Man flu...

[Benjammin69]

Recently I have had a pretty bad dose of man flu and this seems to be impacting my Mental health.... I’m quite low, having negative thoughts and my anxiety is high. What is the correlation between your physical health and your mental health? I am trying not to panic about the symptoms and see it as I’m just low at the moment.... anyone else get like this when they are run down??


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[ankietyjoe]

Well, the mind and body are linked so it makes sense if you feel physically feel bad, your mental state will suffer too. Just like mental anguish causes physical symptoms.

You also tend to sleep less when you're ill. Even though you can doze all day, the quality of sleep will be lower. Being fatigues causes adrenals to rise. Then you have the increased heart rate associated with an infection, which will trigger anxiety (that used to be a bad one for me).

Just ride it out, it'll pass eventually.

[Benjammin69]

Well, the mind and body are linked so it makes sense if you feel physically feel bad, your mental state will suffer too. Just like mental anguish causes physical symptoms.



You also tend to sleep less when you're ill. Even though you can doze all day, the quality of sleep will be lower. Being fatigues causes adrenals to rise. Then you have the increased heart rate associated with an infection, which will trigger anxiety (that used to be a bad one for me).



Just ride it out, it'll pass eventually.



Cheers mate - white knuckling it right now!


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[KK77]

Whenever I get bad cold or "manflu" (terrible strain of regular flu), it's almost felt like my AD med wasn't working as well. I get withdrawal-like symptoms and feel unusually low. I suspect this is connected to increased inflammation levels in body fighting off infection, virus etc. I've read others also describing same situation when physically unwell.

[Benjammin69]

Whenever I get bad cold or "manflu" (terrible strain of regular flu), it's almost felt like my AD med wasn't working as well. I get withdrawal-like symptoms and feel unusually low. I suspect this is connected to increased inflammation levels in body fighting off infection, virus etc. I've read others also describing same situation when physically unwell.



Thank you it’s so tough, my main symptoms in depression are intrusive thoughts which was so scary. That’s why I hate it and when ever I have a bad cold or flu I end up having these thoughts and a tough time. Even benzo’s don’t work on me when I’m unwell like you say it’s like the meds don’t work when your not well. As dory says in finding nemo - just keep swimming!!


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[ankietyjoe]

I know it sounds flippant, but just think about something else. The last mega strain of flu that knocked people out late last year was the illest I've ever been from that kind of thing.

I relied on a daily routine of watching Friends (because it was on all bloody day), laying in bed and playing crap games on the iPad.

Acceptance is key, honestly.

There's nothing you can do about it in the short term, and accepting that really helps me.

[Benjammin69]

I know it sounds flippant, but just think about something else. The last mega strain of flu that knocked people out late last year was the illest I've ever been from that kind of thing.



I relied on a daily routine of watching Friends (because it was on all bloody day), laying in bed and playing crap games on the iPad.



Acceptance is key, honestly.



There's nothing you can do about it in the short term, and accepting that really helps me.



Cheers mate - i agree with you and been here a few times. It’s just scary when you get those thoughts back grrr but like you said let’s ride it out


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[ankietyjoe]

I don't often suffer from those kinds of intrusive thoughts, but when I had that full on flu my head was all over the place. It's that state inbetween sleep and being awake kind of feeling, very odd.

Bad infections can do that.

[MyNameIsTerry]

I tend to find colds slow me down and my anxiety fades away. When I relapsed I had a cold a week after I went off work and felt easier. Then when it ends I seem to get a bit of a rebound.

Some on here are worse for colds though. Considering so much is thought to be about inflammation, it makes sense it could do this. And then those with HA are going to bring in new reasons to be anxious based on their symptoms. Withy my anxiety I've always been symptom-focussed but never thought something was anything more than anxiety but the focus on hating symptoms obviously only makes things worse.

Interestingly, Strep Throat has been recorded as causing temporary OCD symptoms on children that go away once they are better. I've always wondered about the link there for those with pre-existing anxiety disorders, especially OCD.

