Major relapse, I could use your wisdom NMP.

[Pkstracy]

I have this issue as well. I got off my meds and am able to meditate and find stuff to keep busy, I do have some bad days. I also haven't eaten much in the last month with worry about how high sodium is in food and what sodium does to the body, I hope you get better, perhaps, as someone said have someone there with you, or something you can hold when you take the meds

[MyNameIsTerry]

My work puts me in contact with people from all over the world, and one of those contacts is a biologist who specialises in cancer research, who also happens to suffer from bad anxiety and depression. She has stated on many occasions that no trial for medication has shown any greater success than placebo, when success is measured as a cure rather than a short term managing of symptoms. At some point the patient needs to re-teach themselves to think in a non anxious way. Although it's hard, it's by no means impossible, this is something I proved to myself.

The drug companies wouldn't be interested in that, they just want to get it licenced and rolling the bucks in. I've read enough studies and they are always short term and remove numbers of people who fail...and you have to wonder whether those who seem to drop out are those the med isn't working for But the trial won't care about them.

Besides, these meds were never intended for anxiety. But long term how many even bother to study a defined "cure" as opposed to a treatment? A treatment gets you doing better and then if the drug is pulled and you relapse you just become another fresh statistic unless it's a study of recurrent cases. How many study the long term? That's not good business in a drug market but we would hope our NHS are interested in saving all those billions (putting doctors out of work perhaps in the process?) but if not governments should be happy to save cash for somewhere else?

Meds to me are a helper, a tool in the toolbox. I agree with you, it's learnt. We work on rewiring what has been learnt that tells us to be anxious when we don't need to be. Meds can help put the patient in a better state to start this given we are what are chemicals are doing, they can encourage a better environment, but beyond that it's luck if you come off them and are fine. I've always suspected those that do that have addressed the issues more subtly without realising.

Some people need the help from a med. Those who are so obsessive that they just can't seem to see outside of their issues or those who just can't cope are cases for this. It's just a shame they are so hit & miss and can make you worse initially, or even worse long term for some unlucky people. For some, going on meds make be a mistake they look back on. I know I have felt that.

---------- Post added at 02:32 ---------- Previous post was at 02:16 ----------

Hi Terry, thank you for your excellent reply.

I think you're right in that a part of it is about control with me as well. I overthink it and imagine every possible scenario where control is taken from me and as you say once it's in your body there is no going back. Come good or ill the only choice is to let it run its course. This extends to both food and meds right now. Food from fear of choking (loss of control) and pills from choking and anaphylaxis (loss of control).

I haven't eaten a full meal for nearly 3 weeks all because I choked once and not even that badly. I considered picking up something like ensure to keep my calories up while i'm dealing with this.

It's obviously causing bowel issues as well, haven't gone in like 5 days because i'm just not eating enough. Which brings it's own host of worries.

I know i'm going to have to bite the bullet sooner rather than later when it comes to my meds, I definitely am overaware of everything in my body and know the minute I take them i'll be on high alert.

The issue is that i'm on my own a lot of the time. If I want to kick the anaphylaxis fear i'll probably just have to take them in the doctor's office and wait a while. A bit drastic but I have to start somewhere.

I have a good feeling when the meds start working i'll be in a better position to deal with my eating properly, it's getting there that's the first hurdle.

I'm afraid to say it does tend to reach a point where you have to force yourself with these things. I felt like that when I relapsed and remembered how bad I was starting Citalopram. But whilst me next med was an even harder experience I had resigned myself to just fighting through each day, hating it but knowing what it was, whereas the first time I didn't know much about all this and that definitely added to my negative thinking.

Taking them somewhere safe is a good idea. Don't worry about creating a safety behaviour now if it gets you started because you will find your anxiety gets better and you tackle that safety behaviour.

Why not ask the surgery? I remember Annie on here had an excellent surgery who responded by giving her extra support when in the surgery. I think they let her into a room with someone to help her get through it? I might be wrong there but from what she described they were really receptive the patient needs when it came to anxiety.

Then when you feel you can, start making goals to get yourself further away from there and closer to home. It doesn't have to be a big leap, you can use ERP to stage it.

