An anxiety ramble...need to get a few things out there...input appreciated.

[lorigirl76]

I am fairly new here..started Zoloft about a month ago (for the second time)..am currently on 50mg.  I am just curious if any other people can identify with the way that I feel and the things that trigger my anxiety.

I was always overly anxious as a child, but never recognized it to be anxiety or panic.  I can just remember being scared at times about something. Like if I had a weird pain in my head I would be terrified that I would die in my sleep.  Once when I was about 8 my parents were both struck by lightening and it happened in front of my sister and I (we had a bad storm and my dad made us all go to the unfinished basement (concrete floor)...at the time my dad's mom lived next door and was very sick and during the storm the phone rang and lightening ran in on the phone and traveled across the floor to where my mom was and hit her too).  They were both fine, but as you can probably imagine, that was TERRIFYING as a child and even now if it is storming I get very scared...to the point of if I get somewhere and it is lightening I am like immobilized in my car...scared to death to get out for fear of getting hit by lightening.  

At 24, I became pregnant with our first child...in June of 2001, at 24 weeks pregnant, I developed severe preeclampsia.  I was admitted to the hospital and had steroid shots to help develop his lungs, and I spent the next 13 weeks between home and the hospital on left sided bedrest.  I saw my ob twice a week and was always incredibly anxious when it came time to check my blood pressure because I knew what a bad reading could mean.  The last day of my 36th week my blood pressure hit 220/180 and I delivered a 7 pound baby boy three weeks early.  The doctors weren't very encouraging or optimistic initially about his survival or his health when I was diagnosed so early with preeclampsia.  So I guess over those 13 long weeks I just almost had it in my mind that he might die and I might not bring a baby home.  Well when I brought him home it felt surreal..like it wasn't supposed to happen..so then I developed a major fear of SIDS and that first year was basically sleepless for me because I kept vigil over his every breath during the night to make sure he was ok.  

Fast forward six years later, and another baby boy later, my husband's brother passed away at the age of 27 on April 26, 2008.  On April 1, 2008, my mom was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.  (She is fine, thankfully!)  In May of 2008 I had my first panic attack.  I had gone to bed around midnight or so and remember feeling incredibly anxious.  I woke up gasping for breath and having hot and cold flashes and just a feeling of sheer terror. At the time hubby and I were having some real problems and I was scared to death and afraid I was dying and he was just mostly irritable that I had bothered him in the middle of the night.  That was the start of some pretty major on and off anxiety for me.  At the time my doctor just gave me Ativan to take as needed, and later he put me on some Lexapro but my chest seemed to hurt on that...in hindsight, I think it was anxiety causing the chest issues, and the Lexapro just wasn't helping the anxiety.  

(I got a warning that I had exceeded the 8000 character limit..lol...so my question is continued in comments.)

[Chart1979]

Wow lori you just summed up the last 4 years of my life!

[lorigirl76]

Thanks Brett.  I will send you an email.  :)

[Fiftyandnotfabulous]

Hi Suz. I would like to make the same offer to you as i have to Lori. Happy to chat with you about things... It can only be a possitive thing eh? My email is brett.***@****  Brett

[Fiftyandnotfabulous]

Hi Lori. I really don't know where to start or what to say... I'm so glad you posted your story for two reasons...1 because i now know I'm not alone with my feelings and 2 because you now know your not alone! I have many of the same symptoms as you and Suz who also replied to you.I have been in therapy and on pills and I'm about to see how i go doing a anxiety and depression course self help course. Anyway I wont go on now but I to would be happy to give you my email address and chat with you. All the very VERY best and remember your NOT alone :) brett.***@****  Cheers Brett

[kimberly826]

