has anyone used beta blockers for anxiety

[Ethansmom 39]

I Took propanopolol last month. I tried it. It really helped the physical symptoms of anxiety
but gave me tension headaches that lasted 9 days and a few days after stopping the medicine. Has this happened to anyone before? I'd like to give this med another go
but cannot work or live with daily headaches. It was a tension headache and I could feel it as I pressed above my eyebrows.

[bin_tenn 1252]

Did you stop on your own accord, or did you discuss with your doc first? Also, are you positive the med caused the headaches? I'm no expert, but as far as I know, beta blockers don't usually cause headaches as a side effect. Propranolol is sometimes used to treat severe migraines.

I have taken a beta blocker for two and a half years, and I've never felt better. The physical symptoms of anxiety are fewer in number and lesser in severity - namely the palpitations.

[Smalm 3]

Yes. My doctor put me on Atenolol 25mg a year ago as a pill to take when I am having a panic attack. It helps slow my heart rate and blood pressure. I take it basically everyday to lower my heart rate because if I check my pulse and it is over 100... I will go into a hypochondriac frenzy. I prevent the anxiety attack to take it before it happens to calm my nerves. It helps a lot. I get dizzy like 1 time a month. The trade off of no panic attack over my BPM or anything is nice. I find it so worth it. It seems to make it harder for me to have a panic attack bc of my heart which then spirals into "I am dying of A, B, C, etc" snowball. So it helps more then I can put into words. I love it! 

[bin_tenn 1252]

21 hours ago, Smalm said:

Yes. My doctor put me on Atenolol 25mg a year ago as a pill to take when I am having a panic attack. It helps slow my heart rate and blood pressure. I take it basically everyday to lower my heart rate because if I check my pulse and it is over 100... I will go into a hypochondriac frenzy. I prevent the anxiety attack to take it before it happens to calm my nerves. It helps a lot. I get dizzy like 1 time a month. The trade off of no panic attack over my BPM or anything is nice. I find it so worth it. It seems to make it harder for me to have a panic attack bc of my heart which then spirals into "I am dying of A, B, C, etc" snowball. So it helps more then I can put into words. I love it! 

That's what I take as well. If you're an hour or two later compared to the time you normally take it, do you feel like your heart is going to beat out of your chest? Just curious.

[Smalm 3]

33 minutes ago, bin_tenn said:

That's what I take as well. If you're an hour or two later compared to the time you normally take it, do you feel like your heart is going to beat out of your chest? Just curious.

I do. I try to take it at around 9pm each day. I find that my  heart rate after just walking around the house is from 100-130. I find that it is so fast that I get shaky because it is beating too darn fast. Even on days of no caffiene my heart beat is so high. So yes, in short I feel like it will beat so fast that it will pop out of my chest and fall on the floor still beating. Lol. 

[Cowboymo 8]

I’m on proponolol 10mg once a day and it isn’t really helping /:

[Ruu 39]

I've just been out on Propranolol, not much, 10mg, 3 times a day. It seems to have some effect, but im not sure if it's just a placebo.

[Dibbles 0]

I moved from Propranolol to Bisoprolol and it made a real difference for me. Ectopic beats, palpitations, racing heart and increased BP all seemed to be controlled much better.

Propranolol just did not have the same results for me.

Does give me cold fingers and make me a little loose on the toilet but I haven't found a tablet yet which, when taking each day long terms, doesn't have some side effects.

[Nutmegbella 91]

On 11/9/2017 at 7:52 PM, Smalm said:

I do. I try to take it at around 9pm each day. I find that my  heart rate after just walking around the house is from 100-130. I find that it is so fast that I get shaky because it is beating too darn fast. Even on days of no caffiene my heart beat is so high. So yes, in short I feel like it will beat so fast that it will pop out of my chest and fall on the floor still beating. Lol. 

