Overload
Anti-anxiety drugs
Category: Medicines
Type
Involuntary
Introduction and description

Anti-anxiety drugs are used to treat anxiety!
Initially, when we created this entry we found only a few drugs classified under this heading, but since then a whole rash of drugs have been relabelled and placed in this category, as such we have added to this description, using the statistics collected from the eHealthme web site.
This site collects adverse drug reports submitted by doctors themselves to the FDA and SEDA [USA only] and then summarises them under the drug headings; as such we can use their results to get data on actual side-effects as opposed to the side-effects stated on the packets, and we can look in more detail at the spiritual experiences - both hallucinations and deaths [the ultimate spiritual experience].
Side effects

We will take a few drugs at random and look at the actual side effects recorded by doctors. Again these figures are from eHealthme:
Most common Bamate side effects:
- Drug Toxicity in Bamate (176 reports)
- Accidental Overdose (therapeutic Agent) in Bamate (165 reports)
- Completed Suicide in Bamate (120 reports)
- Multiple Drug Overdose in Bamate (104 reports)
- Overdose in Bamate (103 reports)
- Drug Abuse And Dependence in Bamate (80 reports)
- Fever in Bamate (73 reports)
- Pulmonary Oedema in Bamate (70 reports)
- Cardiac Arrest in Bamate (69 reports)
Most common Buspar side effects:
- Nausea in Buspar (917 reports)
- Depression in Buspar (762 reports)
- Stress And Anxiety in Buspar (757 reports)
- Fatigue in Buspar (696 reports)
- Drug Ineffective in Buspar (640 reports)

Most common Clonidine side effects:
- High Blood Pressure in Clonidine (1,080 reports)
- Pain in Clonidine (1,072 reports)
- Breathing Difficulty in Clonidine (822 reports)
- Stress And Anxiety in Clonidine (800 reports)
- Weakness in Clonidine (754 reports)
- Nausea in Clonidine (734 reports)
Most common Cymbalta side effects:
- Nausea in Cymbalta (4,239 reports)
- Dizziness in Cymbalta (3,409 reports)
- Fatigue in Cymbalta (3,282 reports)
- Pain in Cymbalta (3,179 reports)
- Depression in Cymbalta (2,911 reports)
- Stress And Anxiety in Cymbalta (2,870 reports)
- Headache in Cymbalta (2,857 reports)
- Insomnia in Cymbalta (2,495 reports)
- Drug Ineffective in Cymbalta (2,344 reports)
Most common Duloxetine hydrochloride side effects:
- Completed Suicide in Duloxetine hydrochloride (141 reports)
- Nausea in Duloxetine hydrochloride (108 reports)

Most common Hydroxyzine side effects:
- Nausea in Hydroxyzine (684 reports)
- Pain in Hydroxyzine (592 reports)
- Stress And Anxiety in Hydroxyzine (577 reports)
- Fatigue in Hydroxyzine (572 reports)
- Nausea And Vomiting in Hydroxyzine (554 reports)
- Breathing Difficulty in Hydroxyzine (533 reports)
- Diarrhea in Hydroxyzine (511 reports)
Most common Vistaril side effects:
- Nausea in Vistaril (414 reports)
- Stress And Anxiety in Vistaril (400 reports)
Most common Parnate side effects:
- Drug Ineffective in Parnate (84 reports)
- Depression in Parnate (67 reports)
- Headache in Parnate (53 reports)
Most common Pramine side effects:
- Depression in Pramine (281 reports)
- Nausea in Pramine (256 reports)
- Stress And Anxiety in Pramine (244 reports)
- Drug Ineffective in Pramine (176 reports)

Most common Pregabalin side effects:
- Completed Suicide in Pregabalin (298 reports)
Most common Remeron side effects:
- Depression in Remeron (1,068 reports)
- Nausea in Remeron (997 reports)
- Stress And Anxiety in Remeron (991 reports)
Most common Restoril side effects:
- Stress And Anxiety in Restoril (930 reports)
- Pain in Restoril (895 reports)
Most common Zoloft side effects:
- Stress And Anxiety in Zoloft (5,798 reports)
- Nausea in Zoloft (5,431 reports)
- Depression in Zoloft (4,875 reports)
- Drug Ineffective in Zoloft (4,056 reports)
Most common Effexor side effects:
- Nausea in Effexor (4,448 reports)
- Drug Withdrawal Syndrome in Effexor (4,355 reports)
- Stress And Anxiety in Effexor (4,135 reports)
- Depression in Effexor (3,880 reports)
- Drug Ineffective in Effexor (2,533 reports)

