Panic & Anxiety as a Symptom of Other Problems?

[NightOwl]

A great website and forum. I'm a new member. About 18 months ago I suddenly started having anxiety and panic attacks. I've been to hell and back. I'm a 49-year-old happily married man with two children (12 and 5). No money or career problems. I had all the usual symptoms including palpitations, panic, light-headedness, breathlessness, various pains in stomach/chest etc. A&E trips etc. Had all the usual medical checks, including heart, treadmill, blood and diabetes checks. Everything fine. Diagnosis: Anxiety and panic attacks.
I read a whole raft of books etc and finally, because I felt the medical profession were not up to speed on ALL causes of anxiety & panic attacks, I took a private food intolerance test that showed I had an intolerance of cow's milk, gluten, wheat, yeast(incl. alcohol), egg white and cashew nuts. I had been over-indulging on these things for too long. My gut and blood was treating them as a mild poison. After a restrictive diet lasting 4 months, along with more exercise I was 80% better. The remaining 20% journey to recovery involves panic symptoms caused by IBS (Irrititable Bowel Symptoms which often goes hand-in hand with food intolerances) and another recognised panic inducer, reative hypoglycemia (not the same as diabetes). This is where the blood has a sudden fall in sugar levels after eating sweet things (because of sugar/processed food abuse) causing the adrenal glands to pump out adrenaline causing anxiety and panic.
My caution to anyone who has been diagnosed as having Anxiety & Panic is: ALSO consider Food Intolerances, IBS, Reactive Hypoglycemia and Hyperventilation Syndrome which ALL cause Panic and Anxiety. My guess is that a lot of people who are told by their GP or at the Hospital that they are just "anxious" or "worried about something" are being short-changed because quite frankly not all doctors have the time or the knowledge to explore these other possibilities. However, thankfully, there are a lot of helpful books and websites on all these subjects written by understanding and specialist doctors as well as sufferers. Chris.

[Meg]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for taking te trouble to post this .

Its always good to hear things from different sources and especially from personal experience

Interestingly, we've recently had a couple of threads on food intolerances.
It would be useful to know how you went about sourcing your intolerance tests.

We do alert people about hypos and hyperventilation routinely.
Do you have a couple of books you could recommend on these subjects ?


Meg

Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind.
If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.
Robert Albert Bloch

[meesey]

Hi, Chris,
I am very interested in the food intolerance test, i have been eating healthy for a while now but i am wondering if there is something in my diet which could be causing the return of my panic attacks. I have heard that the test is quite expensive and that there is additional cost of supplements that they recommend, out of interest what sort of cost will i incure by having the test done.. Many Thanks Paul

[snowman]

Hi

As I've mentioned before in a couple of forums, I too have had the test done only to find out that I have a high intolerance to Cows milk, pineapple and certain nuts.

Its been a month now and I have to say that whilst it has been hard to cut out my digestive system is 100 times better and that dreaded thought of being too far from a toilet in subsiding....something that used to trigger my panic.

I am on a course of anti d's too which I have been on for 3 weeks and combined with the food I am seeing a difference. Ive always associated my panic with food as when ever I ate I felt dizzy and nausious. Its early days but things seem to be looking up.

Anyone that is interested in the test might want to check out http://www.yorktest.com/.

They send you a kit and you send it back for analysis.

After 16 years of panic and anxiety which has only got worse the older I got, I hope I am now onto the cause.

S

[Caz Fab Pants]

Chris,

I'm sooooo glad you posted this information up as you have now convinced me to go ahead with the idea I've been toying with.

My tummy problems are really plagueing my day to day life at the moment and I have been told it is IBS. Now I'm not saying it isn't because it could well be but I am not ruling out some kind of food intolerance.

Anyway, I enquired at my local health food shop and they do intolerance tests on the 1st of each month for £38 which covers approximately 80 foods. Is this about right or could I find it cheaper elsewhere? I know you can buy test kits in pharmacy's but apparently they only tell you if you have an intolerance or allergy and dont tell you what its to.

Cheers,
Caroline :)
x

[nomorepanic]

Hi Chris

Thanks for the post and the comments.

Quite a few people on here are looking into food intolerance so we appreciate your comments.

