Will Fluoxetine (Prozac) help my panic attacks and anxiety?

[midnightmoon8]

I'm about to separate from my DH and am having terrible panicky thoughts, racing heart, and anxiety. I've just started taking Fluoxetine but am only on day 4 and it hasn't kicked in yet. Will it? Will this get better? I feel tearful, sad and very alone :-(

It's a rotten position to be in, but yes it will help. Perhaps though you need to go back to the GP and ask for something like Propanalol ( a beta blocker) to use until it kicks in.
I hope you feel better soon. [flowers

damn!

Fluoxetine takes several weeks to make a real difference; it has to build up in the body. Then it should help. It has helped two of my daughters enormously.

I hope you feel better soon.

I was on Propanalol (for my racing heart) and Fluoxetine (for generalised anxiety disorder). It took a while for Fluoxetine to start working and I had awful headaches for the first week (you can't take ibuprofen), but once I was over that, I was fine.

Off them now, doing okay. Focusing on CBT and trying to catch myself before escalating into OCD anxiety thoughts. Understanding myself better has also helped, it's a bit of a mix of things to help I think.

I find it takes about 2 weeks to work, the first two weeks can be hard to get through but try to stick with it, I felt very anxious and restless and found getting out for a long walk and keeping myself busy helped a lot, also avoided coffee. I really wouldn’t be without it now, I think I’ll probably stay on a low dose of it for life.

It helped me hugely. Took about 10 days to notice I wasn’t crying all the time or in rigid fear. The doc prescribed me Valium to get me through the first couple of weeks.