Social anxiety and uc and will antidepressents or antianxiety meds help

I don't believe your social anxiety disorder caused your uc. However, uc causes anxiety and fears in many of us, which I can only imagine might make your social anxiety worse. Just make sure you seak the proper treatment, if either condition gets worse.

Who diagnosed you with social anxiety? You need a psychiatrist if you want medication, psychologists are great if you want to try to talk it out. I have had a lot of anxiety and depression over the years. I have taken a few different medications. I don't think there is any surefire information about the link but in my experience, they are somewhat independent conditions, both of which feed on each other.

The anxiety certainly doesn't help the UC and the UC doesn't help the anxiety, they only make the other condition more difficult to deal with. I found that when I took an antidepressant, it balanced me mentally and it helped me to worry less overall, which may have helped my UC a little. I don't think it had anything to do with the medication itself, it was the way it made me less concerned that made me feel better. I have taken antidepressants during a flare and had the flare stay fairly severe so it's definitely not a cure. It may help you to relax and worry less, which may help you to focus and follow your treatment plan better. On the other hand, my anxiety was majorly reduced when I was in remission from UC meds. I guess it can work both ways.

Unfortunately, I don't think there is a way to kill both birds with one stone. If there is, for me, it would be to get the UC symptoms controlled but i've had depression independently of UC flaring at times too. My GI once gave me nortriptyline to try to help with my bowels, that is an antidpressant, it didn't help my bowels at all but others have luck. I am not sure how commonly used it is for UCers.

Self-diagnosis is usually wrong, I'd be careful and see a professional if it bothers you that much.

I think if we don't have a degree of social anxiety before UC, we definitely develop it when we have to be constantly alert to the location of restrooms and the signals from our body. I've had long periods of time where by the time I really knew I had to go, there was no time to walk ten steps to the toilet. Of course I didn't want to go out in public! It's been one of the lingering effects of UC that's been the hardest to lose. I still find myself looking for the restrooms whenever I go into a new restaurant or store.

I have dealt with Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Depression (both dx) since my early 20's - I am now 42. This was way before I was dx with UC/IBS in May 2015. I was on Lexapro for @8 years, and also used Ativan on and off for my anxiety. I weaned off the Lexapro in 2014 (long story, but attempted tapering several times with horrible side effects - ended up taking 6 months to wean off completely, but had very little side effects the last time due to very slooowww tapering). I will say that the Lexapro helped a LOT, and really helped me during some very rough times to not go "over the edge". The Ativan helped me sleep, but I found that it made me feel very "foggy" and I did have one incident where I stupidly drank after taking an Ativan and got very drunk and blacked out. The foggy feeling and fear of dependence made me stop the Ativan, although there are times when I have episodes of anxiety where I wish I had one to take the edge off. I take over the counter generic sleep aid Rite Aid brand to help me sleep at night, and that has helped.

Now that I have had several flare-ups, the worst of which landed me in the hospital for 4 days and lead to my dx, I do feel that my anxiety has, at times, gotten worse, in that I do get anxious leading up to an event, like a dinner out with friends, or holiday, etc. I don't really get anxious about work, although I try to eat pretty much the same thing during the week for breakfast and lunch, that I know won't (or haven't) affected me.

I don't think therapy is ever a bad idea, especially if you are dealing with a new dx and trying to cope with the implications of not only the condition itself but the repercussions - social, family, relationships, etc.

To answer your question as best as possible - I think there have been a few people post about finding remission/some relief of symptoms after taking various anxiety/depression type medications. Others report no change. However everyone will react a little different to the meds.

Old Mike can perhaps comment if he comes across this.

I think Wellbutrin is the most common one talked about - which I think also has some anti-anxiety effects. Here is some links to some old threads:

www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=38&m=2203876
www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=17&m=2166924

If you go to the search box at the top and type 'Wellbutrin and Ulcerative Colitis' it will search out some threads.... or 'anti-anxiety meds and Ulcerative Colitis'. Both should yield a lot of results to go through to find some answers specific to your question.

Post Edited (Canada Mark) : 12/28/2015 4:16:08 PM (GMT-7)

Well my social phobia was self diagnosed too and my therapist in a clinic said he didn't believe I had it but he didn't know what I really had. It was a very difficult situation. My first therapist had agreed with the social phobia diagnosis. I also have depression (suicidal thoughts) and selective mutism (I couldn't speak in certain situations, mostly social situations). I know for a fact that I've had panic attacks around people and I don't do well with people in general. I often couldn't pick up the phone when it rang and making calls was hard (got fired for that at my first job). Sometimes it's ok to self diagnose if you know yourself really well and educate yourself. The most important part is to seek help!

I myself come a long way. I do a lot better on phones (working in a call center environment helps) and I don't have selective mutism anymore because one of my therapist worked with me really well on that. Although he didn't give it a name we were able to conquer it. I learned the term just recently, years after I overcame it. My depression got better and I don't have thoughts of death anymore. I just needed to be willing to change something and with the help of professionals I've accomplished a lot. Self diagnosing is better than being in denial. Just my two cents.