Advice Please replied: "Social anxiety can cause these feelings, which can also lead to severe depression, ... There is hope; I've been there, and still am there, it is a long, hard struggle. I recommend Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT)... worked best for me, with mild anti-anxiety meds. I suffered from social anxiety for over 15 years. I've tried individual therapy, and group therapy and studied psychology for 10 years, as a profession, but also with the hope to cure myself. Depending on your comfort level, you could go to a psychologist that practices CBT and specializes in anxiety disorders, seek a group therapy, or create one. Usually those that do attend the group therapy are a bit more high functioning because as you know, it can be difficult to speak in a group. Another idea is to see if there are any local research studies being conducted that you could participate in. The program that finally worked the best for me is this one:... and I was lucky enough to have a structured behavioral group to go along with it. Sometimes the people that actually attend this program come back home and form groups. I recommend a mild anti-anxiety med, and a beta-blocker (it will reduce shaking and tremors enormously, but only use in extreme situations) in addition to CBT therapy. Any questions, let me know ... I can't tell you how much this has improved my life!"

Yaybob replied: "Lexapro is not known to have any permanent effect on the brain that persists after the drug is discontinued. It is an SSRI - a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor antidepressant, meaning that its mechanism of action is to prevent serotonin that has been releases into neural synapses to have a longer duration of effect by not being sucked back up from the synapse so quickly. Ecstasy acts on the same neurotransmitter, also to increase its presence, but in a different manner with much more dramatic effects, some of which ARE permanent, unlike with Lexapro. SSRI's like Lexapro interfere with the ability of ecstasy to cause euphoria: From "Mechanism of Action "The primary mechanism of action of MDMA is a potent release of brain serotonin as well as inhibition of serotonin reuptake. MDMA does NOT cause release of serotonin via exocitosis of serotonin containing secretory vesicles. Rather, MDMA uses a unique mechanism that causes a reverse in the direction of the normal inward bound serotonin reuptake channel. So that the high concentrations of serotonin within the cell flood OUT through the transporter channel. This causes a sudden increase in serotonin in the synapse and at the same time blocks reuptake. This causes a rapid and profound acute depletion of serotonin within 3 to 6 hours. "MDMA itself is taken up into the cell via the serotonin uptake channel and/or through diffusion across the membrane. Once within the cell MDMA is known to deplete stores of tryptophan hydroxylase (TPH) via acute oxidative inactivation.The loss of this enzyme leaves the cell terminal open to damage from oxidative stress. This is most likely the reason for serotonergic cell terminal damage seen with MDMA abuse and the most likely explanation for the long-term seroternergic damage. "Pre-treatment with a serotonin reuptake inhibitor, such as paroxetine (Paxil ®), fluoxetine (Prozac ®), sertraline (Zoloft ®) [and escitalopram = Lexapro] blocks the effects of MDMA. This is probably a competitive event at the serotonin reuptake transporter binding site. Additionally, treatment within one hour of MDMA ingestion with a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor blocks the loss of tryptophan hydroxylase (TPH), and potentially reduces the nerve terminal damage." ------------- EDITORIAL I don't know if medication is the answer for you, but I don't know of a better one, though plenty of people are glad to tell you any nonsense that occurs to them or that they hope is true. I'm a physician, but I'm not an authority on this subject - just trying to help with what I do know. Geodon is a little more problematic than Lexapro. It is an atypical antipsychotic, a newer class of medication than the SSRI, and one associated with weight gain and glucose intolerance (a tendency toward diabetes). Personally, I'm suspicious of any drug that the (American) FDA approves or has approved in the last several years - a paranoia of my own due to my feelings that the pharmaceutical industry is happy to use us as guinea pigs and that the government appears willing to help them release drugs prematurely, bury damning data and falsify the results of studies. Although I don't have much experience with it and therefore have no reason to have confidence in it yet, it sounds like the Geodon helped you, however, and that says a lot. I think that if you have disabling psychological problems, you have to be willing to consider facing the risks of the drugs since there are risks and costs in doing nothing. Incidentally, this kind of thinking affects all of my decisions about prescribing drugs. I just don't trust who’s making them nor who's supervising that process, but I don't think that I should let those fears paralyze me and cause me to cause my patients to miss out from their benefits either, so I prescribe (including to myself) many such drugs with my fingers crossed. After all, I don't thik that the pharmaceutical companies are trying to hurt us, just that they are willing to do so if it turns out that despite their best efforts to be helpful and after spending hundreds of millions of dollars to get a drug to market it turns out that there was an unseen harm. You have to judge for yourself which risk you'd rather take: treatment or nontreatment. If the results seem beneficial, at least you're getting something for your efforts."

gir.rules replied: "I take Lexapro and it helps me calm down alot, because i'm always full of energy. However, different medicines affectd different people in different ways."