UGH!  Anxiety is the worst. I can relate.  I have always been an axious person as well.  I went to bed one night and just as I was falling alseep BAM I had a panic attack.  I too thought I was dying and I have never been the same since.  I did pretty good for 5 plus years on a small dose of zoloft however, I just upped my dose cuz it came back again.  It has been six weeks and although I am feeling better I am not back to normal yet.  I start therapy in a couple of weeks.  I heard both can do wonders!!! I also run which helps a lot and have found hobbies that I like to do such as read (love reading) and paint ceramics!!! Very relaxing.  I have two kids and am seperated which I am sure doesn't help with anxiety because I feel like I have to be responsible for everything.  It gets overwhelming and I fee lonely.  So I really think you should try therapy.  It takes time to get there, but you have to do what works for you!  :)  This medhelp has helped me a lot and although I don't want anyone else to suffer its nice to know you aren't alone!  

[Suz245]

first of all what a releif i thought i was the only person acting like this.... i have horrendous health anxiety and am constantly scanning myself for something different... please please stop googling your symptoms i did that all the time still do at times but its a sure fire way to convince yourself your dying... which doesnt help us at all does it?? makes your anxiety go up as you dwell and wonder " what if" thats what i have seriously if i had a pound for everytime ive said what if id be a billionaire!!! your clenching your jaws through anxiety i did the same thing had terrible sore face and jaw and headaches was convinced it was a brain tumor eventually got a guard to wear while asleep and it eventually went away... though i still catch myself doing it when im busy doing something i havecto say release your jaws suz your clenching... please listen to me lorigirl ... I am fighting a terrible battle with health anxiety at the moment ive lost 96 lbs in under a year coz i cant eat and my adrenaline is running all the time... my mind never stops and ive collapsed and had to take to bed with nervous exhaustion.... i too have had anxiety since i was 8 it all started when i was being bullied by another girl laughing and pointing at me all through school i used to stand and look at myself in the mirror at school and try to see why they were laughing i was pretty and didnt understand why .... my mum developed rheumatoid arthritis when i was 4 yrs old so my big sister became my mum dressing me and doing my hair as mum couldnt grip and she would get so frustrated at herself she would slap me and tell me to stand still.... she became bedridden and i remember standing at the top of the stairs watching the doctor and dad lifting her up the bed... as she squeeled in pain... id go away on my bike always by myself couldnt trust anyone to be my friend so kept to myself as a kid.... and i would ask god why my mum had to be ill when everyone elses was ok...... the reason im telling you this as i think this was the catalyst for me developing anxiety along with a phonia of vomiting got so bad i was taken to a child psychologist... to no avail.. id grow out of it.... at the age of 12 i was put on anti anxiety medication as i clung to my mum and begged her not to send me to school coz of the horror of sitting in class having panic attacks and running to the toilet and staying there until a search party was sent out.... these pills helped me for 23 years i lived a relatively normal life a year and a half ago i had to stop them as they were causing bad tachycardia and even the beta blockers would not help....4 months after stopping them i didnt feel anxious at all and thought im free.... went to germany to visit a friend but when i was coming home i felt strange.... there was alot of family stress at the time and i remember thinking why am i not wanting to go home??? years ive always been a homely person hate being away from home ... now i didnt wNt to go home i was confused which strated me feeling anxious.... it was xmas and im always the most excited i couldnt care less i didnt want to do the whole cmas day thing where me and my sister and parents have a nice day at their house .... i was staring into space so detached from everyone