GAD After Transplant

[Jaxrh]

I had a kidney transplant two and a half years ago and every since then I've developed serious anxiety. I didn't know what was going on with me until one day I was sitting in my doctor's waiting room, reading a magazine. There was an article on GAD and from all the descriptions of the symptoms, I knew that's what I had. As soon as I went into the doc's office with the magazine in hand, I showed him the magazine article and told him, "this is what I have." He told me that he didn't doubt it and prescribed effexor. That didn't really help and from there, he tried 3 other antidepressants. All of them had side effects that were too much for me and I'm not on any of them now. I am currently taking ativan, which I believe helps me more than any of the other meds. The thing is that my transplant doc doesn't want me to be on the ativan for to long because she thinks it's addictive.
My transplant doc also told me that some of the anti-rejection drugs I'm on can cause anxiety. One of the drugs is prednisone ( a steroid) and another is prograf. I'm also on some blood pressure meds.
My anxiety makes me feel short of breath, insomnia, excessive worry, fearful of things I would have never been afraid of before. I also feel so achy and tired. Every symptom doesn't happen every day, but feeling afraid has become part of my every day and I hate that.
Before I had my transplant, I was a nervous type person, but nothing like this. I've tried medication, exercising, relaxation techniques, etc. So far nothing is working. Any suggestions?

[johnmawson]

*I posted this on another link a few hours ago, but it is totally relevant to what your story/question, so I've put it here for you


It takes you ONE WHOLE YEAR, for any drug to truly quite down the chemical responses in your brain responsible for anxiety.
The way your body works, it simply detects a foreign body (the drugs) in your system, and does everything it can to flush it, which is why you get MANY side effects with these drugs and SSRI's.

I know this too well, because they put me seroquil, prozac, lithium and a few other SSRI's replacing the prozac... I lasted 3 weeks total on medication before vowing to never take it again. In them two weeks the psychiatrist kept upping the doses, trying to bully my neuro-responces into submission, and to not fire at all.
All it did was get me very sick, and by week 2, turn me into a zombie...
*I have my personal story on my website and in my free book (click my page for the website link if interested)

So i dealt with my chronic, and i really mean chronic, anxiety for years, before attempting suicide last year.
Long story short, I knew i needed to do something about it... FAST!
I spent 2 months gathering ALL the info I could, then the following 2 months applying everything and anything (drug free)
It was the worst 2 months I've ever gone through, especially because a LOT of coping techniques DON'T work! And we all know this.
But, by the 6th/7th week of those 2 months, I had so many working and incredible techniques, that in the next 2 weeks of continuing to face everything, I overcame my anxiety. And today, I live anxiety free!


By the sounds of what you're expressing in terms of severity of your anxiety.
What I'd suggest you do (and anyone else who's interested) is to start by changing your diet... for MANY people, diet is 80%+ anxieties cause. And this is true for most of us who truly believe we follow a very healthy diet... It's not our fault though, the food, fruit and vegetables and drinks we buy are FULL of chemicals and MSG's, which are gaining more and more attention with their effects on mental health.
I'm not suggesting shop at wholefoods (wholepaycheck) for every meal. But there are ways you can shop, even at walmart, and strip your diet of the things you need to get rid of.
Also most of us are full, yet we're starving to death. And this has not only an impact on our physical health, but a direct negative impact on our mental health... What I mean is, we're getting the macro-nutrients we need every day (protein, calories and carbohydrates) But we are starved of the micro-nutrients we need (Vitamins and minerals) *Multi-Vitamins DO NOT work! They only create expensive urine!
The other problem being, cooking vegetables, which we ALL do, rids a LOT of the much needed nutrient density of the vegetable, leaving us with fibery-nothingness.
This is why it is important to get into juicing, or smoothie-ing (lol definitely not a word)
It's such an easy way to eat our way out of anxiety so to speak!

For ALL of this information, it's on my website. I've got recipes and all that good stuff. And I'm updating it everyday with new and cool stuff.
*By the way, i'm being serious. It's free...!! I saved myself from anxiety, I know how f***n bad it is, the LEAST I can do, is share how with people. That to me is worth more than any amount of money in the world!

Also on there is my book, which has ALL of the techniques step-by-step I've used and modified to my own life, that got me to recovery.
So if you're interested take a look around

*Click on my profile to get the link to my website, I can't post links yet