Nausea is usually a sign of poisoning as is diarrhoea.
Age profiles
One of the strangest thing to emerge from the ehealthme ADR statistics is how young the people are who are being prescribed these drugs. if we look at a sample of the people to die from them and their ages, we find there are people under one years old who have been given them, children between the ages of 2 and 7 and teenagers - very young children between the ages of 10 and 19.
Age of people who have Death when taking Remeron :
0-1 | 2-9 | 10-19 | 20-29 | 30-39 | 40-49 | 50-59 | 60+ | |
Death | 0.45% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 1.34% | 18.75% | 14.73% | 13.84% | 50.89% |
Age of people who have Death when taking Buspar :
0-1 | 2-9 | 10-19 | 20-29 | 30-39 | 40-49 | 50-59 | 60+ | |
Death | 0.00% | 0.00% | 2.22% | 2.22% | 11.11% | 26.67% | 25.56% | 32.22% |
Age of people who have Death when taking Cymbalta :
0-1 | 2-9 | 10-19 | 20-29 | 30-39 | 40-49 | 50-59 | 60+ | |
Death | 0.50% | 0.00% | 1.01% | 4.70% | 14.60% | 12.92% | 21.31% | 44.97% |
Age of people who have Death when taking Atarax :
0-1 | 2-9 | 10-19 | 20-29 | 30-39 | 40-49 | 50-59 | 60+ | |
Death | 1.87% | 0.93% | 0.00% | 1.87% | 14.95% | 14.95% | 8.41% | 57.01% |
Age of people who have Death when taking Pregabalin :
0-1 | 2-9 | 10-19 | 20-29 | 30-39 | 40-49 | 50-59 | 60+ | |
Death | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.76% | 6.06% | 6.06% | 25.76% | 25.76% | 35.61% |
Age of people who have Death when taking Zoloft :
0-1 | 2-9 | 10-19 | 20-29 | 30-39 | 40-49 | 50-59 | 60+ | |
Death | 0.28% | 0.00% | 1.38% | 3.16% | 4.95% | 11.55% | 18.43% | 60.25% |
I will admit to never having met an anxious baby or an anxious 5 year old. On the whole they have been quite carefree and happy little souls, who cry when things are maybe not going their way, or they are not being treated properly, but on the whole are relatively easily pleased.
There are a few teenagers I have met who are indeed anxious, but they are anxious because of the hoops they are being made to go through by their parents, or their schools or just society in general and the obvious cure is to remove the hoops.
Deaths

