Paxil for Anxiety

 Paxil^® (paroxetine hydrochloride) is a prescription medication approved to treat several conditions affecting the brain, including certain types of anxiety. Specifically, Paxil is approved to treat social anxiety disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. Social anxiety disorder, also called social phobia, is a disorder characterized by overwhelming anxiety and excessive self-consciousness in everyday social situations. Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is much more than the normal anxiety people experience day to day. It's chronic and fills one's day with exaggerated worry and tension, even though there is little or nothing to provoke it.

 

In studies using Paxil for social anxiety treatment, up to 77 percent of adults showed improvement while taking Paxil, compared to only 42 percent of those not taking it. Studies have also shown that more people with generalized anxiety disorder taking Paxil have more improvement in their anxiety symptoms, compared to people not taking it. Also, long-term studies have shown that Paxil can help prevent relapse (when anxiety comes back).