What Are The Main Anxiety Treatments?
Anxiety is a serious medical illness. It is a feeling of fear and insecurity regarding some unforeseen future event which shows itself up at the bodily level of the patient. Many anxiety treatment medicines are nowadays available in the market. These medicines are suitable not only for anxiety-panic attacks, but also for general anxiety disorders, also known as GAD. The medicines have become an integral part of our lifestyle because according to a recent survey, more than 19 million Americans are presently suffering from these disorders.
However, among these medications some are prescribed more often by doctors. These are Lorazepam (Ativan), Diazepam (Valium), Alprazolam (Xanax), Sertraline (Zoloft), Buspirone (Buspar), Fluoxetine (Prozac), Duloxetine (Cymbalta), and so on. For panic attacks also there is a range of medications that are generally prescribed by doctors. The specific members of the "selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI)" and the benzodiazepine families have been approved by the Food & Drug Administration for treating this disorder. Before the SSRI's were available, medicines from the group called tricyclic antidepressants also known as TCA's were used. However, since the advent of the SSRI's the usage of TCA's have become less. This is mainly because the SSRI's are more easily tolerated by patients. Medication, however, is not the only answer to these disorders. Doctors also prescribe some sort of psychotherapy, more commonly known as therapy. This is usually a series of conversations that the patient suffering has with a licensed and a well-trained healthcare professional under controlled environments. After the initial session, the therapist decides as to the type of therapy that the patient should undergo. Depending upon the background of the illness the therapist decides whether the therapy would be individual, group, marital/couple, or family. Besides these four types of therapies, there is also the psychodynamic and the interpersonal therapy. While, on one hand, the medications help to cope with the disorder at the physical and the molecular levels, the therapy helps the patient to deal with it at the emotional and the mental levels. Besides the above-mentioned more commonly used techniques prescribed by doctors, there are other alternative methods also available in the market. These techniques are becoming increasingly popular and include the likes of homoeopathy, yoga, acupuncture, acupressure, etc. These alternative methods can also be very effective and can be tried out if the person imparting the cure is a registered practitioner under the recognized laws. However, before trying out any herbal medicines care must be taken so as to avoid purchasing a herb that itself induces anxiety. Therefore, it is always advisable that at the immediate onset of the anxiety disorder you must go to a good doctor. And, out of the many anxiety treatment medicines that are nowadays available in the market only use those that are prescribed by a well-trained professional. |