The ehealthme website records deaths in different ways. It keeps suicides separate from deaths and divides them into successful and unsuccessful, with the definition of a successful suicide as one which caused the death of the person [not the definition I would have used, but then this is the medical profession]. In order to give a more complete picture we have listed the deaths here, but also added extra columns to the hallucination chart below to cover suicides. Using the results from eHealthme
- Bamate - On Mar, 11, 2016: 1,510 people reported to have side effects when taking Bamate. Among them, 53 people (3.51%) have Death
- Equanil - On Feb, 20, 2016: 1,192 people reported to have side effects when taking Equanil. Among them, 37 people (3.10%) have Death
- Meprobamate - On Mar, 1, 2016: 1,508 people reported to have side effects when taking Meprobamate. Among them, 53 people (3.51%) have Death
- Buspar - On Feb, 11, 2016: 10,179 people reported to have side effects when taking Buspar. Among them, 113 people (1.11%) have Death
- Buspirone hcl - On Mar, 11, 2016: 2,409 people reported to have side effects when taking Buspirone hcl. Among them, 32 people (1.33%) have Death
- Buspirone - On Feb, 19, 2016: 678 people reported to have side effects when taking Buspirone hydrochloride. Among them, 7 people (1.03%) have Death
- Clonidine - On Mar, 9, 2016: 9,281 people reported to have side effects when taking Clonidine. Among them, 357 people (3.85%) have Death
- Clonidine hcl - On Feb, 11, 2016: 1,044 people reported to have side effects when taking Clonidine hydrochloride. Among them, 11 people (1.05%) have Death
- Catapres - On Mar, 11, 2016: 1,968 people reported to have side effects when taking Catapres. Among them, 13 people (0.66%) have Death
- Cymbalta - On Mar, 5, 2016: 45,931 people reported to have side effects when taking Cymbalta. Among them, 670 people (1.46%) have Death
- Duloxetine - On Mar, 11, 2016: 2,044 people reported to have side effects when taking Duloxetine hydrochloride. Among them, 67 people (3.28%) have Death
- Fluvoxamine - On Mar, 11, 2016: 2,528 people reported to have side effects when taking Fluvoxamine maleate. Among them, 29 people (1.15%) have Death
- Luvox - On Mar, 6, 2016: 7,019 people reported to have side effects when taking Luvox. Among them, 61 people (0.87%) have Death
- Hydroxyzine - On Mar, 6, 2016: 8,515 people reported to have side effects when taking Hydroxyzine. Among them, 212 people (2.49%) have Death
- Hydroxyzine hcl - On Feb, 16, 2016: 1,141 people reported to have side effects when taking Hydroxyzine hydrochloride. Among them, 23 people (2.02%) have Death
- Hydroxyzine pamoate - On Feb, 15, 2016: 822 people reported to have side effects when taking Hydroxyzine pamoate. Among them, 19 people (2.31%) have Death
- Vistaril - On Feb, 14, 2016: 4,036 people reported to have side effects when taking Vistaril. Among them, 53 people (1.31%) have Death
- Atarax - On Feb, 15, 2016: 10,629 people reported to have side effects when taking Atarax. Among them, 131 people (1.23%) have Death
- Minipress - On Mar, 6, 2016: 1,229 people reported to have side effects when taking Minipress. Among them, 11 people (0.90%) have Death
- Cesamet - On Mar, 9, 2016: 128 people reported to have side effects when taking Cesamet. Among them, 3 people (2.34%) have Death
- Nardil - On Mar, 11, 2016: 1,526 people reported to have side effects when taking Nardil. Among them, 2 people (0.13%) have Death
- Onfi - On Mar, 11, 2016: 182 people reported to have side effects when taking Onfi. Among them, 2 people (1.10%) have Death
- Parnate - On Mar, 5, 2016: 737 people reported to have side effects when taking Parnate. Among them, 4 people (0.54%) have Death
- Tranylcypromine sulfate - On Mar, 11, 2016: 119 people reported to have side effects when taking Tranylcypromine sulfate. Among them, 1 people (0.84%) has Death
- Pramine - On Mar, 11, 2016: 3,465 people reported to have side effects when taking Pramine. Among them, 71 people (2.05%) have Death
- Imipramine - On Mar, 3, 2016: 280 people reported to have side effects when taking Imipramine hydrochloride. Among them, 1 people (0.36%) has Death
- Tofranil - On Mar, 7, 2016: 1,344 people reported to have side effects when taking Tofranil. Among them, 15 people (1.12%) have Death
- Precedex - On Mar, 11, 2016: 386 people reported to have side effects when taking Precedex. Among them, 15 people (3.89%) have Death
- Dexmedetomidine hydrochloride - On Mar, 11, 2016: 123 people reported to have side effects when taking Dexmedetomidine hydrochloride. Among them, 4 people (3.25%) have Death
- Pregabalin - On Mar, 2, 2016: 4,439 people reported to have side effects when taking Pregabalin. Among them, 146 people (3.29%) have Death
- Remeron - On Feb, 23, 2016: 12,168 people reported to have side effects when taking Remeron. Among them, 270 people (2.22%) have Death
- Restoril - On Feb, 15, 2016: 7,300 people reported to have side effects when taking Restoril. Among them, 185 people (2.53%) have Death
- Sertraline - On Feb, 26, 2016: 24,795 people reported to have side effects when taking Sertraline. Among them, 473 people (1.91%) have Death
- Sertraline hcl - On Mar, 11, 2016: 10,758 people reported to have side effects when taking Sertraline hydrochloride. Among them, 231 people (2.15%) have Death
- Zoloft - On Feb, 15, 2016: 74,193 people reported to have side effects when taking Zoloft. Among them, 1,178 people (1.59%) have Death
- Trileptal - On Feb, 22, 2016: 11,199 people reported to have side effects when taking Trileptal. Among them, 208 people (1.86%) have Death
- Trimeprazine - On Feb, 13, 2016: 328 people reported to have side effects when taking Trimeprazine tartrate. Among them, 16 people (4.88%) have Death
- Venlafaxine - On Mar, 11, 2016: 3,038 people reported to have side effects when taking Venlafaxine hydrochloride. Among them, 27 people (0.89%) have Death
- Effexor - On Feb, 13, 2016: 52,461 people reported to have side effects when taking Effexor. Among them, 593 people (1.13%) have Death
- Effexor xr - On Mar, 9, 2016: 20,544 people reported to have side effects when taking Effexor xr. Among them, 189 people (0.92%) have Death
Totals
Using the figures above, which were obtained from the statistics gathered by the eHealthme web site, which were themselves obtained from the Adverse drug reports submitted by doctors to the FDA and SEDA, the following totals are obtained.
These totals are only for the USA and thus exclude the rest of the world, and are only doctor submitted. The figures for suicides and failed suicides are also separate from these totals. These figures are shown below with the observations. The figures apply to March 2016.
Total number of deaths = 5,483
Total number of people with adverse effects = 337,886
How it works