Whether you want meds or not is an individual question, and can spark anxiety of it's own, but I agree with Joe that some people find it better off them. I think pulisa has found this. It depends if you find help from the med. If that med has helped you in the past there is a reason to try it again but if it's a negative experience there is always other things to try and med free may be one for all of us on here?

Swallowing & breathing seem to be very common focusses for us. I can remember the whole "something feels stuck" sensation which is really just because it has scraped on the way down. And I know people without anxiety who have trouble taking pills, or certain types, because of swallowing worries.

There may even be other strategies for this. My dog doesn't always like pills and he's so sneaky he will pretend to swallow them, put them under his tongue, and then sneaks off behind the settee and we find one later! The vets told us to conceal the pills in foods. My med is a capsule full of tiny beads that irritate the throat and I once mentioned how this will be a pain when I withdraw and our meds guru (who seems to have left, sadly) recommended apple sauce to get them down. I wonder whether you could create an Adaptive Strategy, which isn't a safety behaviour as it's the healthy method to put in place instead of a safety behaviour, to get you through this? It's something to change again later but maybe there are options you haven't considered yet?

[pulisa]

It's so hard to know what to do re taking meds for anxiety. My son has recently started escitalopram after a major crisis and it does seem to be helping him (his anxiety has never been severe in the past though). I think for chronic anxiety sufferers it is a different scenario and taking meds has the potential to make anxiety worse. My GP recognises this with me but it is obviously just my response and doesn't apply to everyone.
I think it's important to remember that meds aren't essential to improvement-you don't have to take them. If you took away that pressure you may be able to make a plan about what you want to do with help from someone who you are close to? Having support and feeling supported can help so much when panic is overwhelming and you don't know what to do for the best.

[Mindprison]

Thanks for the replies all.

I will try and come up with some kind of plan to start taking them, i'm not overly worried about them increasing my anxiety to begin with because i'll know it's the pills and that it will fade. In an ideal world I would rather not have to take anything but knowing how much they have helped me before i'm desperate to try anything to get myself going again.

Interesting that some of the surgeries offer extra support like that, my surgery is quite small so i'm not sure if they could offer anything like that but I will call them up to ask. I think maybe just knowing that if something were to happen i'm surrounded by medical professionals would be enough to push me into taking them. Safety behaviour is something i've actively tried to avoid but maybe in this case it's called for.

My anxiety is chronic but I feel like the meds worked in the background to keep it under control all those years. My mother is the same, she has been on Citalopram for a long time and they never stopped working. I remember before she went on them she refused to leave the house and spent every day pacing and crying.

Maybe it's all placebo, who can say? But if that placebo is strong enough for me to live my life then it's worth it, to me anyway.

I do plan on doing CBT as soon as my psychiatrist returns from holiday and I can get it arranged. Today it's antidepressants but in the future it could be antibiotics you know? Best I stop this now before it goes any further.

Appreciate the replies everyone, hopefully I can work through this sooner rather than later.

[Pkstracy]

Read my thread called Totally off meds in the success area. I am still coping without them, though I do still get anxious at times

[pulisa]

Whether ADs act as a placebo or not it's all about your quality of life, MindPrison. If you believe ADs help you then that's every incentive to start them up again asap. Don't overthink or catastrophise-just focus on getting better because there is every chance that escitalopram will help you again.

[ankietyjoe]

Read my thread called Totally off meds in the success area. I am still coping without them, though I do still get anxious at times

Whether ADs act as a placebo or not it's all about your quality of life, MindPrison. If you believe ADs help you then that's every incentive to start them up again asap. Don't overthink or catastrophise-just focus on getting better because there is every chance that escitalopram will help you again.

Here's my problem with just relying on meds. Even if they do work, there is a likelihood that after a while, they won't. Or that their efficacy will change. Or that life throws you something that means you get stressed, react with anxiety and run to the Doctor saying the meds aren't working any more. This is inevitable, at some point. The goal must be to have a portable tool that's inside you that can cope with the anxiety.

Pkstracy mentioned being off meds and still experiencing anxiety. That's fine. There is no imaginable scenario where a person will be free from anxiety for ever. Your flight or fight system is designed to give you that anxiety. It's how we react to that sensation that's the issue, not the anxiety itself. My personal belief is that this is a Universal truth. It's something that we have to learn in order to recover. Medication does not teach you how to do that, you are relying on something to mask the unpleasant sensations that WILL return at some point.

