3 ms·

In your experience taking this drug, does propranolol have any effect on 'pre-programmed maladaptive heuristics'?

• spangry 11y ago
  I'm not 100% sure. I think so, possibly in the same way that exposure therapy can be helpful. On rare occasions when I've forgotten to take my propranolol dose, I think I experienced less severe panic reactions to provoking stimuli compared to in the past. This might be due to higher levels of 'exposure' when taking propranolol without a concurrent onset of panic symptoms, leading to a partial reversal of 'fear conditioning' (perhaps better characterised as 're-conditioning'?) In my case I've found it to be very effective at treating the symptoms of my panic disorder, which are mostly physical/autonomic nervous system mediated. I think beta-blockers wouldn't be as effective for anxiety disorders where the symptoms are mostly 'mental' (e.g. catastrophic thinking, irrational anxious beliefs etc.). tl;dr - Propranolol is great for 'physical' anxiety, possibly not as effective for 'mental' anxiety
  • taurath 11y ago
    Wonderful description - thank you very much. Sounds very promising as a treatment for post-CBT resistant anxiety, which is a simple word for what I have. I can feel a physical fear response coming on and a large drain in my willpower resources based on very small stimuli that aren't cognatively fear-inducing. Sounds like this could help calm my overactive fight or flight system - its been on my list to try for a long while.