[MarkyMark88]

Going through the same thing right now. I'm on the tail end of manflu/cold that has been going on for about a week and my anxiety has been through the roof. This is my first time being sick since having my first panic attack and being diagnosed with anxiety last summer.

I've had two panic attacks during this flu span, the last of which I barricaded myself in a bathroom at work with my cell phone and a water bottle for 30 min because I thought my organs were shutting down.

The first couple of days I didn't even have anxiety because I was focused on being sick. I was proud of myself because I had gone two days without taking any clonazepam and I usually take one tablet a day. Then by day three I started losing it. I kept having nasty thoughts about the virus or bacteria in my body attacking my organs and having to be put in the hospital on life support. These thoughts came out of nowhere and now I've been a wreck for the last few days. I came into work today and one of my coworkers said I look pale and I almost had a panic attack because I THOUGHT I was feeling better, and the fact that I have been lightheaded all morning was causing a perfect storm.

The funny thing is I had pneumonia five years ago, easily the sickest I have ever been and I felt 100% mentally sound during that time. When I went to see my doctor for it he was telling me stories about patients of his that ended up having lung transplants and dying because of pneumonia, and yet it didn't even rattle me one bit. Now I have a flu/cold and I'm afraid of having organ failure. Anxiety is crazy.

Mark

[Benjammin69]

Hi Terry and Mark,

You know that it is actually recognised that certain viruses and bacteria’s cause an increase in poor mental health/worsening of symptoms. It’s actually recognised in children and called PANDA’s (PANDAS is short for Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal Infections) so it makes sense that if your body is run down, immune system shot to **** then mentally you won’t be great. I have always found and discussed with my therapist that when I’m
Physically unwell and this impacts my mental health that my meds seem to not be as effective including benzo’s. I was awful the other day coming down with conjunctivitus and man flu (again) and I took 1.5mg of alprazolam which I have lying about if I need the tough stuff and it did not effect me at all I was maybe worse as I felt lethargic, I hadn’t taken any benzo for 5 days before that and not Xanax for a month so my tolerance should have accepted that and calmed me down... it just shows you that it is all intertwined.... so no point wasting a benzo if I’m physically ill then I just grip tight and white knuckle the mental impact this has and wait for it to pass. Most people feel rubbish when physically unwell we are just ‘super sensitive’ and as my therapist says we have learnt unhelpful behaviours and you can never unlearn something you can only learn something better....


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[MarkyMark88]

I was awful the other day coming down with conjunctivitus and man flu (again) and I took 1.5mg of alprazolam which I have lying about if I need the tough stuff and it did not effect me at all I was maybe worse as I felt lethargic, I hadn’t taken any benzo for 5 days before that and not Xanax for a month so my tolerance should have accepted that and calmed me down... it just shows you that it is all intertwined.... so no point wasting a benzo if I’m physically ill then I just grip tight and white knuckle the mental impact this has and wait for it to pass.

When I took my .5mg clonazepam after day two of being off of it it was 24 hours after I had taken this green nighttime feel good cough syrup. This stuff was so strong that I was still feeling groggy an entire day after taking it. Anyways, while still feeling groggy I was starting to feel panicky so I took a pam. About 45 minutes later I thought was feeling TOO comfortable and started freaking the hell out. I thought the meds were mixing and that I was going to go into as state of ultra shallow breathing or too slow of a heart rate and pass out. A normal person would have welcomed that mixture of Tussin and pam and gone on a wonderful mental adventure and taken a nice nap. I however started going crazy and talked to my gf on the phone for an hour in case I was going to lose consciousness so she could call 911 for me.

Anxiety sucks.....

[MyNameIsTerry]

Yeah, Ben, it was PANDAS I was thinking of. When I read about that with OCD a few years back it mentioned how adult PANDAS was still uncharted territory and subject to further research. And there were also non PANDAS immune disorders they also suspected would become reality as they found more out.

It was back then I was looking into my tics.