Social Phobia?

Does anyone else on here have issues with Social Anxiety, Agoraphobia, etc? Ive been suffering from them for around 4 years now, and the only medication that seems to help me is Xanax, which my psych. does not really want me taking alll too often. What do I do? Ive tried 8 anti-depressants, and most of them were supposedly supposed to help with my depression AND anxiety too! (Like Lexapro, Zoloft, Celexa) and the like. And things like Atarax and Trazadone dont help either, Ive tried those. I just have the most uncontrollable, bothersome, and persistant anxiety and symptoms to prove it! Help/advice would be much appreciated! Thank you!

I have GAD (general anxiety disorder) and PTSD. My ease with getting out and being social comes and goes.
I don't specifically have social anxiety and/or agoraphobia and everyone is different but i can say some things that work for me.

I take 1mg of klonopin at night but my new pdoc would like to see me come off of it and i agree. I'm only still on it to avoid withdrawal symptoms until the anxiety is well under control, don't think it is actually helping...

My anxiety dropped significantly when i started taking propranolol 20mg 1-2 times a day. It's a blood pressure med that is sometimes prescribed for anxiety, mostly performance.

I started effexor almost two months ago. I've been charting my moods since about a month before that and have felt a steady decline in anxiety levels that are reflected in my chart.
I too tried other anti-depressants like paxil and celexa that did nothing for my anxiety (paxil made it worse). Effexor seems to be different, don't know why and i've had no side effects from taking it. But, i avoided this med and tried it as a sort of last resort because the withdrawals are notoriously awful.

I've found that i can always add to my long list of anxiety coping tools.
I'm sure you have you're own crab-bag of things for coping but here's some of mine:

Daily yoga classes reduced my anxiety without meds to a manageable level. Unfortunately, a chronic pain condition that is aggravated by too many poses forced me to stop.
I recently read an article that said exercise helps anxiety more than anything, more than depression. They noted in a study that people that had manual labor jobs were just as depressed as anyone else but less anxious (a side-note really but i think interesting ;)
I try to walk every day but if you can't get out, Youtube has a bunch of exercise videos...

Progressive relaxation helps me a lot. I lie down and name parts of my body from toe to head. This is similar to mindfulness...

I also have a checklist. Not eating, sleeping, getting enough water or having too much caffeine can increase my anxiety. And, too much gluten can make me feel irritable and anxiety prone...

When i travel i take strong mints and lotion with me. Sometimes, washing my hands, putting on lotion and/or the sensation of a strong mint can ease my anxiety.

Sorry to hear you have such strong, persistent anxiety. I know how disruptive and uncomfortable this is and i'm sending you waves of super comforting ease.
~peace~

Buspar with another compatible antidepressant may be helpful. Some pdocs are afraid to give Xanax to someone for fear of addiction but Buspar is not addictive as far as I know.

I thought of mentioning buspar but i tried it (years ago) and the side effects were as bad as my panic attacks but different so i did take it for awhile. That said, i think my dose may have been too high because a general dr prescribed it and admitted not knowing anything about it. I'd give it another go now if i felt the need to try something new.

Wanted to add, i tried cymbalta too but it didn't seem to help anxiety. I mention this because if you consider effexor a dr may want one to try cymbalta but despite the fact they're both snri i don't think they are the same. I guess all the ssri have their differences too...

I actually just realized now that I've been taking Buspar longer than I have posted. I don't recall now what other antidepressant I was taking with it but 'I think' it may have been Effexor. I did not tolerate them together to the best of my recollection (see my poor memory). However, I've taken Buspar with Celexa for around 3 years and have not had any issues once my pdoc and I played trial and error with the dosages. I recently looked up the interaction risk between the two and it is high (requires monitoring for Serotonin Syndrome). My script for Xanax is 8mg a day but I usually only take 6mg. My pdoc is okay with my doing this as it allows me to have a bit 'extra' if something upsetting happens. My husband and nine year old son are both type 1 diabetics so, the possibility of something upsetting happening is quite high.

I suffer from depression, pretty debilitating social anxiety/phobia with panic disorder and agoraphobia. Like, without meds, I literally cannot leave the house.

