With so many people in the United States suffering with anxiety disorders, the rush is on to find more effective treatments for their discomfort. And medication is the first place they look. Medications for anxiety combined with other therapies are the foremost interventions used today. We’ll be looking at the medications available for the various anxiety disorders, how to properly use them and what they can or cannot do.

Let’s take a look at the solutions out there for you, and there’s more than one. This is not an advanced course in psychology or medicine – it’s just to help simplify your way to getting help. Our information is from the ADAA, the Anxiety Association of America. You will learn the names of specific medications, briefly see what they do and how they do it. First a word of caution: medications for anxiety are to be used only under a doctor’s care; and they are not a cure unto themselves. They are usually used before other therapies are introduced to reduce the debilitating symptoms so the individual is able to receive effective benefits from other therapies.

We’ll introduce you first to the antidepressants whose function is to alter something called serotonin, a neurotransmitter. These antidepressant drugs are the….You can check that name with your doctor – we’ll just call them SSRIs. The three SSRIs that you probably recognize are Zoloft, Paxil and Prozac and what they do is to treat all the disorders listed in our first paragraph. How they do it is to increase the output of serotonin level to the brain which should decrease your anxiety level.

Another class of antidepressants is called TCA or Tricylic antidepressants and these medications for anxiety are called Anafranil, Vivactil, and Doxeprin which impact the anxiety in basically the same way that the SSRIs do for the same forms of anxiety except for the social anxiety disorders.

There is still another class of antidepressants labeled the MAOI that work by blocking an important brain enzyme. You will find the drugs Nardil, Marplan and Parnate in this category of antidepressants which are prescribed generally for the disorders of panic, social anxiety, and posttraumatic stress.

Medications may be part of the therapy process either at the beginning or introduced later if other therapy is not doing the job. And it may be a good option for you, but it’s important to understand that medications are effective only if taken according to your doctor’s instructions. Please don’t neglect to make a list of questions for your doctor, including both long term and short term side effects.

One of the main obstacles to be overcome in the decision to use medications for anxiety is the fear of the after effects – the fear and stigma that you may become addicted to the drug and will have withdrawal symptoms. While that is a real possibility, fear that you may become addicted to the drug and will have withdrawal symptoms. While that is a real possibility, just make sure you have a doctor well qualified to treat your specific anxiety disorder and that he knows his medicines and their side effects.

I hope by reading this article, your fears have been somewhat allayed, you understand that there are treatments available just for you, both through the use of medications for anxiety and psychotherapy and that you can be on the way to peace of mind and freedom from anxiety.