symptom shifting

[daisy14]

My panic attacks always change about and manifest themselves in different ways - at the moment it is nausea. I make myself so frightened of being and feeling sick that of course I end up feeling ill and not leaving the house. I was wondering if anyone had any advice on how to cope - getting myself brave enough to leave the house even when feeling like this, and coping while being out and feeling sick and scared, especially those horrid moments where it gets so overwhelming >_<
I rarely have to actually be sick when I'm like this, but it happened once before on the most inconvenient day possible, and that's what caused all this in the first place.

[june]

daisy14,Sorry no advice on how to cope.
It is caused by panic and or anxiety that I do know!!!!!
For more than 20 years i have been looking for the answer.
You just manage the best way you can AND you will cope - you will work out your own strategy
Best wishes
June

[rocklover]

I am nauseas constantly and have been like this on and off since July. I, luckily have never been sick, but that is more likely because I don't "allow" myself to get sick as I am emetephobic.

I have some anti-emetics which I take when I am completely overwhelmed, they don't take the nausea away for me, but they do make me feel "safer". I force myself to go out telling myself that it is only a feeling, nothing will happen, and even if it did would it be the end of the world?

As you have been sick once, that is obviously fuelling the nausea, but you have to consider, that time you were sick, you may have been genuinely ill! I was on meds which just made me worse, so I tried St John's Wort and that really worked for me, the nausea and the panic disappeared, but you can't take it with the pill, so I have had to stop it.

The biggest tip I can give you is to eat, I stopped eating and lost over half a stone and all it did was make me feel even sicker. Make sure that you drink plenty as dehydration also causes nausea, and try and avoid caffiene as that will heighten your anxiety and make the symptoms worse. There are the obvious things such as ginger (which I hate unfortunately) and peppermint tea is supposed to be good for settling the stomach. I also find if I am tired it makes me feel even worse, so try to get as much sleep as you can.

I don't know if that helps, but these are the things I have been told and some of the things I have tried. I know how awful it is, I am really suffering at the moment, having to drive 45 mins up the motorway this evening and I am dreading it, but I will do it, because I don't want to become housebound again as I was earlier in the year. Good luck.

[peter_griffen]

Hi. I too have suffered nausea/feeling sick, I had since i was 14 and for approx 3 years I had the feeling all of the time. Night-time was especially the worse, so much so that i was unable to lay down on my bed, so i spent most of the time sitting up, those long nights must has been the worst moment in my life. However, I have improved over time, and mainly feel nausea when im out, (or spend to much time in front of a computer! hehe).

I managed to work a few simple, but effective ways of reducing the nausea feeling:
1). I tend to carry a small bottle of water with me as usually when you are feeling sick, or have anxiety, your throat/mouth tends to feel a bit dry.
2). When you have an over-bearing feeling of being sick, I tend to put a few drops of "eau de cologne" (or lavender) (or simular) drops onto a hanky/tissue as the calming effect helps. The eau de cologne i find is the best, although this only can be found in French supermarkets :-) (someone in the UK might sell it?)
3). Suck on a mint, this helps at times.

The only thing I can say is try different things out as the anixety does effect people in different ways.

However, you will be happy to know, I have had nausea feeling now for 9 years, and never been actually sick, (only once but that was a medical problem) - so the chances of you actually being phyically sick is highly unlikely.

If you have a phobia of being sick or seeing someone vomit, this is known as "Emetophobia" - there are links between Emetophobia with Anxiety/Panic attacks, although what the connection is, i dont know :-)