To ask if this is an emergency?

Okay then perhaps you missed the part when I explained I thought they were making me feel better. NOT taking the iron tablets was when I felt worse. Was in all int head? High possibility. But that's why I took more than the recommended amount.

I didn't miss it at all, it's just nonsensical to deliberately overdose. Like I said though, I don't relate because I have never been in that situation.

OP, don’t know if it’s been mentioned already but shallow breathing is often the cause of dizziness. Deep breathing exercises really do help. Meditation was life changing for me. I learned to notice when I was feeling anxious or tense and adjust my body and breathing long before it built up to an anxiety attack.

@Audiprettier

Clearly!!
Obviously a man!!.. get off

You think I'm a man because someone said I haven't read the full thread (I have btw), are you quite ok? Why on earth would not reading the thread, if that were the case, make me a man?

@Soitis83

Then you clearly haven't read the whole thread

I commented on it within 5 mins of you posting it, o have read all of it. I still don't understand why someone with anxiety would willingly take too many tablets. And that's ok, for me to not understand it, all it means is I have not experienced what you are.

Clearly!!
Obviously a man!!.. get off

I hope you've managed to sleep and are feeling better this morning OP.

I've struggled with health anxiety a lot at times, especially in my 20s and early 30s, so I really empathise. It's truly horrible to feel so panicked. Mine definitely peaked again when my son was little, and I can feel it again now my parents are elderly and unwell.

This probably isn't of help right now when your feelings are so intense, but I wanted to share a few things that have helped me to feel much better for the last decade or so.

CBT helped me a lot, as did an amazing mindfulness course (before it was trendy!). If you look up John Kabbat Zinn online, he has some things you can listen to and do at home which I found v helpful.

I've learned that keeping my blood sugar as stable as possible helps me to feel less anxious. It's really difficult, especially when you're exhausted and feeling under the weather and reaching for sugary food is all you want to do. But I know if I have a day when I eat erratically and my blood sugar yo yos around, that I'll feel panicky by the end of it.

I was in a pattern where if I felt any slightly odd physical sensation, I'd freak out about it, which would make lots of other anxiety symptoms start, and I'd start to feel I was dying of something and need medical reassurance. So a moment of dizziness for example, could send me into a spiral for weeks - and once I was worried about it, the symptom would stay, even through it was nothing really. I've very slowly learned to accept that my brain is just oversensitive to fairly normal sensations, and I can usually let them come and go.

The vitamin levels are definitely worth checking, as a B12 deficiency recently made me feel under the weather. And again, once there's something like that, until I know what it is it's easy to start catastrophising again.

I hope there might be a helpful thought somewhere in there OP. And good luck speaking to your GP tomorrow. Sending lots of supportive thoughts your way.

But you knew you overdosed? Bonkers

This is the part I can't quite get my head around. Someone with such anxiety just taking more tablets, knowing it was too many.

OP my love you may well have a deficiency of some sort and absolutely get it checked out but YES anxiety can make you feel sick, dizzy, sore, exhausted...all of that. I get horrendous anxiety flare ups every few years and I always get my vitamins checked, my thyroid.. each time thinking surely it's impossible to feel this physically unwell with"just" anxiety, but it turns out that's what it is. Google "derealization".if you're feeling intensely "out of it" the whole time, this is what I experience and the first few times I honestly thought I was dying. As I said, by all means get checked but if everything is normal trying to accept "yes this is horribly uncomfortable and frightening but I am safe and I am well" will make your symptoms calm down a lot faster.

You’ll be fine. You may have gastro symptoms but you’ll be fine. I’ve had people in the past on 4 tabs a day regularly. I take 2 a day myself.

However iron doesn’t work that quickly, so your relief is psychosomatic.

But you knew you overdosed? Bonkers

Ask about an iron infusion

It wouldn't work like that with Iron tablets. You need to be taking them for a prolonged period to notice any improvements.

You’ve said you’re vegan. You need your vit b12 checked for sure.

I was blunt about the iron tablet but I really do sympathise with PND/PNA. Mine peaked around the 8 month mark too. If I were you, I'd speak to your GP/health visitor for support on this. I'd also get your bloods done as well

This.

And stay away from Google if you don't know the difference between 60mg and 60mg/kg.

111 are an absolute joke, don't bother ringing them unless you want to be told to go to A&E (or worse - have an ambulance sent) for the smallest of things. They really need to sort it out as lives are put at risk by this nonsense.

I just took a spoon of the Feraglobin iron liquid, OP has the tablet version and the marketing on the box is quite clever and if you were susceptible it would make you think that if you take it you will feel well immediately. The liquid is even more marketed as it has a picture of a happy well family on the box.

It will be the placebo effect I imagine.

Low iron is very common in pregnancy, doesn’t necessarily mean you will still have low iron now that you are no longer pregnant (I assume). Definitely worth getting checked by the GP.

You can refuse an ambulance.

I have done this when asking for advice and took my DH in because there is no way an ambulance could have got to our house.

You do not have to accept it and they will not send it.

You are having the placebo effect if you think it helped straight away. It's not in a form that can work straight away.

Thanks for this information, my ferritin is 35 which they said is normal but I do experience some anaemia symptoms.

You need to get on top of your iron as if it is low you will get palpitations and dizziness and feel out of it. Also anxiety goes up because these are the symptoms you get when you feel anxious, and you also feel crap but don’t know why which is anxiety inducing. You need to ask for your ferritin to be checked too because you can have low iron stores but not be anaemic. There is little understanding of this in the medical community and they’ll often check your hb but not do ferritin and if the hb comes back fine they’ll say you have no iron problems even though you have low iron stores which can also make you feel horrible (and eventually leads to anaemia). You really need your ferritin to be at 70 to feel good preferably 100.

if you don’t have low iron it’s likely just sleep deprivation and anxiety - like others have said, anxiety is as real as a physical illness so don’t be ashamed. It’s horrible and spiralling is just terrible. The poster who said their doctor told them to think of it like diabetes how you can have it well managed the majority of the time but still have times when it’s not is a great way of thinking about it.

people are dismissive if they haven’t experienced it but we all underestimate things until we have experienced them ourselves. Think of people who have never had a migraine and think it’s just a bad headache, until they have one and suddenly they’re telling everyone how hideous migraines are. So I like to try to remember people who are critical and mock are just ignorant of the situation.

The only reason they would have sent an ambulance for that is because they assumed you were in psychosis to be calling about an overdose from taking too many iron supplements 🤨