Reading your comment. You said that your heart rate is at 100-130 when standing and walking around. I was told this is a normal range when you go from sitting to standing and then it stays around there when up and about. Heck depending on how your body even 180 can be your norm. I was told 135 is a good area to be in when exerciseing. But I don’t get a good workout until I reach 180. My brothers need to reach 200. But it seems that’s our “normal” 

I was told by my cardiologist. That atenolol is given a lot to hypochondriacs just for peace of mind but that they do cause some side effects that aren’t nice to a hypochondriac. Like missing a dose you will feel your heart rate shoots up. My cardiologist explained that by saying atenolol acts like body guard holding you back from you trying to attack someone : the moment you miss your dose, it’s like if the body looses his grip and your let go into a running sprint. 

everytime I start freaking out about that my heart rate is to fast I try to remember this. And sure enough my heart rate slows down. I think more then not if we really do focus on it. In reality we get anxious thinking about checking our heart rate and when we do it’s what shoots it a good 20-ish beats per minute.

 

 

[bin_tenn 1252]

12 hours ago, Nutmegbella said:

Reading your comment. You said that your heart rate is at 100-130 when standing and walking around. I was told this is a normal range when you go from sitting to standing and then it stays around there when up and about. Heck depending on how your body even 180 can be your norm. I was told 135 is a good area to be in when exerciseing. But I don’t get a good workout until I reach 180. My brothers need to reach 200. But it seems that’s our “normal” 

I was told by my cardiologist. That atenolol is given a lot to hypochondriacs just for peace of mind but that they do cause some side effects that aren’t nice to a hypochondriac. Like missing a dose you will feel your heart rate shoots up. My cardiologist explained that by saying atenolol acts like body guard holding you back from you trying to attack someone : the moment you miss your dose, it’s like if the body looses his grip and your let go into a running sprint. 

everytime I start freaking out about that my heart rate is to fast I try to remember this. And sure enough my heart rate slows down. I think more then not if we really do focus on it. In reality we get anxious thinking about checking our heart rate and when we do it’s what shoots it a good 20-ish beats per minute.

 

 

It's nice to know that someone has confirmed this with a cardiologist. I *never* felt some of my symptoms (when missing a dose of Atenolol) until I started taking it. If I miss a dose, yes, I feel awful! Heart rate goes up, feel generally crappy. I asked a cardiologist about it once, but he seemed to virtually ignore the question. Although I took it more as "he probably thinks it's normal so no need to discuss", I would've felt better had he actually addressed the question directly and explained that it's simply a side effect of the med/missing a dose, rather than it feeling like "holy crap, my body needs meds or my heart may go into a dangerous state." Oh well. I accepted it a good while ago and I'm fine now, but thank you for sharing that experience.

[Nutmegbella 91]

8 hours ago, bin_tenn said:

It's nice to know that someone has confirmed this with a cardiologist. I *never* felt some of my symptoms (when missing a dose of Atenolol) until I started taking it. If I miss a dose, yes, I feel awful! Heart rate goes up, feel generally crappy. I asked a cardiologist about it once, but he seemed to virtually ignore the question. Although I took it more as "he probably thinks it's normal so no need to discuss", I would've felt better had he actually addressed the question directly and explained that it's simply a side effect of the med/missing a dose, rather than it feeling like "holy crap, my body needs meds or my heart may go into a dangerous state." Oh well. I accepted it a good while ago and I'm fine now, but thank you for sharing that experience.

I’m glad it helped you out.

The cardiologist was very kind and patient. Really tried to explain how the heart works on these meds. And I don’t remember but it was I believe my GP who gave me like a five day supply until I can see the cardiologist and when I got there and got the clean bill of health he explained that the atenolol does have some cons to it. 

[bin_tenn 1252]

3 hours ago, Nutmegbella said:

I’m glad it helped you out.

The cardiologist was very kind and patient. Really tried to explain how the heart works on these meds. And I don’t remember but it was I believe my GP who gave me like a five day supply until I can see the cardiologist and when I got there and got the clean bill of health he explained that the atenolol does have some cons to it. 

Makes sense. I do think it's better if I take it, since my BP prior to starting it was consistently elevated (somewhat mild, but still elevated) and the BB has kept it down. I just wish I didn't have to take it, because if I'm just a couple hours late taking it (e.g. I sleep in) I feel awful until about 20min after I finally take it. Haha. No biggie though, I still feel better overall than before I started it.

