Do you ever...

[Cococj]

Feel like walking into the hospital and demanding to be committed? You know just so you can stop thinking, worrying, being you, let them pump you full of drugs for a month until you've stopped being so on edge? :weep:

[marie1974]

hiya hun i dont suffer like u do but i thought u needed a hug hun:bighug1: please try to keep busy to take your mind off stuff and mayb exercise cos it helps alot with anxiety and dep. dunno if u having counselling but i have CBT and i think it would really help u, i got mine from internet looked for counsellor in my area xxx

[mtatum4496]

Oh yeah! There have been days when I would love to be independently wealthy and able to afford thirty days of sleep therapy at the hands of a team of doctors and nurses. Wake me up to deal with food and essential ablutions, then knock me back out and let my nerves heal.

But reality is that this is not a feasible approach for me. So I keep it as a fond daydream and keep right on plugging away.

[garat1213]

i would love to do that. Youve made me think about it now. But i know realistically it'll just make me worse. Still its a good buffer to have incase it all F!!ks up xx

[Cococj]

I know it sounded pathetic, it's been on my mind for weeks. My back, bowels and stomach are giving me so much pain, I have nightmares every night and even when I do sleep I'm waking up in panic mode, I just can't get over the hump so to speak.

Two years ago I managed that by finally (after a long time) going to see my doctor and getting some help, after a couple of medications and what were at that point the worst 2 weeks of my life while they made my anxiety worse I finally started to improve.

This time I just can't do that, none of the meds have worked, exercise is something I so desperately want to do but I'm scared of it truth be told. I've beaten this into submission before but I can't get my foot in the door to break the cycle this time.

I felt a bit better coming here a few days ago, I tried so damn hard to do other things but the fact is I'm tired of it all, I've read loads of posts here and I admire the strength of alot of you. I'm scared this time I don't have that and it's getting damn close to me wanting to give up completely and I'm worried about what that will mean.

[lilly-lou]

Hi it is really easy to feel like giving up the fight when you are at an all time low, just remember to take one day at a time, don't over do things. I suffered really bad with agoraphobia, at one point didn't even leave the house for almost two years, couldn't answer the door nor the phone, I had panic attacks constantly, I was a wreck but by taking little steps I am a lot better than I was, and I've done it without the help of meds.

Keep posting it can help if you let things out and there is always somebody here who is willing to help you

Take care

lilly-lou

[JoT]

You sound like me two weeks ago Coco, I was desperate.

I honestly wanted to go and commit myself to the loony bin - I was frightened to be awake, frightened to be asleep, scared to stay still or move. I just wanted to shut my eyes and not wake up until it stopped, it was like a constant rollercoaster that I couldn't get off.

I am now 2 weeks into my meds (fluoxetine) and after that week of hell while they kicked in, I am feeling so much better - but I am worrying slightly that they won't be as effective as they were last time (2 yrs ago for me too)

What meds are you on now and when did you start them? Is it the same as you were on 2 years ago. Maybe you need a higher dosage this time.

You can PM me if you would like to.

Sending you some virtual ((hugs)), it may not feel like it now but these feelings will pass.

Jo x

[milly jones]

yes i so wish it was that easy hun.

just couple months and id be cured

if u find the magic cure pls tell me lol

its only persistance and hard work facing and conquering ur fears that will find us freedom

all my love milly xxx :winks:

[Cococj]

Two years ago I started on Citalopram (these caused me some stomach problems including bleeding) my doctor switched these for some Amitriptyline with some beta-blockers (I stopped the beta-blockers as they made my blood pressure way too low I felt more anxious about that than I had anyway) after 6 weeks on the Amitriptyline my doctor switched me to Fluoxetine, although I was wary at the time - being the same class as Citalopram - I managed the first week okay and playing with the time of the dose I managed to cope. They had this tendency after about 6 hours of having taken them to make me feel week so I used to time that with a meal and after a month or two the general anxiety lessened and I was able to function again. I still had the odd panic attack now and then but I was able to deal with that and they eventually stopped.

This time I started on the fluoxetine which made exarberbated my stomach and bowel problems, either indirectly through increased anxiety or directly as a side effect I dunno. So my doctor switched me to Amitriptyline again, the problem is this time alot of my panic attacks are occurring when I wake and if this happes when feeling groggy from the Amitriptyline I feel panicky and still asleep it's surreal and very scary, which increases my general anxiety level for the rest of the day. So I stopped taking them.

As you said JoT I can't sleep I can't stay awake and I can't function. I wish I could be sure of myself enough to take something despite what they do to my stomach but they literally make me feel like I'm going to die and at the moment I'm not sure I can go through that again. I think the ambulance service were also fed-up of my calls, although I'm not having as many panic attacks when not on the meds my general anxiety level is far higher, I can't win.