Caz - I did the food sensitivity tests at the health farm in June and it cost £25. They did loads and loads of tests and it came out with cow's milk, cheese, peppers, rape seed, wheat, white wine, spinach and cats. My tests were done with some electro-magnetic thingy or something - please Meg can you give us the name of this test, cos I forget.

I am currently cutting out wheat to see how that goes - been about 7 weeks now I think. I am going to re-introduce it very soon and then try cutting out cow's milk cos I drink a lot of that.

I know that some of the tests that you can buy in chemists are over £100 and they are sneaky cos the one that tests for wheat is not in the same kit as the one for dairy and these are the 2 most common allergies.

If anyone gets any good kits then let us know

Nicola

[Meg]

I think it was bio feedback you had done Nic.

Meg

[nomorepanic]

Meg

Could it have been the Vega machine. I held one metal thing and she pressed the probe onto my hand after putting the test tube of the product in the machine?

Nicola

[Meg]

Yes that is one of the methods.

Meg

[Caz Fab Pants]

OOOO-er-mrs, all sounds very technical. I thought it was just a case of giving them a sample of blood or them pricking your finger.

I dont fancy having that test where you have all the scratches and tiny samples of the item put on it to see if it reacts.

Is there anything I could ask the doc to do so I dont have to fork out?? Or would I just get laughed at?

Caroline :)
x

[nomorepanic]

Caz

I asked for tests and the answer was a firm NO and I would have to pay.

You may have better luck!

Nicola

[NightOwl]

Hello Friends!
I was moved to see the response to my first forum posting. Thank you. Some of you were asking for additional resource material.
Just to re-cap I believe that a large proportion of people are having Anxiety and Panic Attacks due to physiological reasons NOT psychological reasons.
The main other problems which have Anxiety and Panic as a symptom are: 1) Food Intolerance; 2) Low Blood Sugar (Reactive Hypoglycaemia NOT the same as diabetes); 3) Irritable Bowel Syndrome; & 4) Hyperventilation Syndrome.
You might have all one, two, three or all four of these problems feeding off each other. So don't think by sorting out one of them you will be home and dry. Pay particular attention to Food Intolerance and Low Blood Sugar possibilities. Read up about it and then talk to your doctor.
After realising that the vast majority of medical staff cannot know everything about everything, and many were just not up to speed with the latest available knowledge I set about finding out for myself.
For Food Intolerances check out: www.yorktest.com for their FoodScan Tests. There are different tests. Mine was the 113 FoodScan Test, which cost £260. I followed a strict exclusion diet for 4 months and felt 80% better. Read the medical info on this website and it might give you a lifeline.
Check out the book: The Complete Guide to Food Allergy and Intolerance by Jonathan Brostoff & Linda Gamlin published by Bloomsbury. Price £6.99.
For Reactive Hypoglycaemia check out: www.hastingspress.co.uk/hypo/index.html The woman, Helena, who is the author of this website, is a firm believer that refined sugars are the cause of Anxiety and Panic. She has published a small book about it, costing about £2. Her story is well worth reading and she suggests a special Hypoglycaemia diet. She also has a book list on this site.
Also check out: The Gi (Glycemic Index) Diet by Rick Gallop and published by Virgin Books. Price £9.99.
For Irritable Bowel Syndrome check out: www.overcomeibs.com
On the opening web page read: "I Had Over Ten Different Symptoms: Panic attacks and heart palpitations - the most scariest of all symptoms. Light headiness after eating - a strange feeling after eating?"
Check out: Good Gut Healing by Kathryn Marsden and published by Piatkus. Price £10.99. Chapter 17 lists panic attacks as one of the symptoms. Also chapters on Food Sensitivities etc. Don't forget IBS presents itself in different forms to different people. Not everyone gets all the symptoms listed.
For Hyperventilation Syndrome check out: www.medic8.com/healthguide/articles/hyperventsyn.html
Check out: Hyperventilation Syndrome by Dinah Bradley and published by Kyle Cathie Ltd. Price £6.99.
Finally Panic books. Some of these deal with Panic, mainly as an "illness" not as a symptom of something else.
Check out: Panic Attacks: What They Are, Why They Happen and What You Can Do About Them by Christine Ingham and published by HarperCollins. Price £7.99.
I do hope this information helps. I'd be interested to have some feedback. I'll put my own story in one of the forums in due course. Best wishes to you all. Keep smiling and look for that light at the end of the tunnel! We'll find it together... - Chris.

