new and needing answers

Hello everyone. I have recently been diagnosed with anxiety. I was being monitored for my thyroid the last 5 years but my doctor last week has decided that it may not have been my thyroid but anxiety instead. Apparently the symptoms I have are very similar (feel overheated, nausea, light-headedness...to name a few) I'm just not convinced that it's anxiety. My doctor has put me on Paxil and I feel the same so far. Maybe it just hasn't kicked in yet?
Does this sound like anxiety to anyone? I don't have panic attacks or anything like that so I was pretty surprised when my doctor said it might be anxiety.
Thanks for you help.

Time will tell!!

I would get a second opinion though!

How can it take a GP 5 years of Thyroid prescription to turn now and say it may be Anxiety. Hhmmmm! Obviously I cant know what you have been through for the last 5 years but you must have had some form of tests done in the last 5 years on your thyroid?

You may benefit from this site as you sound like you may be in the early days of anxiety if thats what you do have, but from what you have said I wouldn't be entirely convinced and would get a second opinion

Good Luck! and Let us know how you get on!!

Thank you for replying.
Yes, I have had alot of blood tests etc over the past years but they were never super high or super low. I guess it's always been borderline so my doctor is exploring other avenues.
I don't know what to think anymore.

My advice would be to cling to what good things you have in your life and focus on making them better.

If you have no problems with your thyroid, then its a good thing, so maybe you should stop searching for a bad thing. I dont know how old you are but its good news if you have no thyroid probs. Its a big positive that you can build upon. I always feel with taking drugs you are always going to alter your state of mind weather it be a good drug or a bad one. I've found after taking allsorts of medication that its always best to be in your own constant state of mind and then you can establish whats wrong at grass roots level if anything. But if it aint broke dont fix it!! I wouldn't take medication for something I wasn't 100% sure it would heal.

As charles writes, drugs dont take any problems away, they just mask whats there. I should imagine you have been on medication over the last 5 years for whatever. Maybe if you try and rid your body of what you've been on and start a fresh. You may find your problems disappear. Taking drugs can have other side effects which may be your cause.

GIVE YOURSELF A CHANCE!!!!!!!!!!!

I haven't been on alot of medication for my thyroid as it was supposedly overactive and not underactive. I think out of the last 4-5 years, I was on medication for maybe 6-8 months. I just would like to know what the heck is wrong with me. I don't care if it's my thyroid or if it is anxiety, as long as I know so that I can deal with it. I'm just tired of feeling like crap everyday. I don't even know if the symptoms I have are normal for someone with anxiety problems. From what I've read, I think they are.

You need to describe your symtoms in more detail. Up to now it sounds like your a bit depressed and not so much anxious. Give us a bit more to go on??

I don't think I am depressed. I had a good talk with my doctor and she didn't think so either. She seems to think though that it's anxiety.
I feel like crap though. I have alot of nausea, light-headedness, feel like I'm overheated alot. These are all associated with thyroid also which makes it hard to know what's what. I will ask my doctor to send me for thyroid blood tests next week when I go see her.
Can someone explain to me what you might feel like if you do have anxiety disorder.

I too had nausea, light headedness, shakey, rapid heart. The doc thought for sure it was my thyroid but when the test came back normal he put me on Zoloft for anxiety. Now I feel even worse.

If your doctor says anxiety, accept that! Your symptoms are symptoms of anxiety work with that and the great thing is anxiety can be cured> Don't complicate things by now going insearch of something else.
Anxiety sure can leave you feeling like crap like your not well. There is a long list of symptoms one might feel and what you list is ammong them.

Drugs do not cure anxiety they may relieve the symptoms for a while but they really aren't the answer. Drugs can even make you feel worse and often do.
Check out the "Linden method"

I disagree with accepting it. If you feel its not anxiety, definitely get a second opinion.

I was diagnosed with anxiety, however the root cause of it was a heart condition that they didn't pick up on for years.

I accepted my doctors diagnoses and really did develop anxiety & panic disorder. (so then I had two problems instead of just 1). Maybe I wouldn't of ever developed it had I been diagnosed correctly from the beginning.

Ask yourself these questions...

Do you feel on edge?
Do you feel tense and unable to relax?
Are you actually feeling anxious?

And if so, do you feel these symptoms of nausea, over-heated, light-headedness when you feel like this?

I agree with you guest 3. I'm not going accept that I have anxiety just yet. For the past 4 years I have been tested, scanned, had ultrasounds, had radio active treatment for my thyroid and all of a sudden in one visit, it's decided that maybe it's not my thyroid afterall but maybe it's anxiety.
I"m just a little skeptical right now. I have been put on medication for the anxiety but I feel really crappy. I go back to the doctor on Tuesday for a follow-up so I will see what she says then. If it is in fact anxiety, that's fine, I have no problem with that. I will deal with it but I have to be sure that it is that.

Whatever it is, be careful with suppressing by medication! The problem will STILL be there afterwards. It's a sympthomatic masking.

If this is anxiety, then I can tell you that anxiety is a habit. A habit of worrying about or responding to a situation, that you have programmed your brain to do. Your habit can have been created by whatever cause, if this an isolated event or a series of circumstances, and it has caused, in case of anxiety, a reprogrammation in the anxiety benchmark level of your brain. Your brain responds inappropriately to 'normal' situations. This is a disorder, but not an illness.

The medication is meant to either stimulate the creation of certain brain chemicals or to numb the brain's neural transmitter receptors, so that signals are deafened. This makes you an entirely different you. You may FEEL as if you're doing better, but as this medication is only meant to be taken for a certain amount of time and when you withdraw or lower the dosage, you will find that the old habit of responding anxiously is STILL there. Sometimes the so-called rebound anxiety is even WORSE than what you experienced before.

I am no expert at medication, I am no doctor nor am I medically qualified. But this is what I think to know about medication. They MASK sympthoms but your problem is still gonna be there!

Greetings, Peter.

Oh yes and I forgot, any HABIT can be UNLEARNT.