FFS does ANYTHING work for anxiety?

[orangeandlemons]

Beacuse it damn well doesn't for me.

In Jan suffered stress and anxiety form work. Have been off since then. Was on 100mg amitriptilene when I went under.

Since then have been on a whole raft of ad's. ALL of which made me worse, much much worse, Crisis team intervention worse.

Failed ad's include: trazadone, imipramine, escitalopram, sertraline: all made anxiety terrible, or made me want to top myself. Even when I managed to get through the start-ups. Am allergic to prozac and lofepramine

Now on Mirtazapine which seems to be doing nothing at all for anxiety. Nothing. Have seen consultant ho suggested Paroxetine or Duloxetine, bith of which are SSRi or simila type drug. My gp thinks would be unwise to take this bearing in mind previous episodes, and I am terrified of taking them

I had high hopes for mirtazapine, but it just seems like an anti-histamine, made little difference to anything. Anybodyoffer any help?

Yeah it's pretty shit, but not much we can do so we'll just knuckle on...won't we oranges

Im really interested re. Bonsoir question re what is root cause. In my case i genuinely dont know. (And ive seen a very good counsellor who couldnt work it out either.) Apart from my original problem which was PND - it just seems to come out of the blue. One day im fine - the next im in a horrible blip.

Sorry you're feeling bad - hope you find something that helps.

As well as the ADs and escitalopram, I found acupuncture helpful.

Kizzie, that's me. It just comes out of nowhere.

What happens when you feel anxious? Do you lose the ability to function?

Not always. I get breathless, teeth and tongue clench up. This makes it hard to talk. Sometimes my head swims too. Mine's more physical symptoma

Nobody will believe me but after ADs/physchologist (who thought there may be a physical reason for my anxiety/depression two things got rid of the depression very quickly - no caffeine (nearly cured it by itself, some of us react with anxiety to the impact of caffeine) and I was severely anaemic.

I have had anxiety and depression all my life. It flares up at stressful times. I do honestly think it is emotional rather than physical, but congrats on getting to the bottom of your probs Chestnut. Well done.

I totally believe that, chestnut!

Mine doesn't seem to be caused by anything which made it harder to deal with, came out the blue
Every symptom from full blown hyperventilating, lump in throat, palpitations, feeling faint, hearing bangs that weren't there, going clammy, shaking, convinced I was going to die
What I think has made it better is getting to the point where I stop and go "oh hello panic" and carry on if that makes sense?
Like FFS I'm not dealing with you today, so I'm just going to carry on doing what I was doing

Yes, Brighthair, that's what I do too. That's CBT. But the bugger still haunts me. It's like some sort of ghost, that wants recognition all the time.

That family member of mine has had depression all her adult life and also teens btw - can't say it is all physical but we will see - certainly last 5 years have been physical
One problem is - once on ad's - GP doesn't seem to look further

Btw for those checking out thyroid - if tsh is over 2 - look into it more
For ferritin (iron) - anything in teens or twenties is still low enough to cause symptoms

actually I agree with the anaemia thing - I had a ferritin level of 4.7 when my anxiety was at its worst.

I do have some iron tablets which I was advised to take due to low iron. I keep forgetting to take them. Will go and dig them out.

I go from being very capable - senior job, look after kids, house, happy/content, very independent - to not able to leave the house, go to work, be on my own, sleep, eat. Really desperate. It really is like two completely different people.

Spatone is brill - double it up for a while too

Why are you low in iron? Might be worth getting to the bottom of. Is v common with hypothyroid - got any more of those symptoms? Did they also test b12?

Yes...main reason for not taking them tbh, and horrid black poos (sorry tmi)

Kizzie, so what you are saying is you were fine until you had PND, and this has affected you permanently? That is very interesting. No one ever seems to mention permanent damage after a very bad emotional time, yet surely it must happen. If you are severley ill, or have a bad accident it can leave permanent damage, so I never understand why emotional stuff doesn't.

I had very severe depression when my ex dp left me years ago. Very ill for fiveyears. During that time I developed self harming thoughts. I had never had them before, but I have never got rid of them since, even on ad's that work. They are always there. Severity changes, but always there, even when I feel at my best they are there.

How do you cope having to deal with that? Anxiety is a bastard of a thing isn't it?

In fact, it's liked being stalked by the grim reaper. Always waiting to catch you. I refer to all my mh issues as the Ghost. Always hovering and drifting about waiting to hijack .

I am so jealous of peole who don't get it. I have friend who doesn't know what it feels like to have anxietyor depression. She finds it so intriguing. I wish I found it intriguing

Whoever mentioned 20ml of seroxat well I think that is a high dose.10ml is the normal. I have been taking 2.5 of the liquid.which is hardly anything and I still get side effects. Yesterday I had visual disturbances I looked in the mirror and my face looked like it was melting away.Scary. Anyone know if its ok to have a glass of wine if you take seroxat ?

If you've found CBT isn't that great, look at mindfulness based practice- can be great at helping get some distance from the anxiety, create that 'cushion' that might not get rid of it completely but will take the sting out of it. It is available on nhs as the evidence for it is developing. If you're interested look at www.bemindful.co.uk/about_mindfulness (sorry, on my phone and can't insert the link properly)

Thatsounds interesting Spink.

I have had 2 rounds of CBT (currently on 3rd) and.........well..if it had worked, would I be here. Butlike the guilt I feel aboutside effects, I feel the same about CBT. If it doesn't work, it's my faullt

Agree with Spink about mindfulness. A friend of mine did it as she suffered from severe PTSD. It didn't get rid of her anxieties but helped her live and cope with them.

IME CBT can be really tough when you don't have any space between the trigger and the thoughts (and then of course the feeling), iykwim.

Mindfulness can help grow that space and because a basic aspect of it is to take a non-judgemental stance towards yourself it can help with the 'argh it is my fault for thinking wrongly'.

So it can be compatible with CBT (and I think some places specifically offer mindfulness based cognitive therapy) but also can work as a stand alone thing when the thought challenging of CBT doesn't suit.

It is frustrating that CBT is the main and sometimes only therapy offered in the NHS as it is easy to feel, when it doesn't 'fit' for you, that YOU are 'wrong' when most psychologists/psychotherapists see CBT as just one approach that suits only some people i.e.. it is the therapy that doesn't fit, not you that doesn't fit the therapy.

You are bloody unlucky that you are sensitive to meds. Like other people have said, it may still be that you will find a med that works for you. You might not, but then you still have non medical options that can help.. In the long term that may actually be helpful as it means that when you find your way of managing the GAD it will be in your control, rather than dependent on meds.. Hang in there!

orangeandlemons - Kizzie's story rings a bell with me because I never suffered with anxiety before my first pregnancy. After the first baby it got more or less better but then came back hard with the second and I was pretty incapacitated.

The docs thought that the trigger was hormonal - upsetting balances and things (?) - certainly that was obviously the trigger. I also agree though that once your brain has learnt to think certain things it is very hard to be free of them. Even though I feel miles better now my brain has thought things that would've been better not thought, and now they are sort of there in the background all the time.

I do hope that as the years pass and the things that worsen it get better, things will improve.

Going to check dose of seroxat tabs now!