all these presents in front of me and my heart was sinking deeper and deeper.... mum said to me whats wrong? and i just absolutely broke down i was crying so hard everyone was beside themselves ..... so i was depressed i think from all the stress of arguments with my mother over the past few months as she bullies my dad and was getting so bad my dad was crying and telling me he wanted to live somewhere else my dad is a quiet loving person and she is so nasty to him and hurtful and she had been doing the same to me.... i felt i hated her and now cmas day she had given me all these gifts with little i love yous on them and i thought why are you causing all this hurt in our family ... but its her pain thats how she deals with it... so that all started it off a year and a half later im an emotional wreck i cant leave the house..... ive been on 8 different meds all of which did nothing but give me side effects that made me more anxious.... and diazepam for 2 years 2 mg 3 times a day but i kept that as low as i could as i hated the confused feeling it gave me..... ive developed severe health anxiety .... i freak out at the slightest thing .... i am so aware of everything my body does from breathing to swallowing to how i move my mouth when i speak to feeling my pulse and how irregular  it is....last week i had such an irregular heartbeat it was going haywire i called out of hours doctors as i was having chest pain .... they whisked me away to hospital but as usual they look at my records and say ih shes just havin a panic attack..... ive went to hospital and my doctor so many times ready to comitt suicide they send me away ... take extra valium!!! no one listens they dont have a fckn clue what its like to pace the floor all night worrying about things that are physical or mental.... i try relaxation cds and they do help alot lori buy guided meditation cds they help you drift off to another place with sounds and a soothing voice... theyve really helped me when ive been ready to jack it all in!!
i know exactly how you feel i am living in complete misery i just had my 35 th birthday and am living like an invalid single with my 3 cats afraid of everything and everyone... over the last 12 days i stopped the diazepam as was getting quite ill depressed and uncontrollably crying at nothing they made me more anxious in the end so i stopped them probably should have weaned a bit lower but i just couldnt handle all the crap it was doing to me.....so i am in my bed most days as feel so terribly ill physically can barely walk am short of breath my muscles are so weak.... im convinced am dying but i feel to unwell to worry about it ive lost the ability to move my toes and fingers quickly they just do there own thing am so scared its ALS or motor neurons or something terrible... im not eating but im trying im drinking but still i feel so ill it may be withdrawls from diazepam.... ive been shaking and trembling for 12 days now i feel better at night though somehow more energy and feel like eating then so i try to put off going to bed and enjoy feeling brighter then its 5 am and i have to sleep...... im sorry im ranting on but please know i am going through the same hell as you i stopped the prozac 8 weeks ago as ghey were making me so agitated i couldnt even sit down.... im seeing my first psychiatrist on monday hopefully he will sit and listen and maybe know how to help me... i dont want to have to take pills anymore but if it helps me then so be it..... please please do not be alone in your struggle with this i am more than willing to talk anytime i feel so alone like i am down a well and no one knows how to get me out even my own doctor.... i have no friends just my sister and mum and dad my dad comes to see me everyday and takes me to appts so i dont have to go on the bus... i couldnt go if i had to get the bus..... now my physical strength has left me i am confined to my bed looking out at the blue sky wishing i could go a walk but cant... having bloods and scans done soon doctor is baffled and doesnt know why i am so ill.... i fear the worst havenot felt well for the past year weak and shaky hope its nothing too bad... please email me my email is
**********@ ******** and we can talk you are not alone remember im in the same boat as you... xxx praying for your courage x