[Ethansmom 39]

 Do you find that in general is makes you less anxious throughout the day? I see my doc on wed and will ask her about trying this or a different t brand again. My goal is to get rid of the physical symptoms of anxiety while I work I CBT to correct the mental ones. I want to get off Klonopin, and the doctor said beta blockers can help with that. I'm not sure If my headache was even caused by the beta blockers.... The headache continues a few days after I stopped it.  I am just so worried the beta blocker will cause my heart rate and blood pressure to go to low and my heart will stop! That's the hypo in me. I did see my heart rate dip into the high 50's while on it..... Although that's happened before without the meds! Thoughts anyone? Should I give it a go? Thanks for all of your posts... They've helped a lot.

[Cowboymo 8]

4 hours ago, Ethansmom said:

 Do you find that in general is makes you less anxious throughout the day? I see my doc on wed and will ask her about trying this or a different t brand again. My goal is to get rid of the physical symptoms of anxiety while I work I CBT to correct the mental ones. I want to get off Klonopin, and the doctor said beta blockers can help with that. I'm not sure If my headache was even caused by the beta blockers.... The headache continues a few days after I stopped it.  I am just so worried the beta blocker will cause my heart rate and blood pressure to go to low and my heart will stop! That's the hypo in me. I did see my heart rate dip into the high 50's while on it..... Although that's happened before without the meds! Thoughts anyone? Should I give it a go? Thanks for all of your posts... They've helped a lot.

Thts my fear and I wanna use beta blockers to get off Paxil 

[Nutmegbella 91]

Putting a bandaid on the symptoms won’t help CBT. 

Thats what I was told.

you need to feel those symptoms and deal with them head on. Unless one of your anxiety symptoms is high blood pressure. You should ask to see what you don’t really need and go from there deal with those symptoms. They feel super horrible I know. But I know now that sometimes it’s just something simple as gas. Or your own anxiety that makes a little symptom much worse than it really is. 

Blood pressure is always going up or down. Being active your BpM can get as low as 40 with no issues. Did you tell your doctor about your 50 bpm drop?

 

 

[MARC 431]

I have been on Propranolol 80mg LA for 11 years with no real side effects except maybe vivid dreams and some of my dreams I wish were real ?

[bin_tenn 1252]

19 minutes ago, MARC said:

I have been on Propranolol 80mg LA for 11 years with no real side effects except maybe vivid dreams and some of my dreams I wish were real ?

LoL. I've heard that can happen.

[Smalm 3]

My experience with Atenolol was at first a "Why the heck was I given this?" Because I feared that my heartrate would drop very low. I woke up one day as a really bad anxious wreck. I was shaking with anxiety so violently that my muscles were sore. I decided to try the pill Atenolol 25mg and so I took one down with water and went on a walk. Within an hour I was very suprised, my "I am anxious" shaking had stopped and I forgot what I was anxious about and my heartrate went down 30 bpm to a "I feel safe/no anxiety" range for me I was able to read a book and fall asleep hone alone, which I am never able to do. I find it helps because for me my heartrate (bpm) can drive me into more of an anxious downward spiral. It affects all differantly and is generally safe. It helps chill me out and I rarley take it now. It is just as needed because my anxiety level is differant every day and night.  

[Nutmegbella 91]

On 11/25/2017 at 6:14 AM, bin_tenn said:

Makes sense. I do think it's better if I take it, since my BP prior to starting it was consistently elevated (somewhat mild, but still elevated) and the BB has kept it down. I just wish I didn't have to take it, because if I'm just a couple hours late taking it (e.g. I sleep in) I feel awful until about 20min after I finally take it. Haha. No biggie though, I still feel better overall than before I started it.

It applies more if you are a confirmed anxiety case. If it’s like your case that you actually have a medical reason to be taking it. Then yeah you keep doing what the doctor said. But Ethansmom is saying she wants to control the symptoms of anxiety and taking atenolol is one of her actions. Then maybe getting off the meds is more for her, if these symptoms are causing her more anxiety. Of course she has to ask her doctor about coming off of it. My cardiologist and an ER doctor had said atenolol for anxiety is just covering up your anxiety symptoms.

 

[Dibbles 0]

As BP was becoming a bigger issue for me as I grew older the role of a beta blocker to help to control that has worked really well. It has also reduced the number of times that I am aware of a racing heart, ectopic beats, which in turn would begin a cycle of increasing anxiety.

My doctor prescribed propranolol but my cardiologist, after running lots of tests, changed that to Bisoprolol.