People who are anxious do not need drugs. How it works to give someone hallucinations depends a lot on the drug itself, but ultimately this is poisoning - overdose of a toxic substance.
References and further reading
Observations
The following figures are all from eHealthme. We have used figures from March 2016, in order that they all apply to the same date - the observations may show different figures because they were obtained several months [or years ] ago.
The LINK takes you to the eHealthme web site and the side effects section for each drug, so that you can obtain both an up-to-date set of figures, but also so that you are able to see all the side effects of these drugs.
Drug |
No of hallucinations |
Completed suicides |
Unsuccessful suicides |
10 |
120 |
48 |
|
9 |
7 |
33 |
|
8 |
120 |
48 |
|
80 |
94 |
191 |
|
25 |
160 |
56 |
|
Buspirone hcl |
5 |
8 |
5 |
84 |
214 |
72 |
|
Clonidine hcl |
4 |
1 |
4 |
10 |
2 |
4 |
|
639 |
349 |
796 |
|
20 |
141 |
35 |
|
36 |
145 |
208 |
|
135 |
348 |
103 |
|
Hydroxyzine hcl |
9 |
27 |
20 |
Hydroxyzine pamoate |
7 |
44 |
10 |
96 |
22 |
114 |
|
1 |
1 |
4 |
|
2 |
3 |
- |
|
6 |
5 |
- |
|
4 |
1 |
- |
|
8 |
3 |
27 |
|
1 |
- |
- |
|
6 |
10 |
13 |
|
2 |
15 |
1 |
|
Pramine/Imipramine |
59/1 |
146/10 |
53/16 |
24 |
40 |
54 |
|
1 |
- |
- |
|
37 |
298 |
55 |
|
221 |
252 |
395 |
|
138 |
80 |
138 |
|
180 |
718 |
376 |
|
Sertraline hcl |
91 |
196 |
142 |
957 |
632 |
1,134 |
|
105 |
57 |
170 |
|
3 |
3 |
16 |
|
27 |
96 |
84 |
|
637 |
685 |
1,326 |
|
Effexor xr |
178 |
295 |
544 |
Related observations
Healing observations
- RobCast No.1 (My plant medicine journey with Ayahuasca and San Pedro) 017559
- Therapeutics Education Collaboration - Bohemian Polypharmacy 012489
- Therapeutics Education Collaboration - Choosing Wisely 012488
Hallucination
- Bamate 018029
- Brain injury associated with widely abused amphetamines: neuroinflammation, neurogenesis and blood-brain barrier 023922
- Buspar and Buspirone 005495
- Clonidine 005096
- Cymbalta and Duloxetine 005064
- Dr Penny Sartori - Hallucinations are usually caused by pharmaceuticals in hospitals 014533
- Fluvoxamine Maleate 019068
- Fluvoxamine or Luvox 017327
- Higher than a kite taking PRISTIQ 012632
- Hydroxizine, Vistaril and Atarax 017345
- Justin Kaplan - Besieged by despotic aliens 012142
- Luvox 019485
- Lyrica [use and abuse] 024083
- Minipress 019533
- Mirtazapine [use and abuse] 024094
- Nabilone and Cesamet 017360
- Nardil 019672
- Onfi 019809
- Parnate 019831
- Phenelzine Sulfate 019842
- Pramine 015661
- Prazosin Hydrochloride 019854
- Precedex 019855
- Pregabalin 015667
- Remeron 015694
- Restoril 015698
- Sertraline 015709
- Tranylcypromine Sulfate 020231
- Trileptal 015761
- Trimeprazine Tartrate 020239
- Venlafaxine Hydrochloride 020357
- Viibryd 020367
Wisdom, Inspiration, Divine love & Bliss
- A golden shaft of light beamed down through the middle part of his body 021148
- Angell, Dr Marcia - The Epidemic of Mental Illness: Why? 012261
- Angell, Dr Marcia - The Illusions of psychiatry 012262
Out of time
Enlightenment
In time
- Danielou, Alain – On drugs you are possessed by the spirit being of the drug 022582
- Drug Induced nightmares 012143
- Higher than a kite taking PRISTIQ 012632
- RobCast No.1 (My plant medicine journey with Ayahuasca and San Pedro) 017559