Hi Bluebutterfly.
I take Benadryl =Acrivastine. You can take up to 3 per day. They're not supposed to make you drowsy
but they make me sleep well, I take at night, about an hour before bed, and I do seem to sleep well all the time after I've taken one. If my anxiety is really bad like it was the other day, I found I needed to take 2. And although it did make me feel tired in the day time, I seem to get through that, which to be honest I'd rather fight than this bloody anxiety. I do only take one when I feel the symptoms coming on, and that seems to be enough to get rid of it for sometimes up to a week, other times, only a couple of days. It depends how bad the ‘attack' is. If you know what I mean.
I've took the other antihistamine, Cetrazine, (don't know if that's correct spelling) and they made me that tired, I couldn't function. So the Acrivastine are better for me. I'd rather manage it with these, than go on drugs from the doctors.
I too, would be able to manage with everything else if this flipping anxiety was gone. It is THE most horrifying , unsettling, craziest thing I've ever had to deal with. And although I try to explain to my OH about how it makes me feel, no one can understand unless they've been through it themselves.
My anxiety came out the blue on Friday,after having quite a nice settled period, where I felt pretty damn good, started off feeling like trapped wind around my middle, but I didn't take any notice, then the breathing thing started, and by Friday night, it was really bad, so I took an antihistamine at bed time, got up next morning, it was still there, a little, so took another one, by Sunday, it was only there lurking in the background, took another one Sunday evening, now today, it's completely gone. I'm back to normal, for how long, is anyone's guess, but that's how I manage it....
A lot of people take antihistamines for anxiety, as you've probably read, a lot of people take them as a sleeping aid too, apparently that's what's in Night Nurse and stuff like that. You can only try and see,
I only stumbled across it because my consultant at the hospital for my liver condition (auto immune disease) prescribed antihistamines for my itching that I had at that time, and found when I took one which were fexofenadine, it took away my anxiety. So after being Sherlock Holmes I found out people took them all the time for it, so that's what I do...(my itching has stopped now, so don't get anymore from hospital, which did make me too hung over anyway) ...
Sorry, should have said, sometimes I get a headache after I've took them, like in the morning when I get up, but hey ho, I get headaches anyway.....