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Hello I randomly got 4 panic attacks in Dec 2022 after a bad year at work. My Provider started me on 2mg Ativan a day on Jan 1st 2023 and 10mg Trintellix, he later increased Trintellix to 20mg after 10 days. On the 12th day I got intense dizziness, I ended up in the ER. my provider switched to escitalopram 5mg on Jan 14 and lowered Ativan to 1mg/day. Dizziness/photophobia came down a bit, then he upped my escitalopram dosage from 5mg to 10mg. Dizziness/photophobia stayed and didn’t go away. I kept taking it for another 2.5 weeks. During this time reduced Ativan to 0.5mg for 5 days and then 0.5 every other day for a week and over. Then on Feb 05 we reduced escitalopram to 5mg and then 5mg every other day. I took my last dose on Feb 14. I had no withdrawal symptoms for about 5-6 days. Dizziness started going down quite a bit after 2 days, by day 6 it was down quite a bit, almost over. On Feb 22 withdrawals began! At First high resting HR of 100+ for 4 days along with insomnia, then insomnia stopped and high heart rates came randomly. I got vivid dreams, clogged ears, tinnitus, sweating, fatigue, suicidal tendencies all came and went but dizziness, anxiety and random high HR did not change at all. It’s been 3.5 weeks since I stopped escitalopram I’m stuck at a dizziness of 6/10. I cannot drive and haven’t been to work in 2 months. I cannot function properly or be independent. my doctor gave me propranolol for high HR and anxiety. I took 20mg this morning, at first I got weakness and fatigue for 20 mins. Then everything got better, anxiety went down, HR got better and relaxed, then even dizziness went down. I felt better, more positive, not depressed, went for a short drive after 2.5 months with blue light cutting glasses and brown tint sunglasses (these help with photophobia). Propranolol has a half life of 3-6 hours. After 7 hours dizziness and photophobia came back. I took another 10mg as my provider suggested since I got some side effects from 20mg. No difference with 10mg. I will try 20mg again tomorrow morning. I’m here looking to seek support in case anyone else has experienced this or is experiencing this and how did they overcome it.

Hello, I need help to understand how this antidepressant work for anxiety. I am suffering from severe anxiety (suspected hyperadrenergic postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome - hyper pots) which causes my heart rate to increase by 30-50 beats per minute upon standing along with blood pressure increase, and so it's hard for even to even stand because of heart palpitations, fatigue, dizziness etc, and so i lay in my bed for 22-23 hours daily for 8 months, my muscles are GONE, i am only existing. Medicine history story in few sentences: after more than several heart tests year ago, they found nothing except mentioned sinus tachycardia episodes and high blood pressure when anxious, for example it was 170/90 with the heart rate of 120 just sittting and talking to cardiologist cuz of anxiety and body many posture changes, but it's in 40s when i sleep and it varies from 50s to 140s every hour during the day, which cardiologists think relates to anxiety. I decided to go to psychiatrist and so she saw severe anxiety and gave me ssri antidepressant escitalopram which made me a lot worse, my heart rate was 90-100 even when i wanted to go to sleep. Now she wants to put me on mirtazapine and i just can't understand how it can work because its serotonin and norepinephrine reuptaker, so how it will reduce my anxiety if i will have more norepinephrine in my blood, i thought they will block it, not increase it. This is a paradox that i fail to understand, what kind of treatment is that? I am scared that this will increase my anxiety/panic attacks/heart rate/blood pressure just like escitalopram. What were your experiences with it? Thank you!