The Bisoprolol are effective for my BP and as they also mask some of the physical manifestations of anxiety I consider that a bonus.

This morning I go for another follow up to my Mindfulness based CBT sessions.

 

[bin_tenn 1252]

5 hours ago, Nutmegbella said:

It applies more if you are a confirmed anxiety case. If it’s like your case that you actually have a medical reason to be taking it. Then yeah you keep doing what the doctor said. But Ethansmom is saying she wants to control the symptoms of anxiety and taking atenolol is one of her actions. Then maybe getting off the meds is more for her, if these symptoms are causing her more anxiety. Of course she has to ask her doctor about coming off of it. My cardiologist and an ER doctor had said atenolol for anxiety is just covering up your anxiety symptoms.

 

Indeed, I don't disagree at all! 

[Ethansmom 39]

Thanks you all for responding and for your insight. I think Bin, you had asked if i stopped the prop on my own. No, the doctor had me stop since i was complaining of headaches. I only took it for 9 days. I guess my issue is two part-- first, i take Lexepro which I feel isn't doing much as far as helping me be positive, and think differently. I do have some depression and lots of anxiety!  2nd- i take klonopin daily to help with the anxiety part. It helps, but it gives me more of a flat feeling. It doesn't calm my mind, but does help calm my body a bit. I really want to start withdrawing from that, but the doctor (and I )feel my depression and anxiety is not controlled yet.    It may be time for a medication overhaul.  I know meds are only one part of it. If i had the mental strength to do it on my own, i would. I do exercise daily by taking walks.  I try to meditate when i have time--not easy to do with a 6 year old who needs my attention  schoolwork, packing a lunch, laundry, you know.. all that fun stuff    I do see my psychiatrist on Wednesday and plan to explain this to her. Maybe she has some suggestions. I'm just scared of trying any other sort of medicine that may cause me to feel more anxious. I guess i'm overthinking this.

 

 

[MARC 431]

My physician once told me that since I am on Propranolol, I have a better chance of surviving a heart attack.

[bin_tenn 1252]

2 hours ago, Ethansmom said:

Thanks you all for responding and for your insight. I think Bin, you had asked if i stopped the prop on my own. No, the doctor had me stop since i was complaining of headaches. I only took it for 9 days. I guess my issue is two part-- first, i take Lexepro which I feel isn't doing much as far as helping me be positive, and think differently. I do have some depression and lots of anxiety!  2nd- i take klonopin daily to help with the anxiety part. It helps, but it gives me more of a flat feeling. It doesn't calm my mind, but does help calm my body a bit. I really want to start withdrawing from that, but the doctor (and I )feel my depression and anxiety is not controlled yet.    It may be time for a medication overhaul.  I know meds are only one part of it. If i had the mental strength to do it on my own, i would. I do exercise daily by taking walks.  I try to meditate when i have time--not easy to do with a 6 year old who needs my attention  schoolwork, packing a lunch, laundry, you know.. all that fun stuff    I do see my psychiatrist on Wednesday and plan to explain this to her. Maybe she has some suggestions. I'm just scared of trying any other sort of medicine that may cause me to feel more anxious. I guess i'm overthinking this.

 

 

It is definitely not easy when you have a young, energetic child (or four, in my case). Haha. I was just making sure that was also okay with your doc. Probably not a huge deal if you stopped on your own, but the doc should have part in the decision, IMO. I know I can't help a whole lot, aside from offering my own experiences, but I do hope you find a better route and feel well sooner rather than later.

[lofwyr 215]

I have an aortic aneurysm that was diagnosed in July. The put me on metoprolol right away to keep my normal bp extra low.  I did notice my heart rate, even when anxious, rarely breaks 70 bpm, but to be honest I have spent most of my life avoiding meds for anxiety, even when offered. Aside from excercise and eating well, and trying to sleep well, I have only used CBT,  and was told something similar about not fearing the symptoms, but allowing myself to recognize they are anxiety and nothing more. It has been a huge help.

As an aside, my heart palps from anxiety are what led me to get an echo which is what caught my bicuspid valve and aortic aneurysm. Ironically, even though the palp had no relationship to the aneurysm, it led to me catching it before it dissected. In a weird way, I owe my life to my anxiety.