What is going on with me? Is this really anxiety?

[Morena]

Hello! This is my first posting here, hoping that someone will help me figure out what is going on with me.

My problems started at the end of June/08, when I found out my husband was having an affair with a coworker. After that, my symptoms started developing and now I am at the point where I can barely leave the house.I am even on a medical leave of absence from work. I have mental and physical symptoms:

My heart is always racing, rarely under 95 bpm.

I was on Ambien CR for almost three months, now I am falling asleep on my own. I can stay asleep for about 2 hours, then I am suddenly shook by a wave of heat that jolts me from the bed. I cannot fall asleep again after that.

My hands shake. And even when they are not really shaking, I feel "shaky" inside.

My feet are always sweaty. When I get more nervous, my hands get sweaty too.

I lost 12 pounds in thwo months. I eat a lot, but cannot gain weight. The food seems to be digested extremely fast. I go the the restroom very often.

At the first two months I had high blood pressure. Now it is back to normal, but the pulse is always high. It has been over 120.

Some days I feel very tired, other days I feel so agitated I have to jog around my neighborhood, trying to find some relief from the constant rush of adrenaline (I guess) in my body.

I have heat intolerance, I cannot stay outdoors if it's warm outside (and I live in Florida).

I have intense hot flashes.

I lost a lot of hair. What is left is now very dry and thin and my scalp is constantly greasy.

I have seen a cardiologist, two family practice doctors, an endocrinologist and a psychiatrist. I have been on Celexa, Lexapro, Zoloft, with no results. The psychiatrist prescribed Prestiq, which I have been taking for 4 weeks now.

I lost my self esteem and I feel I am incompetent to take care of myself and my kids. I am afraid of everything, even to meet with my kids' teachers.

Any comments will be very appreciated. I no longer have a life.

Thank you.

Morena
[/list]

[motif]

get off the drugs, go out, exercise, cheat on your husband too, be alive!
I guarantee you'll feel better.
cheer up!

[northstar]

hi morena, welcome to the boards :)

my heart goes out to you, it really sounds like you're having a rough time at the moment :console:

i'm not a therapist of any kind (but i've been to plenty of therapy lol), but it sounds to me, as i'm sure it does to anyone reading your post, that this was all triggered by the stress of what happened with your husband. anxiety affects us all differently, and many of your symptoms will sound familiar to others reading this post. you don't mention much of what's happened in the last year, if you're still with your husband, but i can only imagine that it was incredibly stressfull so i am not surprised that you are having such a reaction.

i really think that you should look into speaking to someone about what has happened, if you're not doing so already. a counsellor/therapist can help you to deal with your emotions. often anxiety can stem from deeply hidden feelings like anger or sadness. therapy will help you look into the layers of yourself and get to the root of emotional problems and learn to deal with them rather than bottling them up. it will also help you to rebuild that vital self esteem and inner strength.

you may also want to look into some form of realaxation technique that will help you to get some much needed breathing space and relief. yoga and meditation are always top of the list for anxiety sufferers. you can also look into diet and nutrition, you mention that you eat a lot and digest very quickly: what kind of foods are you eating and how healthy is your diet? are you taking care of yourself?

i don't want to go too indepth into things here, i really just wanted to mention about counselling as the first step, i know from my own experience that it can work wonders :) i really hope that things get better for you soon.

[Carla]

Hello Morena :)
I am so sorry about how you are feeling right now. You have had a tough time and I am not surprised you are feeling anxious. You must feel terrible and rightly so. You will get your life back, but for now you are suffering and you need help to deal with it. It does sound very much like anxiety to me but it does get better. It will not always be like this although it may seem like that at the moment. You will eventually get your self esteem and confidence back. I speak from personal experience and I can relate to a lot of your symptoms and I have anxiety myself. I am now a lot better than what I was but at its worst I did have a lot of the symptoms you are having. I lost loads of weight and was permantly sick and nauseus. I was always in the bathroom it seemed. When you are extremely anxious, the body does try to empty itself as quickly as possible. It is all due to the flight or fight syndrome and adrenaline. I became agoraphobic for a while. My skin and hair became really dry. The effects of anxiety on the body are massive. I also have kidney disease and the doctors think it may have been aggravated by stress. I do absolutely anything now to not let anxiety affect me. I accept it and I go with the flow of it and I dont fight it. I dont let it scare me cos it really used to! As soon as I stopped being afraid of it and relaxed about it then a lot of my anxiety symptoms eased or stopped.
How I dealt with it was by firstly going to see my doctor, getting counselling/therapy, avoiding foods/drinks which increased my level of anxiety and then sticking to a very natural unprocessed diet. I cut out alcohol, which helped massively and I stopped smoking too which helped, I take natural supplements like 5-HTP and B vitamins and St Johns Wort and Agnus Caster which really help.I researched as much as I cld about anxiety and I found forums like this one to be very helpful as everyone is going through similar issues and can help each other. I slept as much as I could and also exercised a lot.I took time to relax and practice relaxtion techniques. Basically I take care of myself and do everything I can to avoid undue stress. I would say the counselling helped the most. They are just some of the ways which helped me.
I dont take prescribed medication but if I felt bad enough then I wldnt hesitate to take it. It is a matter of trial and error as regards medication, be it prescribed or over the counter. What works for some doesnt always work for another. Some medications can take up to 6 weeks for the effect to be felt. Over the counter medication works for me but I know of people who feel no benefit from it too.We are all different. If you feel this medication doesnt work then go back to your doctor and try another. There will be one that does work for you.
Try counselling as I am sure you have a lot of emotions related to what has happened to you, that need to come out. I am so sorry about what happened to you. You didnt deserve that. Keep posting. You will find a lot of help, advice and support for you here.
Take care.
Hugs to you

[sneakygirlamy]

I'm curious to understand your heat intolerance since I have that tooo...my anxiety tooo started with a cheating spouse....my anxiety has gotten worse thru the past 2 years....I was always a little manic but now I'm mostly depressive...I too have the crazy heat intolerance...been to the emergency room 3 xs thinking I was having a heart attack, diizzy , blurred vision, palpitations, thought I was dying....now I have the heat intoerance which bothers me the most since I live in Texas.....my face gets all flushed and my arms and neck get all blotchy....I hate it ...i've lost alot of hair lately toooo....I often feel confused when trying to do simple tasks I just can't stay focused (as I'm sure you have noticed) I feel for you ....me and my fiance worked it out but yet I'm still a mess...I feel completely confident in our relationship I just can't back to where I was before it all....

[sneakygirlamy]

oh I too took celexa hated it took paxil hated it the only thing I like and that works for me is the xanax....and yoga...I have a trampoline I jump on it (I'm 37 fyi) but it really helps I always feel better with exercise but sometimes I think I need more i take the xanax only when i need it not daily it's tooo additting....go walk and run as much as you can it really does help does help my heat sensitivity though....