Welcome to the Anxiety Forum - A Home for Those with Anxiety, Fear, or Panic Attacks.
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  1. #1

    So many questions...never any answers

    Hi, i'm new to this board and have been reading through a few posts but there are so many to go through i don't have the stamina to go through them all .
    I need some help and adivce, and i guess i want to hear if someone has shared the same problems as me to, as i'm at the end of my tether now and honestly don't know how much longer i can live life like this.
    Anxiety is ruining (has ruined) my life. I first became ill when i was 15. I woke up one morning and my vision had become distorted, it was bizarre, and it is a symptom i have had every day since. Several other physical symptoms started kicking in shortly afterwards, and the doctors don't really know what was happening, they just diagnosed me with M.E/CFS. So that's what we thought i had.
    My panic attacks first started when i first became unwell. I was forever anxious and frightened of the way i was feeling physically, i had not idea of what was happening to me, i just completely lost control and the panic attacks, over the passing months got worse and worse, until one day i shut myself away from the world and i didn't leave my house for almost 4yrs!!! Bad move i know, but it's what i did.
    Gradually over the past two years i began to get my life back on track. I started riding (horses) again, socializing and i even took my driving test and started driving!! I finally started thinking this was the end of everything, in fact i didn't even have a panic attack for almost a year! (I would just like to point out that even though i didn't have a panic attack my physical symptoms, including my poor vision, were still very much there.) Then things went horribly wrong. My gran booked a trip to Rome for myself and my cousin as a gift for my progress. A few months before my panic attacks came back out of the blue, then the morning i woke to go away i woke with the most horrendous glandular fever which my body had contracted all by itself over night. I was very unwell, but i got up and went to the airport anyway. I got there and felt very very strange, then i lost the entire use of the left hand side of my body, like i was having a stroke and i blacked out. Needless to say it was a HORRIFIC panic attack, and i've never been right since. After a few weeks i started getting things back on track, but the same thing happened again recently. I have exams coming up (which i have now had to cancel because i am now far too unwell to sit them) and once again, the other morning i woke up with that mysterious glandular fever and i now don't want to leave the house again!!!
    I can't cope any longer, agoraphobia is destroying me, i don't feel comfortable anywhere unless its my home!! I'm trying to get my life back on track but subconciously my mind is fighting against me.
    Firstly i'm intersted in knowing if anyone else has had these constant 24hr physical symptoms, espeically the visual disturbances. And i'd also like to know if anyone else has experienced this unusual dramtic set back where your body literally makes you VERY ill??
    I'd just like to know i'm not alone?!

  2. #2
    You are DEFINATELY not alone. I have some of the worst anxiety symptoms ever...which I experience on a daily basis. I also have panic attacks on a daily basis unless I take my clonazepam. Maybe you should just get some meds and if you can try and get some cognitive behavioral therapy.

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  3. #3
    I've tried meds and pretty much everything gives me side effects. I've been seeing a psychoanaylst too, who has been doing the cognitive therapy, and it works to an extent with the stuff thats on the surface, like the panic attacks but it doesn't seem to work for the deep roote part that i just can't seem to shift.

  4. #4
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    reply

    I think meds work differently for everyone. I take Lexapro 20mg and I have Xanax for on the spot attacks. They wanted me to take it everyday but it's very addictive and you can build a tolerance to them. I've been seeing a Cognitive Therapist for about 5 months now, and it is starting to change the way I've been thinking. She points out how much I use certain words like failure or perfection and is making me realize that neither are ever achieved.


    Chele
    Bubby

  5. #5
    You are definitely not alone. The last therapist I went to said that it was "odd" that I felt the panick for no good reason at any time. That was reassuring. I have serious problems with my vision that no one can diagnose. I've been to three eye doctors and there is nothing wrong with my vision, but I often feel like I can't see a thing! I have a hard time focusing and sometimes I feel like my eyes don't keep up with my body, which makes me feel out of sorts a little. Then, the panick comes in.

    I also suffer physically. I have been to every doctor you can go to and they can't find anything wrong with me. I don't feel as though I am a hypochondriac. What I feel is as real as this keyboard I am typing on. Doctors tell me that the anxiety causes the physical symptoms, but I honestly believe it is the other way around. If I wake up and feel very well, then I have little to no anxiety. If I have so much as an earache, it seems to spiral. I also go through the mysterious things. For example, I'm already pretty sure I'll be sick on Christmas...lol. I know that's not funny, but it sounds funny. I bought a nice new outfit, I am going to make a dish, and I am working on my cookies...so I will be sick with something. It is awful. I know exactly how you feel!