[JoT]

It's a really terrible feeling, I really feel for you - I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

All this chopping and changing meds probably isn't doing you any favours. I think that with any medication you have to grit your teeth and put up with the side effects for the first few weeks, they can take up to a month to start working - I felt much better after a week.

I was at rock bottom in the first week on fluoxetine, I had the weakness, nausea, dizzyness - it was almost unbearable, but in hindsight I think I made myself feel so bad because I read the side effects and expected to.

Anyway I really had to get better, I couldn't go on the way I was, so I decided to keep taking them and if I still felt awful after 3 weeks I would come off them.

Luckily the really bad part passed after a week, but I am still getting some irritating things like ringing ears and feeling dizzy (still think that is imagined), but now i am i a brighter frame of mind I can put up with them, anything is better than how i felt before the meds.

All is not lost Coco, you will find something that works for you, even if it means putting up with the nasty bit on the meds again to start with - anything is better than how you feel now by the sounds of it.

Also i really recommend writing all your feelings down daily, to get it out of your system, I keep a diary blog and it is very therapeutic, it's good to look back on in future and see how you progress.

[Cococj]

Lol, sorry JoT I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing at something you said, that feels good despite my mood. I do exactly the same thing with medicines, I look at the side effects and think "oh my god they're going to kill me" which is why it's not so easy to control things on the meds as just the act of taking them make me feel more anxious. Even with paracetamol I won't take more than one or two days of despite the pain.

I'm going to thank you for making me smile tonight and actually having an effect. It made me think of something recently that's actually helped. About a month ago I was in hospital because my stomach pain was so bad, they shipped me off to the surgical ward to await a consult and they gave me some paracetamol, another pain-killer I'd not had before (very much relieved me though) some lansoprazole for the acid and an anti-emetic (sp?) for the nausea. I've never had something for nausea before and they were very effective. Anyway I was in hospital for two days and I came home, the side effects of the medicines were completely unnoticeable so no problems. Anyway when I got home i looked up this nausea drug online and looked at the list of side effects, they were horrendous, if I'd been given that as something for home I'd have had half of the side effects on the list - imagined yes but they would have felt real. The fact I was given blindly a medicine like that with no side effects proves to me just how stupid my anxiety is sometimes.

I know I get anxious about the stupidest and most illogical things, but knowing that doesn't stop me worrying. If the anxiety was logical and made sense I guess we wouldn't have these problems in the first place. I know I need help to deal with the root causes of the anxiety - I have no idea how to go about this and my GP having changed since 2 years ago won't offer this service.

Sorry for venting here, for typing alot of stuff that you didn't actually need to know, just that one comment by JoT made me smile I needed to write something while I can.

[JoT]

YAY, I'm glad I made you smile :)

Often anxiety has no root cause - I know I have no reason for it. It's just in a person's personality and possibly genetic (it runs in my family). I agree that if you know what the cause is then you need to deal with it with counselling, but sometimes there's no point in searching for why's as you may never find out, you should love yourself for your quirky ways and all, it makes up the person that is you.

Maybe CBT will work for you, this helps you to retrain your negative thought processes and stops the catastrophising everything - I had a course of this 2 years ago and it was very helpful.

This is a free CBT course.
http://www.livinglifetothefull.com/index.php
you can also get a referral from your doc to see a therapist but there is often a long waiting list, or you can pay privately.

[Cococj]

Thank you all of you, as usual by this time of night I've calmed down a little (til bed time) but thank you all of you who replied and especially to JoT :)

[Alisonj]

All the time. I have walked into my doctors in tears asking if they could shock this part of my brain so I didnt have to deal with it anymore. It is so painful and so tough. I am on 17 years of it but I am determined to beat this, we all will. We can beat this.

[Zingara]

I can so relate to how you feel. I wish sometimes they could just put me into a medical coma for a bit, so I could just get away from having to be me. I dream sometimes of just being taken into hospital and sedated until my nerves heal. I have asked my doctor about being admitted, but I just don't fit the criteria. I'm in the 'just soldier on' category, it seems.
Like you, I had problems with amitriptyline, exactly like yours. I would panic, but because I was a bit spaced out and couldn't really take in what was happening to me it was even more scary. I'm on Prozac at the moment, I find it the best med for me personally, even though it doesn't do anything for my anxiety. It's tricky getting it right, and having to keep changing is a nightmare.
It's amazing what you can get through - while I am still suffering, sometimes I look back over my life and remember times when I was at rock bottom, and I can hardly believe I'm still here to tell the tale. Somehow or other we find the strength when we need it most. xxx