Help How do u tell when medication is helping?

[ScaredCutter]

ive been taking 2 meds, one is for something different (about iron) and the other one is around my social anxiety i think but, whenever i go back to the doctor and they ask if its working, i dont have an answer, i dont know if something changed. ive been taking it since my diagnosis of austism i believe which was 2-3 years ago i believe.

i dont remember much of what people said but, they said i looked down a lot, how id avoid people and some other things but, i dont know if thats changed, i cant tell. i do look down less but the other one? i have no clue and the others that i dont recall? well, i dont know.

i guess medication like these is when u take meds when ur sick but, u can always see when ur symptoms are clearing up, getting better or worse but, i just cant tell with this one. i dont even recall what things were considered anxiety either.

was i meant to take notes?

 

[LaetumCat]

I take antidepressants, and honestly? I can't tell. At all. From everyone I've talked to that takes antidepressants (or something similar), they said that you can't really tell unless you stop taking them.
The only "difference" I can tell for myself is that I'm more sleepy, but like... That's it.

 

[fedup1982]

It's stupid. Good psychiatrists are supposed to be able to assess people during a session by seeing for themselves how anxious a patient seems

 

[orpheus_]

It's often hard to tell with psych drugs, especially those that need a long time to act. Also life events come into play etc.

I can only tell you from my experience, but I only ever took meds for depression (though they accidentally influenced my leftover social anxiety and ocd-like symptoms??) and not directly for anxiety. Both (fluoxetine and bupropion, for context) are rather activating so after a few weeks I noticed being less sleepy and just having more energy. Also when I started fluoxetine, after like a month or two I actually experienced something that could count as joy or pleasure which I didn't feel for a long time. Other than that there was no sharp change, but over the next months I noticed my functioning got gradually better as I was not in such a terrible mood all the time. I also noticed that negative situations affect me differently, for example during conflicts I calmed down way faster (though for many people ssris tend to numb feelings down, either only negative ones or all; for me the negative feelings were still there in situations when they had a direct cause, but they just went away very quickly).

Like I said it also decreased my anxiety in social situations but that's a pattern I noticed after many months, just looking back. So mostly it's just seeing patterns of different behavior and reactions that cannot be explained by anything else. Sometimes I had specific moments when I felt like my reactions to certain situations were "unlike me" for example when I had to talk to a stranger and I did not start feeling overwhelming anxiety. Bupropion on the other hand did not influence my mood much (I think) but over time I noticed that starting tasks is a lot easier, like I don't pulled to bed like a magnet. Though I only realized HOW MUCH that actually changed when I accidentally skipped a dose and suddendly couldn't function (though maybe that.was caused by something else because I refuse to believe that missing a single dose would affect me like this.

Also I don't agree that a psychiatrist should "see if the meds are working by looking at the patient". Anxiety, just as other mental disorders, can manifest in very different ways depending on the person and their circumstances. While sometimes looking at the patient can give some hints, what matters the most is what they are feeling and that cannot be fully judged by looking at them. There are many behaviors that can look similar yet be caused by different things (for example avoiding eye contact can be caused by autism or by anxiety). HOWEVER a good psychiatrist should be able to ask the patient some more specific questions than the general "how are you feeling" to help them determine if the meds are actually working.

So in general, I think it's all mostly about noticing changing patterns in a) how you react to similar situations before vs after medication, b) generally how often you experience certain distressing feelings like random anxiety or sadness.



I'm sorry if it doesn't answer your question, I realized I mostly wrote about things you did not even ask about esp since my experiences mostly regard depression and not anxiety. Maybe you will be able to get something out of it though. You can also try going off meds or switching them if you want to see how much they actually affected you but only if you're feeling brave :')