[Meg]

Great resources Chris. Many thanks

I would be very wary of saying a large proportion is physiological in origin. I do agree that they are interlinked but chickens and eggs spring to mind.

75 % of panic is reputed to be from psychological system overload - either acute or chronic.

25% originally from physiological sources etc.

If you have system overload and your body is under stress, you are extremely vulnerable and prone to quickly develop other endocrine and immune system issues like hypos, allergies and IBS which then continually fuel and compound the issues.

I know personally when I was acutely anxious the hypos were certainly very pronounced and I had never had an issue with this previously. Equally, now I'm well through it all, I don't have to be at all careful anymore.





Meg

Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind.
If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.
Robert Albert Bloch

[nomorepanic]

Thanks Chris

I will have a look through those sites tonight as I am interested in doing something on this for the site - unless you would like to volunteer of course (hint hint).

Cheers

Nicola

[twister]

Correct me if I am wrong, but the electromagnetic tests have no basis in scientific procesess do they? They work on the principle that if you have an intolerance the electromagnetic feedback from the muscle will be inferior - although this has failed to be proven in proper trials. I had one done for free and they told me I had a problem with green pepper!

I have also had allergy tests at the doctor for my asthma and these are the ones done with the blood tests.

There is also a big difference between food intolerance and food allergy and I read somewhere recently that around 40% of people believe they have a wheat intolerance whereas only 2% actually do.

By all means watch your diet - things like refined sugar and other foods with a high GI do affect your blood sugar and in those who are sensitive to this, anxiety.

However, if you want to see if other foods make a difference why don't you just do an elimination diet (just search on Google for one) which is free instead of spending up to £300 on things that aren't proven to work.

This is from the British Medical Journal

[quote]<b id="quote">quote:</b id="quote"><table border="0" id="quote"><tr id="quote"><td class="quote" id="quote">what is food intolerance?
If you have a food intolerance, your immune system does not over-react to something in your food. There is no change in IgE or T lymphocyte levels. Instead, you may have a specific enzyme deficiency which makes it impossible for you to digest something in your food. For example, some people do not make the enzyme, lactase, which is needed to digest the lactose in milk so that, from an early age, they vomit after drinking milk.

But most food intolerances are not caused by specific enzyme deficiencies. In fact, there is often no obvious mechanism. Thus, some children are intolerant to milk even though they have the necessary enzyme to digest lactose. They rarely vomit after drinking milk, but they still get bloating and diarrhoea.

What makes things even more complicated is that some of the foods which commonly trigger allergic reactions are also involved in food intolerance, for example milk, eggs, wheat and soya. Chocolate, caffeine, wine and some food additives are also involved in food intolerances, but do not appear to be involved in allergies.

Pasta is another common cause of symptoms. People can get very bloated, says Ms Skypala, and they assume they must have an allergy or intolerance. But, as she explains, you only have to watch pasta soaking up fluid in a saucepan to realise what it might do in the stomach.

'Some people will have a genuine intolerance but a lot of those with gastric symptoms just don't cope well with particular foods. They aren't able to digest them properly,' she says.

how can I tell what I've got?
It's easier to identify a true food allergy than an intolerance. Anyone who has a severe anaphylactic reaction should be referred to an allergy specialist for tests:

A skin prick test involves putting a small amount of the suspect food extract into the upper layer of the skin. If you are allergic to it, your mast cells will release histamine and, within 15 minutes, a red wheal will appear on your skin where the test was done.
A blood test measures the amount of IgE in your blood when a small sample is exposed to the suspect food extract. This is called a RAST or ELISA test.
These tests are also used to detect food allergies in people with less severe reactions. They are not perfect but the more severe the reaction, the more likely they are to give positive results. Allergy experts do not recommend other methods, such as IgG tests, provocation tests (when food extracts are placed under the tongue) or kinesiology (a test of muscle strength) because of a lack of scientific evidence that they work.

Food intolerances are hard to detect because of the lack of scientific tests. There is no equivalent of an IgE test. The only reliable way to detect food intolerances is to re

[nomorepanic]

Thanks for the info Em

I did hear that the test I did was not be trusted but there must be some truth in it cos it threw up things that I thought I was sensitive too anyway - rape seed and cats for starters.