Since I have depression, that was the first issue to be addressed back when I was 16, with the hope that through therapy and an antidepressant (Lexapro back then) the anxiety would sort of take care of itself, plus Lexapro claims to also be able to treat anxiety (I guess my doctor's theory was that my anxiety was caused by my depression? I do know they easily make a feedback loop of intensifying each other but I'm getting off topic here.)

Anyway, Lexapro, while it definitely helped with my depression, did nothing for my anxiety. I still had panic attacks even thinking about going out and engaging in social interaction, and when I could manage to force myself to go out (such as attend my college classes) the experience was almost physically painful due to the anxiety symptoms.

So after that, I asked for a switch in medication. I was then put on Buspar, which I tried but it made me intensely ill. I was dizzy and throwing up all the time, having migraines and brain zaps, and on top of that barely able to get out of bed. I put up with that for a few weeks hoping that it would pass but it never did so I had to stop taking it because I just couldn't deal with feeling so sick.

After Buspar didn't work, my doctor was reluctant to put me on anything else (except Lexapro which I was adamant about not going back on) so I went unmedicated for a while which was a bad idea. Finally, things got so bad that I did manage to get someone to drag me to the doctor, and when the doctor saw how bad I was, put me on Effexor (for my depression, because I didn't like the way Lexapro made me feel like a zombie, made me gain weight, and killed my sex drive.) Adjusting to the Effexor was almost as bad as when I was put on Buspar, especially because I had an increase in suicidal ideation, but after the second week on Effexor all the negatives passed and it definitely improved my depression. My anxiety and panic were still issues, though, and I guess since by that time I was a fair bit older, my doctor didn't feel awful about putting me on a benzodiazepine (klonopin.) While I know the dangers/negatives about long term benzo therapy for anxiety, honestly it's the only thing that's been able to allow me to live a normal life. Klonopin also is much longer acting than Xanax, which I like because it means I only have to take two pills a day instead of the Xanax kicking in strong but wearing off quickly, which means you take more and your tolerance increases way faster.

Sorry for that novel of a post...

TL;DR version:

If you have social phobia (as opposed to having ONLY panic disorder, which xanax is indeed good for) I would suggest you ask your doctor to switch you to a longer acting benzo like valium, ativan, or klonopin. Take one in the morning and one in the afternoon and you'll avoid breakthrough panic - or at least, that's been my experience.

I have bipolar disorder and would suggest establishing routines and following them everyday. I, like some others who replied, tried effexor but it caused more rapid cycling of my bipolar disorder. also getting the same amount of sleep everyday, taking my medicine at the same time everyday.

I have in the past used klonopin for acute anxiety and found helpful. when I have troubling thoughts and panic attacks I have to tell myself that I am not going to die although it feels like it, and i will be ok soon.
I am also trying to handle other problems that aggrevate my bipolar disorder such as my diabetes, sleep apnea, and chronic sinus infections because these can prevent me staying on my routine.

Thanks everybody for all the great feedback! I appreciate all the experiences, advice, suggestions, success stories,... And I'm seeing a new psychiatrist on January 31st, so I'm going to see his view on prescribing a benzo for me on a daily basis, starting at a very low dose of course. My mother has been taking Klonipin for her anxiety and panic and everything for 15 years, and it works great for her. I'm just hoping this psychiatrist takes me seriously! Whats the difference between taking adderall and xanax daily anyways? Ive read up and Adderall and other stimulants are much more physically and mentally addictive than benzos. Not a big deal, Im not a kid anymore!

The issue with Xanax, in my opinion and what I've seen in other people, is the propensity to build a tolerance wayyyy too quickly, which then leads to needing to up the dose or abusing the drug just to feel normal. This is because Xanax kicks in quickly but doesn't last long, unlike the longer acting benzos which are far better suited to day to day anxiety management.

Comparing it to Adderall in terms of addiction potential is really apples to oranges imo, they are different classes of drugs and each individual is different as far as what they would be more likely to become addicted to (talking about mental addiction in this case.)