    I've also had no luck with medications: Buspar, Lexapro, Cymbalta, and Valium. I still take the valium, but I feel like I am getting a little dependant, so I am backing off now, but it is the only thing that helped. I have had terrible, terrible side effects, including attempted suicide with the SSRI"s. They never helped me either. I know my root problem is in here somewhere and nothing is going to help until I uncover that!

    I hope you are feeling a little better and I hope it helps to know others are out here just like you!

  6. #6
    Senior Member
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    Your last therapist said it was "odd" you got panic attacks for no reason, where did they get their diploma walmart. It's part of the illness and your therapist sould know better than to tell you that any of your symptoms are odd as everyone has different causes.

    I have spent three years trying to find a pysical cause for my symptoms but have only recently accepted that the anxiety is the route cause. I have had 20 blood tests, 2 endoscopy, 1 colonoscopy and have visited 6 different doctors all to no avail and why? Because although I believed there to be somthing wrong. How could my stomache inflammation, shaking, diarreoh, tiredness etc. just be in my head. But the fact is anxiety is a physical illness for those who suffer with it cinically.

    Accept it and start treating it drugs don't work if you worry they wont, and are overated in anxiety treatment. I struggled with the chicken and egg thing for 3 years treat the anxiety because wheter its the cause or a symptom treatment can only help both the anxiety and the cause.

    Duncan
    In a mad world only the mad are sane

    Akira Kurosawa

  7. #7
    Senior Member
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    Your last therapist said it was "odd" you got panic attacks for no reason, where did they get their diploma walmart. It's part of the illness and your therapist sould know better than to tell you that any of your symptoms are odd as everyone has different causes.

    I have spent three years trying to find a pysical cause for my symptoms but have only recently accepted that the anxiety is the route cause. I have had 20 blood tests, 2 endoscopy, 1 colonoscopy and have visited 6 different doctors all to no avail and why? Because although I believed there to be somthing wrong. How could my stomache inflammation, shaking, diarreoh, tiredness etc. just be in my head. But the fact is anxiety is a physical illness for those who suffer with it cinically.

    Accept it and start treating it drugs don't work if you worry they wont, and are overated in anxiety treatment. I struggled with the chicken and egg thing for 3 years treat the anxiety because wheter its the cause or a symptom treatment can only help both the anxiety and the cause.

    Duncan
    In a mad world only the mad are sane

    Akira Kurosawa

  8. #8
    Senior Member
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    I apologise for the terrible gramma spelling and continuity of thourht in that last post... But hey none of us is perfect.
    In a mad world only the mad are sane

    Akira Kurosawa

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by jitters
    Your last therapist said it was "odd" you got panic attacks for no reason, where did they get their diploma walmart. It's part of the illness and your therapist sould know better than to tell you that any of your symptoms are odd as everyone has different causes.

    I have spent three years trying to find a pysical cause for my symptoms but have only recently accepted that the anxiety is the route cause. I have had 20 blood tests, 2 endoscopy, 1 colonoscopy and have visited 6 different doctors all to no avail and why? Because although I believed there to be somthing wrong. How could my stomache inflammation, shaking, diarreoh, tiredness etc. just be in my head. But the fact is anxiety is a physical illness for those who suffer with it cinically.

    Accept it and start treating it drugs don't work if you worry they wont, and are overated in anxiety treatment. I struggled with the chicken and egg thing for 3 years treat the anxiety because wheter its the cause or a symptom treatment can only help both the anxiety and the cause.

    Duncan
    Duncan,
    My therapist is actually really good. What he meant was that he found it odd that I could not think of any trigger point.

    I have recently been diagnosed with fibromyalgia. I encourage anyone here to look it up and really read up on it. I've been in treatment for a week...which is a heavy change in diet, exercise, physical therapy, and muscle relaxers, and I can tell the difference all around. I feel 100% better. My anxiety is greatly reduced. I physically feel much better. I know it seems soon to say that, but just the changes in my diet leaves me feeling better. I've started eating foods that are very high in vitamins, all around. No supplements.

    I am not saying that everyone with anxiety has fibromyalgia, but it is a cause of anxiety and depression. It may be worth looking into if you suffer from physical pain in addition. To know I am not nuts with everything I feel makes a big difference to...

  10. #10
    Senior Member
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    I stand corrected.
    In a mad world only the mad are sane

    Akira Kurosawa

 

 

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