I know I sound like a broken record, but these techniques do work, and given enough practice and effort can't fail. Your entire brain and nervous system adapts to the information WE provide it, and if you keep telling it you're fine, it WILL believe you after a while.

[Mindprison]

Hello everyone

Thought i'd update.

Unfortunately my situation is still fluctuating. The heart skipping has stopped and hasn't happened for around 4 or 5 weeks. I do wonder if it was caused by extended withdrawals from the mirtazapine as I would say my anxiety and depression is worse than it was 2 months ago.

Still can't bring myself to take my medicine and unfortunately this has spread to my PPI meds too. Anaphylaxis has now become my greatest fear and i'm ashamed to say that it's given me a rather grim existential crisis.

Doctors don't know what to do with me now as I refuse to take anything they would prescribe anyway. All they can do is listen to me and try to offer encouragement.

I'll be starting CBT in a couple of weeks, my assessment is on the 19th of this month and the doctor is confident i'll be starting the week after that.

I need this to work. I've got constant dizziness/lightheadedness and derealization, i can't leave the house, my heart races anytime I do anything even just standing up and it's absolutely ruined my life. I've had 2 panic attacks this week that caused my whole body to sieze up and every other day of the week i've been getting that pre-panic numbness and tingling.

I've never worried about anaphylaxis before, but now that i'm too well informed it's become almost a phobia. I know that being too well informed is never a good idea for anxiety, but it's happened now and I can't change it.

If anyone could help me put my mind at ease, even just words of support, comfort or advice about any of this, I couldn't possibly thank you enough. Just til my therapy starts.

I appreciate anything you can give me.

-----------------

Just thought i'd add. I've been worrying a lot more about death and what happens afterward. The thought that we will never know the answer and that it will eventually happen terrifies me. The anaphylaxis fear seems to stem from that. The thought that at any time I can become severely allergic to something and that I could die. It seems to be a control thing as was said before, i can't control my reaction to meds and nor can I control my own mortality...and it scares me.

Can CBT fix this, d'you think?

[MyNameIsTerry]

Shift your focus away from the direct. Work on the indirect to see if it reduces overall levels of anxiety.

I couldn't get anywhere with my OCD until I shifted to work on reduction of my 24/7 sky high daily GAD.

If you can use methods that aim to bring your body down from such a heightened state you might find it helps. Try to calm your overactive system down.

I understand about the impact into meds. I stopped taking my asthma meds due to my escalating anxiety. An asthma attack (thankfully mild) forced me to confront it. Having my parents encourage me so I wasn't alone helped (sometimes we may more likely do something because of someone else rather than procrastinate over our own decisions) as it was just enough pressure with support at the time. It was still hard though.

It may not be ideal depending on the med. With asthma meds there can be immediate side effects (the jitters with some of them which makes you feel anxious) and my GAD was very focussed on stopping any strange sensation in my body. I didn't fear death or illness, I feared the anxiety itself.

So, are there ways to gradually re incorporate your med with issues with side effects? This is a question I would put to your GP.

It's going to come down to an "ease in" strategy and you just finding the courage to start it and keep it going until you get past this stage of the fear. Basically exposure therapy. You will beat it.

You may find if you can calm your system a bit you can try the exposure.

[Mindprison]

Thanks for the response Terry and sorry it took so long to get back to you.

Things reached breaking point shortly after I posted the update.

Long story short my doctor sat with me in a room for an hour and said that my fears are real to me but to take diazepam while I was with him, just to get me started.

After a near mental breakdown I took them and...no reaction, I felt fine. He wants me to stay on them a couple of weeks taking them regularly until I can start my therapy, then I can work on taking my escitalopram.

He said if it ever gets to that stage again just to make an appointment and he will sit with me until we get it sorted.

My focus is on my poor breathing so im still having panic attacks but the daily diazepam reduces their intensity a little.

My phobia still exists, but my doctor did say in all his 30 years of practice he's never met anyone who took a severe reaction to diazepam or escitalopram, so that did bring me some comfort.

I think i'll be taking an extended break from the site until i'm fully recovered. Many thanks to everyone who has offered me advice about all this.