Anxiety - Most Patients in Denial
Dr. Gunwant Dhaliwal is an internist practicing in New Port Richey, FL. Dr. Dhaliwal specializes in the medical treatment of adults. Internists can act as a primary physician or a consultant to a primary physician. They manage both common and rare diseases. Dr. Dhaliwal provides comprehensive care and manages treatment... more
Anxiety is such a common disease that some researchers say about 70% of the population has it. But most of the patients are in denial. I have been in practice for over 35 years and have experienced the same.
I will admit some patients come to the office, they accept the diagnosis and start taking medications, usually SSRI. The other set of patients continue to stay in denial that they can control their anxiety symptoms with various techniques that include exercise, yoga, or simply avoid them. After fighting for a couple of months, the majority of those patients accept the fact and agree to try the medicine. After 3 weeks they are so thankful that they took the medicine and now they are the most productive people of this society.
I never force patients to go on anxiety medications. I just mention and discuss all the benefits to them. I do tell them that they do not have to share this information about taking such medicine with their friends for obvious reasons.
The next question is, how long do I have to take such anxiety (SSRI) medication? The answer is it depends on circumstances and issues causing anxiety symptoms. Typically, it takes 6 months for a person to either get rid of those environmental issues or get adjusted to them. The SSRI meds can be tapered off to see if there is no relapse, otherwise, patients are continued on them for a longer time.
Few patients' personalities are such that they need SSRI life long. There is a chemical called serotonin in the body that gives the feeling of being happy and healthy. This chemical subsequently gets destroyed. These SSRI medications keep this chemical in the body for a longer time thereby giving the person a feeling of joy.
Many people ask for medications such as Alprazolam (Xanax) or Clonazepam (Klonopin) to take when they need it. Healthcare providers including myself try to avoid these medications due to the high probability of drug abuse and addiction. Our office standard answer is to refer such patients to psychiatrists.
