Is Your Anxiety a Pill Popping Problem?

You or a family member fall sick or start having symptoms you don’t understand. A couple of weeks go by and you or your loved one just can’t seem to shake it off. What do you do? (I highly suggest that you do not Google it.) You will be planning your funeral after a couple of articles. Really! The internet can be great but it can also scare the daylights out of you! But, if you are like most people you’ll probably call the doctor for an appointment to see what is going on.

So off we go to the doctors office with the belief that if it is something that won’t go away on its own the doctor can just write out a prescription for it. We expect that don’t we? And yet there is nothing more frustrating than suffering through a time of being horribly sick, coughing and hacking up a lung and after dragging your lifeless body to the doctor only to hear him tell you it’s a virus and it just has to “wear itself out.” And you think, WHAT! I’m dying, give me some medicine! NOW!

At that very minute we don’t listen to reason that a virus will not respond to antibiotics. We’re sick dog gone it and we want a pill. Probably because today on a daily basis we the consumer watch commercials asking us if we suffer from this or that kind of ailment and then go on to encourage us to call our doctor and ask if that medicine is right for us.

I’m not sure when the tide switched that it was not unusual for the patient to start suggesting a certain medicine to the doctor instead of the other way around but I kind of find that disturbing in some ways. Maybe, because I want to believe that when I go to the doctor, “They” will have the answer for what’s best for me and that, “They” would not be looking to, “Me” for suggestions.

You know, the ironic thing is, we can watch one of those commercials suggesting a certain medicine to cure our problem and then at the end in a really “soothing and supposedly reassuring voice” list all the side effects that, “may” happen. Or, worse, we get the commercial that asks if you or a loved one has experienced horrible side effects or even death because of a medicine that had been prescribed to them to call a special number if you want to participate in a lawsuit against the drug manufacturer. So, which is it? Are they promoting or condemning the medicine? How hopeful, confusing and frightening all at the same time those commercials can be.

Now what do you do when the issue isn’t some type of infection or other ailment that clearly might be cured with a medicine such as an antibiotic? Specifically, symptoms like stomach aches, headaches, dizziness, tremors, twitches, muscle tension, pounding heart and shortness of breath. All symptoms that would send most people right to the doctor and rightly so.

Each one of those complaints could lead to any diagnosis for sure ranging from non life threatening to something more severe. However, did you know that each one of these symptoms along with a whole host of others can be related to anxiety? Yup! And the unfortunate truth is that because we want instant relief we probably will walk out of the doctors office with a prescription in hand to treat the symptoms but not the underlying cause.

Isn’t that a little like knowing you have poison ivy in your yard and not getting rid of it because you have a cream in the medicine cabinet that will deal with the effects of coming into contact with it so you keep walking through it instead of yanking out the plant by the roots?

One of the class of drugs that is prescribed to treat anxiety are benzodiazepines also known as tranquilizers such as Valium and Xanax. They are some of the most commonly prescribed medications in the United States. In fact 1 in 20 Americans has a prescription for a benzodiazepine. These types of drugs do provide rapid and significant relief but can also sometimes cause drowsiness, irritability, dizziness, memory and attention problems. An even darker side of this medication is that it can be highly addictive and therefore carry a significant risk of overdose, especially when they are combined with opiates, (prescription painkillers) or alcohol.

Believe me I am not downplaying the role of medicine in treating mental disorders. Sometimes it is called for to quickly treat some of the most bothersome symptoms. However, many people will walk out of their primary-care physicians office with their prescription without being aware of other evidence-based treatments such as cognitive behavioral therapy which might work better for them without the risk of side effects.

Writing a prescription to treat a mental health disorder might be easy, but it may not always be the safest or most effective route for patients. And given the high prevalence of anxiety symptoms that people are facing today we need a more constructive approach to the problem than popping pills.” A combination of good self-help information and working with an experienced anxiety disorder therapist or counselor can help you to address the core causes of anxiety in your life and give you the strategies you need that will create an effective, long-lasting way to overcome anxiety.

Dealing with the underlying factors of anxiety is the best way to eliminate problematic anxiety and its symptoms once and for all. If you would like to focus on counseling strategies as the main source of your relief please call me at (616) 516-1570 to make an appointment or click on the blue “Contact” tab on the bottom right hand side of the screen and “Let’s talk.”