I had gotten into her office, I started bawling and I couldn’t stop. I had no idea what was wrong or what was wrong with me and why I could not stop crying.
What had partially happened medically is that I had started a new birth control pill called yasmin and had slowly started weaning myself off of Effexor. Dr. B. thinks it was a combination of the pill and the weaning of the Effexor that made me, um, lose control (if you want to call it that). She immediately gave me a low dose of Effexor and had me check back in with her Wednesday to do follow up.
On Wednesday I felt a bit more in control of myself when I went to see her, more composed and more willing to talk. She prescribed a lithium derivative (600mgs) so that my daily pill intake is now:

  • 1 birth control pill
  • 1 37.5mg of Effexor
  • 2 150mg of Serzone
  • 2 300mg of lithobid
  • 1 multivitamin

I stare at all the pills in my hand and just wonder what the fuck I’ve done to get this far in life. A shelf in one of the kitchen cabinets looks like a pharmacy as I keep all my meds and vitamins (and for some reason, a bottle of hair dye — can you NOT see the irony with that one?) with half open bottles of various prescriptions I’ve had over the last few years. The good drugs, such as klonopin, are kept in my purse for ’emergancies’. The fucked up thing with klonopin is that when I was having panic attacks left and right last week, I popped the full pill and it didn’t seem to do anything. Which was odd because in the past, 1/4 of the pill was fine. That bothered me.
Even with all the goddamn drugs I’m on, I’m STILL having panic attacks. Had one today when I was playing video games with Alisha and my heart started racing (160bpm — I counted) and I excused myself to the bathroom. When I had gotten an EKG back in January, the on-call doctor had shown me a few tricks to slow my heart rate down, and one of the tricks is to ‘push down’ like you are taking a shit, which I was doing er well attempting while I was sitting down next to Alisha but I just excused myself and went to the bathroom any ways. I had this feeling my face looked like I was constipated. I went into the bathroom, and did the exercise for a few moments and my heart rate slowed down to less than half of what it was. I don’t think Alisha ever knew.