I gave up wheat to see how things went and yesterday I started re-introducing it again to see how it goes. I am trying to keep a diary to see how I felt without wheat and how I do with so we shall see.

In a couple of weeks I am going to stop cows milk to see how that goes.

At the moment it is trial and error for me so I will see what makes me feel better.

I don't want to spend £300 on a test if I don't need to so I am doing it the cheap way lol

Nicola

[Caz Fab Pants]

Emily - Very interesting reading although sadly it just goes to show that there's no easy way of finding out if someone has a food intolerance rather than an allergy.

I dont have the patience to try cutting things out of my diet for 2wks at a time, I'd probably forget and eat the wrong things by mistake.

However I'm sure there is something wrong with my guts and would love to get to the bottom of it. I dont think its serious but its not nice and is definitely made worse by the adrenalin I produce when I'm stressed or panicky.

Nic - So if the test you had through up all those things, what are you supposed to do, illiminate them from your diet/life?? I noticed you had cats when I came round although the test said you had a reaction towards them. I'm guessing its a bit like an allergy where you can react to varying degree's.

Caroline :)
x

[sal]

Hi Chris

Pleased to read your post. Full of a lot of information the last one.

Did read in a magazine today a great article and they had a site on the end of it.

Will look it up and post it on here tomorrow.

Hope you are ok hon.



Love Sal xxxxx

[NightOwl]

Hi Again: Thanks for your replies (Emma, Nicola, Caroline, Sal, Paul, etc) re. the various tests. It is true you can follow your own elimination diet. The book I listed earlier: No more IBS by Maryon Stewart and Dr Alan Stewart published by Vermilion (Random House) at £9.99 gives a very good series of graded elimination diets to be carried out over a period of time to help you establish what might be causing problems. I'm going to try these.
I agree with the comment in the British Medical Journal article: "The only reliable way to detect food intolerances is to remove suspect foods from the diet and see if symptoms improve." That quite frankly is the bottom line.
I found the York Test invaluable in directing me towards suspect foods. They too employ doctors, dieticians, nutritionists (part of the package they offer includes a telephone consultation with one of them) and have had their results audited, which is published, including observations made, on its website.
It is interesting to see the article published in the British Medical Journal but I'd draw your attention to the book: The Complete Guide to Food Allergy and Intolerance by Jonathan Brostoff & Linda Gamlin published by Bloomsbury. Price £6.99. This gives a very easy to follow, scientific interpretation of the problem and evaluates various tests.
You might be interested to know that after 4 months of being on the elimination diet suggested by York Test, in their handbook guide, I rated it as 80% successful.
I have been re-introducing various foods over the past month and last week started eating wheat (bread) again. I then had a mega panic attack on the way to work (anxiety, smothered breathing, light-headedness, speeded up heart rate and that awful sensation in my stomach and gut as though I was driving over a humpbacked bridge - like a muscle spasm - and momentary tightness sensation in the chest). I'm not a betting man, but I'd back the bread as having something to do with it...
The week before I had another panic attack after re-introducing muesli(Alpen). It contains lactose which I was given a rating of +2 severity for cow's milk with the York Test. (They rate intolerances from +1 to +4 although they say that this grading does not necessarily indicate the severity of reaction that you might have to a particular food.)
Before the York Test my doctor diagnosed my problem as "Just Anxiety" without laying a finger on me! He said my heart rate went up "because everyones does" and made no suggestions other than a "low priority" treadmill test at the local hospital in about 2-3 months time. Eventually I had various blood and other tests that showed no other physical problems.
I have had panic attacks after eating a two chunks of Christmas cake, while watching a Barbie video with my 4-year-daughter; driving back from a National Trust property after a day out after treacle tart, two scones and jam and tea; and so on. Food/sugar has been, in my view, a very strong suspect.
I do wish you all the best with re-introductions. Please read some of the symptoms of Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Food Intolerances and Sensitivities in: Good Gut Healing by Kathryn Marsden and published by Piatkus. Price £10.99. This and the other books mentioned will be an eye-opener for those who have never explored the possibility of food being responsible or at least aggravating their anxiety and panic symptoms.
Best wishes to you all,
Chris