To seek or not to seek meds?

First I just want to say that this forum has been invaluable to me. Reading what others have experienced has made me feel more confident about managing my symptoms and I feel like I am not alone.

Could I have your opinions and feedback on something? I'm 25 years old, married, with one small child. I am a stay at home mother, and I have been having panic and anxiety for about 2 years now. I'm not sure if medication would be right for me. I have been doing research on this since my panic attacks got worse in April 2007 (this was right after the sudden death of a lifelong friend.)

From everything I've read... I'm thinking the diagnosis that most closely fits me is panic disorder. I also have a fear of death, and that is the trigger for my panic attacks. Anytime I think of it, that triggers it. Or sometimes someone will say something about it in a careless way like "Oh, you know his last moments were really awful..." when describing a death in the newspaper, and I will just tense up and hold my breath until the panic subsides (this lasts for about 10 seconds.)

Also from everything I've been reading... I have not experienced symptoms as severe as what's described. It's not severe enough to a point that I am afraid to leave my house or lead a normal life. I've never been to the ER, felt like I couldn't breath, felt like I was having a heart attack, or experienced any other physical symptoms. I do not have any other fears. I'm actually pretty outspoken sometimes and not afraid to take healthy risks. I worry about the "usual stuff" but not to excessively. Everyone worries a little bit about their children or money or whatever.

Let me describe my symptoms...

When I have a panic attack, it only last maybe 3 to 10 seconds. It seems to come out of nowhere, but then again, it is usually triggered by some reference to death. Sometimes these 3 second attacks will come and go every 15 minutes for up to an hour. I have always known that they are panic attacks and I know what is triggering them. So I have found several different ways to cope. They are really intense, but then it's over, and my heart rate and breathing slows back down in a few minutes. My husband suspects I have panic attacks in my sleep or that I am having night terrors, because I occasionally wake up panicked like I am having a nightmare, but I don't usually remember my dreams. And also, sometimes I will go a whole week without a panic attack, then it will return and hit me everyday for about a week.

I have also had a very difficult problem keeping a normal sleep schedule ever since I was about 7 years old. I believe my circadian rhythm is off (known as delayed sleep phase disorder.) I have not fallen asleep before midnight since age 7, unless I was exhausted. But once I am tired and ready for bed, I have no problem falling asleep and staying asleep for 8 hours (no more than that, unless I am sick.)

So I'm thinking the sleeping problem and the anxiety problem are related. When I cannot get to bed early, that is when the panic attacks start coming back. Then I dread trying to force myself to go to sleep early. Because I know I will lie fully awake and eventually have a panic attack. I have to try REALLY hard to keep myself on a schedule of going to bed early. But eventually, after a week of getting up early, I will feel like a zombie (the same way a person working an overnight shift eventually feels worn out from a backwards schedule.)

Anyway.... I am thinking that what I need is to find a way to cope better with my fear of death, perhaps through counseling. And I need to try harder at changing some things about my lifestyle (namely, my sleep schedule.) I am having my thyroid tested with my family doctor (I have to do this every year, because I could develop hyperthyroidism) to see if my thyroid is playing a role in this. I have also thought that I should quit smoking and caffeine. I figure these stimulants I am putting into myself are one of the possible culprits. If not, well who needs to be smoking anyway? I also would like to try some more relaxation techniques, especially at bedtime.

I don't know if my panic attacks will ever go away completely, or if I'll ever have a consistent early bed time. But I could live with it if these symptoms were to ease up just a little. I am living with it now: I view panic attacks as an unpleasant thing that happens once in awhile. Try not to laugh, but I relate it to vomiting. Everyone vomits now and then. You get a virus, too much alcohol, or some bad food, and your stomach reacts to get rid of it. It's a very unpleasant experience, but you know once it's over, you'll be feeling better again.

So this is why I am thinking maybe medication would not be right for me. I think that I can try to manage this and recover. Since I started doing research, found this forum, improved my diet, found ways to cope, and other things that I have tried; my panic attacks have lessened in intensity and frequency. I do have questions like "Am I fooling myself? Is this going to progress and get much worse if I'm not very careful?"

So if anyone could give me some feedback or suggestions or advice on how to manage these things without medication, I would be open to listening to what you have to say.

Thank you for letting me share my story!

