How do you eliminate all the daily physical symptoms ?

[Rikke]

How do I handle all of these symptoms that come every day? 24/7?

Weird heartbeat, shortness of breath (I can not do anything physical without losing breath completely) dizziness, tingling in the arms, legs - head.

I feel beside myself all day. plus anxiety plus catastrophic thoughts and images.
I feel physically bad, go to lots of cognitive therapy, but it does not help all the everyday symptoms.

My symptoms do not go away, it is the same day in and day out. Others who feel this way?

Others who have had their symptoms go away?

[Veronica H]

Hi Rikke

It is important to realise that this is an illness of how we think, which in turn creates these often powerful physical symptoms. The physical symptoms persist because you fear them and this fear in turn provides the fuel to create them. :bighug1:hold this thought.....these physical symptoms can not harm me in any way. My nerves are sensitised, and as my sensitised nerves recover, then these feelings will subside. Nerves do not recover overnight, but once the fear is removed then in two to three months you will see a big difference. CBT is very beneficial so stick with it.

There is a brilliant book by Dr Claire Weekes;SELF HELP FOR YOUR NERVES published by Thorsens ISBN 0-7225-3155-9.This is available from the NMP shop. Dr Weekes was a physician and scientist. She was a fellow sufferer (nominated for the nobel prize for medicine) and really understood this illness. She took the mystery out of it, and devised a simple programme for recovery. I can't recommend this enough.( It is a bit old fashioned, but still so relevant).
Here is a link to her site;
http://www.claireweekes.com.au/ (http://www.claireweekes.com.au/)


This will get better. Veronicax

[mrmj]

Rikke I've had all of these symptoms and still suffer with the dizziness to an extent, although it is far better than it was before, due to positive thinking and understanding.

The first thing to do if you have not done so is go to your doctor, describe your symptoms and listen to what they have to say. I can almost guarantee that they will dismiss it and say it is down to anxiety. They may run a few tests to eliminate anything else they may think it could be, but I bet it will be anxiety that is causing it. The thing to remember though is that you have to be willing to trust your doctors judgement. They have a lot of experience and knowledge and they will not want to get a diagnosis wrong, so trust them if they say it is down to anxiety!

Veronica's advice is really helpful. You need to understand that these mad physical symptoms which are in a lot of cases worse than actual physical medical conditions are caused by tiny changes in the body due to anxiety. This is mostly down to being tense in sensitive areas such as the ears. I found at the peak of my anxiety my shoulders were often hunched up and I had to notice this and when I made an effort to relax them it actually hurt because of how tense they were! This made me realise if this pressure was also on a sensitive area such as my ears, it is no wonder I feel dizzy all the time!!!

Also I had a big problem with my breathing which set off my anxiety. I felt I could never catch my breath. It didn't get worse with exercise but I just felt I could never quite take in enough of a breath? My doctor was amazing in New Zealand when I saw her about this and straight away recognised it as a breathing pattern disorder. Most other doctors would take a look and just say asthma or something. I was referred to a breathing physio who gave me some simple exercises. Basically because of the anxiety or some other factors (in my case it was triggered by a lung infection, bronchitis) I had started breathing through my lungs and taking deep breaths. This is not natural as it is way more efficient to breath through your diaphragm. The exercises teach you to do this naturally again and soon you will have your breathing back to normal! When you breath through your lungs you breath too much and too often cause you think you are not getting enough oxygen! In fact you are hyperventilating and this also triggers side effects of dizziness, palpitations, chest pains and so much more!

My breathing physio who I saw over there was brilliant at explaining everything and has a book published on the matter.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hyperventilation-Syndrome-Breathing-Disorders-Overcome/dp/0857830295/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1342181337&sr=8-1

For only a fiver it could be one of the best things you could buy. So well written and if you feel like I've described with your breathing it will help your anxiety so much once you've got your breathing back into check!

[Rikke]

Thanks, I appreciate your answer I know it's anxiety, so I have not been to the doctor for 1 year, but I've got cognitive therapy for 6 years, and yet the body is full of daily anxiety and symptoms.

I would like to have it away. I have Claire Weekes book at home, and I I'm trying everything! ... breathing techniques, accept fear, accept thoughts etc.. but the same symptoms continue to be there. Some days I feel that my body will soon burn out, know that feeling?

My anxiety has been a little better in the 6 years, but now everything is quiet and it starts to get bad again.

:weep: