Dilantin for Anxiety - Anxiety Message Board

MRiches1982 · 10-21-2004, 04:10 AM

Hi everyone i have been researching anxiety, stress and depression for almost 2 years now and have learned a lot about the disorder. It is basically a subconcious thought which is trigger when you are in a situation where there could be a threat or if you've had a bad past experience with a similar situation in the past. When your subconcious mind reacts to your environment, various things occur in your body as a result of the change in your brain chemistry (neurotransmitters). Your stomach will turn, you may have panic attacks, the list goes on. There is a medication called dilantin which is for epilepsy, please do a search on google for dilantin and jack dreyfus and you will be amazed. Also i have noticed that when your anxious you can take 1 vitamin or mineral imparticular and your symptoms will disappear. One day it could be magnesium and you will feel great for a few days, then it will wear off, then it could be zinc or one of the B vitamins, for instance last week i was really low and i took b5 by itself and my symptoms disappeared, i was like a different person! The reason for this is that when your anxious your not utilising the vitamins or minerals out of your food properly, or you may need a lot of one nutrient because it has been used up becasue of your anxiety. I could be cured if i knew exactly what vitamin or mineral i was low in at any particular time. However i can't tell so i have to use trial and error. Also in my past experiences, amino acids have made me much worse and precursors to neurotransmitters because they are needed in various amounts, it would be impossible to know how much of each to take for every individual person. Please experiment with votamins and minerals and record which ones helped in order. Also do the search on dilantin!! Good luck

hry33 · 10-21-2004, 08:17 AM

dialantin is an anticonvulsanrt or antisiezure med and some say these can be useful for anxiety and panic attacks.

rather than prompts from the subconscious mind, I would go for learned phobic behaviour in a sensitised mind

your vitamins are mainly just the placebo effect, IMO with anxiety a strong placebo effect from almost anything can be had for a day or so

a daily vitamin and mineral tablet is a good idea, I take one

mayansun · 10-21-2004, 08:19 AM

Your post was interesting. I was on dilantin for 6 weeks following brain surgery as a preventative against seizures. I was elated to come off of it b/c it made me feel extremely tired, sore, out of it etc. I realize all these drugs effect the brain chemistry and many have a multitude of uses but I would say folks should be wary before starting any new ones.

I'll look into the vitamins. I take a daily supplement and try to get extra magnesium and potassium from food

rscramer · 10-22-2004, 03:44 PM

i was on dilantin for 6 years i had an anurisum sorry cant spell the dr told me i would be on it for the rest of my life was 24 now 32 for about 2 years after the bleed i would have spaced out episodes i thought were seurizers thay were getting worse and worse year after year so after the 6 th year i stopped taking dilantin and after about 3 month i started to get better i was never having seurizers it was panic attakcs and for a year life was normal and now after about a year im having anziety with panic once agian . i think the dilantin is what messed me up but like you all say were all different

NancyH · 10-23-2004, 08:57 PM

hry33, you are right on, it is a learned response to a non threatening event. We got this way from a past event and from there we learned to fear the fear. Gee, I had a panic attack on a freeway over 30 yrs ago and for a long time anywhere I went was ok if it did not have to be on the freeway, as years went by and thanks to xanax I have been able to do the freeway(hubby has to do the driving tho) otherwise my life consists of my running around town and definately not on the freeway by myself. freeway to me is a death trap, too many miles between exits, if something happened I want to be within 5 minutes of help, my anxiety talk again.