To medicate or not?

[alicegreen]

I have suffered from depression and anxiety for years, but recently had a good 5 years medication free. The main symptoms of my depression was always anxiety and obsessive thinking, and I have had counselling a few times in teh past with limited success.

Recently I have been having panic attacks, mainly palpitations (fast heartbeat) that I fret about which in turn makes it even faster. I have had days of utter dread and anxiety recently and very little sleep. I have resorted to sleeping tablets as I just cant seem to switch off without them. I try to read, get heavy eyed and almost asleep but the minute I turn off the light I am wide awake and waiting for the palps to begin.

I think that my main symptom IS anxiety but I also feel that I am depressed to a degree as I wake with the dreaded churning and cant eat all day until the evening when it all lifts a bit to leave me feeling almost normal. (until it gets close to bed time anyhow)

I was wondering if it would be worth me starting to take sertraline again as this is what I have had success with in the past. 2 weeks ago I was determined to work through this but the longer it goes on, the more I seem to be building on these feelings, so much so that I am afraid to do pretty much anything for fear of having a "turn" I hate feeling like this, I really do:weep:

[AaronHypno]

Hi Alice

As you are aware Anxiety is increased by your internal dialogue (how you talk to yourself) and the pictures you make in your head. By having these get out of control its creating a lot of work for your R.E.M sleep (process within sleep that aims to reduce the intensity of experiences) which can cause you to wake up knackered.

However think about when you watched something so funny you fell off your chair (if you can think of any time watch funny clips on youtube) its almost impossible to have the symptoms of anxiety because you are flooding your body with serotonin. The moral of this is by putting yourself i n situations where you are goin to produce serotonin is the only way to start reducing your anxiety. Start small and build on it - its not going to come overnight (neurologically you need to build new neuroreceptors which takes around 3 months) but when you do you will be less likely to succumb to anxiety.

Hope this helps
Aaron Morton - Clinical Hypnotherapist (http://www.aaronmorton.co.uk)

[jamie88]

Ive been experiencing anxiety for 4 years after having a wild child hood and being involved in a few extreme incidents. This has left me with a constantly fast heartbeat. Its come to a point where I can no longer ignore it. Someone once warned me that psychologists tend to throw pills at their patients.

[jothenurse]

I had a panic disorder around 30 years ago, and back then I used Serax (which is a benozdiazepine). I could not eat and lost a lot of weight. This time around for the past few months, it started with palpitations. I ended up in the ER with rapid pulses (150's) and it was very scary. All my EKG's are normal, just panic attack. They had me on a beta-blocker and now I am off of that. I have lost 20 pounds and especially in the morning I have gag feelings and dry heaves. My psychiatrist put me on Ativan 1 mg in the morning and 1 mg at lunch. In the afternoon and early evening I finally start feeling a little better where I can eat something. When you say you can't eat, do you gag, throw up, no appetite?

[guitarpants]

Ive been experiencing anxiety for 4 years after having a wild child hood and being involved in a few extreme incidents. This has left me with a constantly fast heartbeat. Its come to a point where I can no longer ignore it. Someone once warned me that psychologists tend to throw pills at their patients.

Psychiatrists. Psychologists are not doctors therefore cannot prescribe meds. And yes, they do just tend to throw meds at you without talking to you much.