Can medicine for schizophrenia be used to treat anxiety disorders?
My friend said she is taking her mothers medicine to treat her anxiety. Is this safe?
It’s never safe to use medicine from someone else. It is possible that Schizophrenia medications can be used to treat anxiety disorders but they also have more dangerous side effects than the traditional drugs used to treat anxiety. It is much safer to use drugs traditionally used to treat anxiety for treating an anxiety disorder.
May 6th, 2010 at 12:57 pm
no, it’s not. schizophrenia is usually treated with anti-psychotics, which are way stronger than anti-depressants, which is what your friend needs.
if she’s taking them just recreationally because they get her high (and I have no idea if that would work, or not, with schiz meds), then that’s one thing. but if she’s trying to medicate anxiety with them, she needs to get to a doc and get her own freakin medicine
this is like asking if it’s ok to treat a headache with the same medicine you would use to treat a broken leg. no way!! one is way less severe than the other.
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May 6th, 2010 at 1:12 pm
No it’s not safe at all, there can be serious side effects
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May 6th, 2010 at 1:44 pm
It’s never safe to use medicine from someone else. It is possible that Schizophrenia medications can be used to treat anxiety disorders but they also have more dangerous side effects than the traditional drugs used to treat anxiety. It is much safer to use drugs traditionally used to treat anxiety for treating an anxiety disorder.
References :
May 6th, 2010 at 2:19 pm
Non of us can answer that. It’s best to ring the pharmacist and just ask him over the phone.
I suspect they would say it’s not safe.
the truth is that there really are not good meds to treat anxiety and i dont’ blame her for doing this cause she’s probably already figured out that anti-depressans are good to treat depression but they don’t really help ppl with anxiety and I dont’ care what ppl say cause I know cause I have tried many.
I will be honest with you i have had anxiety/panic disorder for many years now and I have tried many meds and I have seen many therapists and I’m still trying to live with this panic disorder. I have wondered many times if perhaps schizophrenia meds could help somone with anxiety cause sometimes I feel like I’m hallucinating the fear and I feel like I’m psychotic. Anxiety disorder is a horrible mental illness and those of us that have it are desperate to get well and try anything just to get our life back and not live in fear anymore.
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May 6th, 2010 at 2:37 pm
Some antipsychotics such as Seroquel can be used in the treatment of PTSD(it’s a way off label and fairly new treatment though). The antipsychotics can help some people with their flashbacks. However if your friend has some other anxiety disorder I’m not aware of antipsychotics being used for any other forms of anxiety. Also as other posters have pointed out some antipsychotics can be dangerous. I have PTSD and was given several different of those drugs to try and help my flashbacks and I had horrible side effects.
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Personal experience
May 6th, 2010 at 3:17 pm
Well your friend is putting her health and perhaps her life at risk. Some antipsychotics such as geodon can make people’s hearts stop. That is a bad side effect – heart problems. Others such as zyprexa can make people gain a ton of weight and develop diabetes.
Anti psychotics act on serotonin and dopamine in the brain. In schizophrenia these two chemicals are way out of whack. So for a person who is not psychotic to take them, I think they would make them very depressed over time, perhaps suicidal.
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chronic schizophrenia