New member, looking for advise

[Primula]

Hi I'm new to the site. Although I have been reading all the info on here for a long time. This is my story.

I've always been an anxious person, since I was a child, but it didn't really affect my life that much. I started having panic attacks when I was about 27, I was phobic about getting married to my husband of 19 years (whom I love very much) as I was scared to leave my widowed mum on her own. Overcame that, and was happy. Then started having panics about being ill with cancer (dad died of cancer when I was 17), too frightened to go to doc, for 2 years. Eventually plucked up courage, and was relieved to be told nothing wrong. This comforted me for a few years, in which time I managed to have 2 children without worrying too much about my health.

When I was 37 started worrying on and off about my health, and did have a gallbladder problem which was operated on successfully, but this shook me up, and started really obsessing about all different symptoms, and also panicking about my kids and husbands health.

Read all sorts of self help books, and they did help for a while, but the terrible fear kept coming back, until I gave up and went to docs, who did blood tests to ensure nothing wrong (nothing was wrong). I was still worried, so he suggested Citalopram in 2003. This worked really well, and for the first time in years I was enjoying life. Came off ADs 18 months later, but 3 months after anxiety came back full force. Panicked and started ADs again, also CBT, and life got back on an even keel.

Doc suggested I came off ADs again this Spring, so I reduced dose slowly over a month, and had no side effects, but now 2 weeks after being off them and thinking I'd cracked it, anxiety back with a vengeance. I gave in and started taking 10mg cit that I had left over. Got an appt to see Doc next week. Just hoping ADs will work again.

I feel such a failure to take ADs again, thought I had all the coping tools in place, but it would seem not. I would love to be able to cope without ADs. My fear is that they will not work anymore, also scared about long term use, and also scared that I'll never get CBT to work, and that I'' be stuck in this terrible anxiety, which is now taking over all areas of my life not just health.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.:frown:

[bottleblond]

Hi Primula

Like yourself, i have always had anxiety in my life - even as a kid.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with taking ADs if they are giving you a better quality of life. I don't find that there is any stigma attached to these medications like there used to be many years ago.

I have been told that it is likely i will be on AD's forever as i just do not function well without them. I'm not saying you are the same as everyone is an individual case but please don't let the fact that you use them as a crutch phase you as there are many people in the same boat.

I hope things improve for you soon.

Lisa
:hugs:
xxx

[gtrgrl3369]

If you have to take meds for life to work, do what you have to, it doesnt make you a failure. I think it makes you brave to know there was something you couldnt do wothout help and you took it. Sometimes in life we all need a little help. It doesnt make you weak at all. Be proud for knowing that you are strong enough to get help and use it to your advantage. Good luck to you.:yesyes:

[Primula]

Thank you for your kind and supportive replies.

[princes]

Hi i am also new to this website. i have suffered panic anxiety for a year but actually when i look back i have always suffered just didnt realise it at the time. i have been prescbibe medication but have a severe phobia about taking it. i constantly think i am going to die and that every ache or pain is cancer or a brain tumour. its taken over my life. some days its so bad im scared to move incase i faint or blackout. i feel like life is passing me by and im in a hole and dont know how i will get out.....:weep:

[Betsie]

Princes - please, please take the medication! No one should have to live feeling like you do. I have recently gone back on Citalopram for the second time in my life. I resisted going back on it for months but finally things got so bad I gave in. Like you I thought I was going to pass out and had to actually get off the bus I had only just got onto recently -very embarrassing! I'm very conscious now of trying to breath when the panic comes over me and realise that it is just a panic attach and you can't actually die from it. I know that sometimes they are so bad that you really can't believe that it's nothing serious but believe me once you can accept it for what it is it makes it easier to cope with. I don't know what medication you've been prescribed but please give it a go - things can't be any worse from the sound of it! Good luck x

[magic girl]

iv been on a.ds for 7 years and i look at it this way im doing it to survive each day as iv got people who rely on me so don't feel guilty as there are loads of us who have been on them for years and will be on them for years to come if they make you feel better then stick with them:)

[Betsie]

Hi Primula
I'm relatively new to this site too and your story almost mirrors my own! I have always been an anxious person and worried excessively about my health and my famiy's - my ex-husband actually had to take away all my home medical books! Unfortunately I was misdiagnosed years ago and went through the extra trauma of thinking I may have mutiplesclerosis. It wasn't until I was given an MRI scan and then saw a consultant who knew what he was talking about that it was finally seen that all the symptoms I had been having were due to anxiety. Of course by the time I'd gone through all that scariness I was even more anxious! I was finally put on citalopram which basically changed my life. I stayed on it for a couple of years before coming off it. That was about five years ago but unfortunately I now find myself back on it. I resisted for a while but I have accepted that other methods are just not as good (self-help books, yoga, etc) and that I need the extra support. I have been told that it does you no harm to stay on them, for life if need be, so please don't suffer and feel a failure for needing the support. I would far rather pop a tiny pill in my mouth every day and feel able to cope with my life that suffer the anxiety, depression and panic attacks that comes with not taking them. We're not failures - we're just sensitive! x

[Primula]

Thank you for your reply. I know I need to stop reading articles where they de-cry people for resorting to ADS. People who write this sort of thing, can never have experienced the terrifying feelings to the extent we have. This doesn't mean that I wont keep trying CBT, exercise and eating healthily. Perahps when my kids are grown up, and I have time just to think about myself I'll be able to give over the time and courage that's needed to give up ADs and just do CBT.

Incidentally anyone had any luck using CBT on it's own, after ADs?