anxiety

[josparks]

can any one tell me do they feel weak and heavy body like flu for days at a time every time i try to move any where i fel exusted and i need lie back down o dont know if this is depression and anxiety along with sertraline i have been on it for 6 days i feel like im dying i have been told that it could be meds but nothing is being done my fbc were normal but i dont know why i feel like my body cant move im terrified ive been to er tey say it probably meds cos i was swapped to sertraline from citalopram im scared im dying cos of these feelings in my body pls some 1 help

[sjr1969]

hi jo, i am not on any meds but if you look back at some of my recent posts you may see i have felt the same....
sarah x

[anthrokid]

Hey Jo

I get this allllll the time. Remember, when we are worried or anxious (which is all the time for most of us!) our bodies use up a LOT of energy. As much as they would use were we exercising sometimes. This energy is used because our nervous system is so active and so busy preparing to fight against anything that threatens us (which only turns out to be the fear we have of anything threatening!) This means our energy resources from food are used up very quickly and we tire very easily.

We also tend to tense very, very often to the point that we don't realise we are tensing our muscles. This tension is generally almost continuous also which really fatigues our muscles and can cause a lot of stiffness and general aches and pains.

Remember, generally this extreme exhaustion is due only to our anxiety, and being anxious about the symptoms will only increase our anxiety and overwork our nervous system more, using even more energy and keeping that feeling of exhaustion.

because you are nervous about the change in medication it could be the anxiety about this change causing all the exhaustion! It happens to me all the time when I try something new and I need to convince myself that it's just anxiety and push through the exhaustion. If we succumb to the exhaustion and let it rule it will only become worse. We still need to get up and fight it, otherwise we will create more anxiety for ourselves by lying in bed thinking about it and we will make the fatigue worse!

Give your doctor a call and ask if the medication itself may be causing all of these horrible feelings for you. Generally swapping medications causes side-effects that our body interprets as a threat or horrible change and causes anxiety for us. If your doctor doesn't think it is anything to worry about then it isn't and it will only be anxiety due to a misinterpretation of normal medication symptoms and body changes and your worries about the medication. The exact same thing happened to me when I swapped my medication. I interpreted the symptoms as something bad then by focusing on them I made them worse. Then I started to worry that it was the medication and again made all the feelings worse. When I spoke to my pscyh and he assured me that the medication was not causing the symptoms, it was just the anxiety I started to calm down and slowly it got better :) I still get exhausted when I have an overly anxious day, but I've come to accept that it's a general anxiety symptom for me.

Remember, you will not die, it will only feel like you are, and even then we are misinterpreting these feelings :) Stay strong!

[sjr1969]

AMiee thats a fantastic reply. Will reassure alot of people including me x

sarah x

[josparks]

thank u so much that was really great advice for me u im glad im not goin nuts lol

[anthrokid]

You're welcome :)

Remember, if you were going nuts you wouldn't even notice you were and you'd be enjoying it like crazy :) Unfortunately we aren't fortunate enough to go insane, we just get stuck with the anxiety about going insane!