Panic only moderately helped by meds.

Hello have had GAD, Panic Disorder and Agorophobia since I was 21 years old and I turn 32 next week. When I initially developed the symptoms it was after a bad *substance experience* so one Dr. suggested I may also have PTSD. Anyway that made me quit, and since then I have been on legal drugs prescribed by Dr.s ever since with varying degrees of success. Something will work for awhile and then it will slowly or abruptly quit working, the only constant was and still is Paxil, I started at 80mg a day and have weened down to 20mg a day to bypass some of the side effects. However in the two years since dropping to 20mg from 30mg of Paxil I have had a general increase in anxiety despite having multiple different Benzos prescribed to me. My main complaint is that any benzo I take is usually just putting off the attack and the next day or two will be far worse with the anxiety with the exception of Clonazepam which I currently take .25mg in the morning and afternoon and then .5mg at night. I don't get the anxiety backlash from this but I also don't really get complete relief either. I've been on Clonazepam for about 1.5 years and the dosage went up about a month or two ago from just .5 a day to the 1mg a day I'm on now. For a short time after taking the Clonazepam I feel alright with only a small amount of anxiety, but about 2 hours later I feel nauseated and dizzy. This feeling only goes away after I take my next dose. I don't get much exercise as one of my anxiety triggers is an increase in heart rate and therapy has never helped me before. I was just wondering if anyone here has any suggestions in ways to space out my meds for better coverage or if nausea and dizziness is a sign you are on too much or too little benzo. I'd prefer to not be on any meds at all and had a terrible withdrawal from Paxil once when my script ran out and I feel very jittery when I miss a does of clonazepam so any reduction in dosages would need to be titrated I think. Anyway thanks in advance for any assistance.

-Morning 10mg Paxil .25mg Clonazepam Multivitamin
-Afternoon .25mg Clonazepam
-Evening 10mg Paxil .5mg Clonazepam

Diagnosis Chronic GAD,Agoraphobia,Panic Disorder
Symptoms: Anxiety, Compulsive Behavior, Fear of Illness, Dizziness, Tinnitus, Nausea

Post Edited By Moderator (Scaredy Cat) : 8/27/2013 2:09:14 PM (GMT-6)

I went to therapy for 2 years and found that it didn't help me much but CBT either didn't exist or wasn't practiced where I sought help. I've heard it can make a big difference for some people. A large amount of anxiety for me comes from the medications themselves. Since this morning I have felt tired, cloudy, anxious, just fine, almost euphoric and then back to tired and back to anxious all from one dose of my medications. All of this within a 7 hour period. I use breathing exercises to get out of what I refer to as "normal" panic attacks but sometimes this fails me and I end up in the ER getting beta blockers and benzos to get my heart rate under control. Usually my heart during an attack ranges between 120-140 bpm with my normal being 85 bpm. My bpm rarely comes back down without medication once it has escalated to the hospital stage. I've also done the progressive muscle tense-relaxation thing and I find no relief from it since most of my anxiety is mental and in my heart beat. I don't get the muscle pains people sometimes describe and I'm not easily distracted during attacks. Or do I understand the muscle tension-relaxation thing wrong? Sorry about the specific mentioning of the substance that caused the problem. I actually talk to my neighbor kids and my sons friends about the dangers of drugs since they all see me as an example of what drugs can do to you. Hopefully some good can come from my situation. However I do have to say that I wasn't a big drug user and it was only my second time using drugs when this all started so I think it blew open an underlying issue. Not sure which self help coping skills you are referring to either any pointers to things that lower anxiety between attacks? For me the attacks aren't that frequent these days and when they are I can get myself out of about 40% of them. But the constant "nagging" anxiety is what I thought the meds would particularly help with and they just don't. Plus Clonazepam makes me irritable which leads to fights which leads to attacks if I'm not careful!