Hey Holly, sorry to hear that you are having a tough time. You're deffinatly doing the right things by assessing wthe extent to which your lifestyle is contributing to your panic attacks. If you struggle with sleep patterns, I think it would deffinatly be a wise choice to try abstaining from caffine and see if that helps.

I am glad you are trying to find ways to avoid taking the medication route, it is deffinatly fraught with difficulties and often has undesirable side effects. From what you said about the death of your close friend, It could well be that this has triggers your phobia of death, for which I believe counseling and other talking therapies could really be beneficial. Medication is deffinatly a last port of call, remember it only treats sypmtoms not the cause. I know many people that have an intense fear of death, but they have found discussing thier fears with a professional really helpful.

I think there is a high chance you will overcome these panic attacks and your phobia for good, the trigger for your feelings is apparent (the lose of your friend) and will therefore make it easier to treat. I know it can seem impossible at times, but you really do 'feel how you think', learning to think postively and rationaly will make you feel empowered and in control.

I am not sure about your sleep problems, but it may well be that once you overcome your worries, you will find getting to sleep less of a problem. While there is no harm in looking into your issues with sleep cycles, I would concentrait on getting rid of your panic attacks initially, then if the sleep problems persist still, get them seen too by a medical professional :]

I hope you feel much better soon :] xx

Let me explain something clearly so that it might help you understand and intellectualise your experiences.

1
Inappropriate anxiety is a physical reaction which has been created by your baseline anxiety level becoming reset, for whatever reason. The original catalyst for this change in your anxiety level is irrelevant. The focus now should be to reset it. This can't be done using counselling or medication... it requires legwork and understanding.

2
Any situations which cause you to experience panic attacks are anchors to which YOU have attached meaning, even if they carry no real threat. NOw, these meaningless and commonplace activities have become threatening... but they are not, the anxiety just makes them feel that way.

3
Your fears of death are common amongst most sufferers and are due to an increase in the emotion of fear. Because you feel 'unwell' you focus on your physical self and this creates 'catastrophic thought processes'. What is the most catastrophic thought you can have? DYING! So you focus on the worst case scenario BECAUSE you are anxious!

4
Panic attacks can strike day and night and may or may not wake you... regardless of this, you are experiencing disturbed sleep and increased levels of adrenalin... this will cause insomnia. You then focus on not sleeping, catastrophic thought processes come into play and the panic fires up!

Now:

You say you are having thyrois tests... if I had a £ for every client who has had these tests (I did too by the way!), I would be VERY rich.

You say your sleep patterns are off... of course they are, however, this will change when you overcome the anxiety.

You say that counselling may get rid of your fear of death! It won't! You don't have a fear of death, at least not one which is causing your anxiety disorder! You have an anxiety disorder which is causing you to focus on dying... get rid of the anxiety and the fear will subside.

Don't quit smoking or caffeine, just stay at your current doses of both... physical balance is vital to recovery and 'seesawing' doses of any substance destroys physiological equalibrium!

Trust me when I say to you that you CAN make a full recovery and you are working towrds that and doing some great things to create physical balance, but you are missing some vital ingredients, structure and guidance.

You may also have emetophobia, the fear of vomiting, this is also a very common symptom of anxiety disorder and will disappear as you undermine and eliminate your inappropriate anxiety.

Hope this helps you Holly.

Take care.

Charles

http://www.thelindenmethod.co.uk/anxiety/symptoms/

You may also have emetophobia, the fear of vomiting, this is also a very common symptom of anxiety disorder and will disappear as you undermine and eliminate your inappropriate anxiety.

Thank you Charles.

I agree with, or will at least take into consideration, most of your post. Except for this one excerpt I quoted. I just wanted to reply because I do not think I explained the vomiting thing very well.

I actually don't fear vomiting and actually have no problem with it. I think it's kind of strange because when my husband gets a tummy ache, he moans and groans all day and acts very pitiful. When I feel nauseas, I can't wait to get it out of my system! So I view vomiting as a good thing, it's the body's way of ejecting poison. And I usually feel much better once it's out of my system.

So I just wanted to stress that, because making that analogy is something that helped me cope with anxiety. I thought maybe it might help someone else. Because thinking of it sorta like vomiting is not as bad as thinking of it like a heart attack.

just had an attack, decided ill see my gp after all wish me luck