[lorigirl76]

Anyway, I went through a period of time that I felt good and ok and never really had any problems..I'd say maybe about a year and a half.  Then, last year in May I began feeling anxious again and one day my sister and I had gone to lunch and I had a panic attack in the restaurant.  I was chewing some food and all of a sudden I just felt like I was going to pass out.  My sister said I was white as a ghost and I felt like I couldn't breathe.  I took an Ativan bc I still had some and I got to feeling better. That instilled in me a great fear of having a panic attack anywhere (because previously I had only had them at home). I started being unable to eat out because I felt like I couldn't make the food go down..had no trouble eating at home at all. Finally went to dr...he put me on Zoloft in May of 2012. I started it and did pretty well with it, started having less anxiety, but had also learned a lot of "self-help" things for what to do when I felt anxiety coming on, so in August or September of last year I stopped taking the meds and I did fine until December of 2012.  I was sitting at a baseball practice of my son's and I had turned around to talk to some parents that were behind me and apparently the way that I turned I pulled something in my upper back...like the left side shoulder blade area, to be exact.  For about two weeks I could't even raise my left arm or lean my neck to the side  or anything..it was like a bad "catch" was in it.  My shoulder blade would throb and even though I knew that it was stemming from my injury, I would get it in my mind "what if it is my heart?" and that would cause horrendous anxiety.  It got to a point where the shoulder injury would also make my left arm hurt in the bicep area..some days it would just throb, but I could also move a certain way and actually feel it pull in that area, so again, in my head I knew it was from the injury, but the way my body reacted to it said otherwise.  So from that has stemmed a great fear of any kind of pain.  If I have a pain that in any way makes me think that it could be my heart then my anxiety goes through the roof.  The zoloft (or maybe just the anxiety itself, though it didn't start til I started taking the zoloft) has caused me to clench my teeth and my jaw has become tight and sometimes I have these fleeting feelings of pain on the left side of my face in my jaw and my body reacts scared like it could be my heart.  Googling symptoms makes me terrified because you find all these unusual stories about heart attacks in women...I mean, one I read said if you feel just nauseas out of the blue that you should go in bc it could be a heart attack.  So basically I have started to worry/obsess about that kind of stuff.  The meds are helping me, for sure, but it's still in the back of my mind "what if?"  I just turned 37 this month, am 5'3" and weigh 210.  At one point I weighed around 230 but I have lost weight just by cutting back and eating healthier.  I have never had cholesterol checked at a dr's office bc I have been super scared of them finding something else bad...but I did get up the courage to go to Walgreens about two weeks ago the "well bus" was there and they do sugar/cholesterol screening.  My cholesterol was 224, which was a little elevated, but it was a non-fasting test and until I know the actual breakdown of good/bad cholesterol then I don't know if that is a bad reading or not.  My sugar was 97 which they said was great.  My blood pressure, even though I'm overweight is very good...usually always under the 120/70 range.  I have never smoked.  I'm not on birth control pills.  My dad is 61, Mom is 58, and neither of them have heart issues. I have recently seen where having preeclampsia in a pregnancy can up your risk of cardiac issues,and that did nothing to help my anxiety at all. It's almost like some days I find myself afraid that I am going to have a heart attack and die or either start having bad chest pains and pressure and be really scared and I think about how it would happen and what they would do for me.

The other day I had a headache and took a headache powder...well about 45 mins after I got real shaky and my hands were shaking...I attribute this to the dose of caffeine, but the way I felt made me go into full panic mode.  I tried to walk and I shake it off, but I couldn't.  Eventually had to take an ativan to get calmed down.

I have no real reason to think that it is my heart...my mom is my person that calms me down and talks me through most of this stuff when I get scared. She has even said as long as this has gone on that if it was my heart I'd be dead by now. She is pretty blunt and calls it like she sees it.  

Anyway, if you have made it this far, THANK YOU for reading....I am just curious.if any of you go through health related anxiety.  I have mentioned to my mom that maybe I should go to a cardiologist just to let them evaluate me and make sure that everything is fine.  I feel like if I knew it was 100% ok that I would maybe not be as anxious, but she says that is silly bc something is going to kill everyone and most people don't run around going to a cardiologists office unless there is a real reason.  

Another example of my "pain related anxiety" is that about two weeks ago I woke up one morning with my left side hurting just below my ribs...I couldn't think of anything that I did that would make me be sore..it was sore to the touch and it hurt like a pulled muscle.  Then I remembered that I had fallen, but landed on my butt/lower back (I slipped walking down a hill.)  So I googled something like "what can cause pain below ribs left side"...well Dr. Google tells me that it could be your spleen, especially if you have taken a fall...so I had extreme anxiety for two days on and off bc of that..and it obviously was NOT my spleen bc I woke up two days later and the pain was gone totally and I think I had just pulled a muscle doing something.  

I feel totally crazy having put all this out here, knowing that some might judge and say I'm a real nut case..lol..but I opted to take the chance in case someone else is going through or has gone through something like this and can give me suggestions for how to get better. I just want to feel better and NOT obsess about my health and scary scenarios.

THanks so much for reading.