Raised Anxiety after starting Ven

[Maca44]

Great idea of righting things down, I make notes every day on my phone just the date and how I feel also a score out of 10 for anxiety levels and any med changes. It can be a pain to do it if your feeling crap but it does help to look back. Problem is that we tend to remember how crap we feel and forget the feeling better bits so its a good reminder.

[Dying_Swan]

Very true and it can sometimes feel like a hassle, but there are usually some positive things each day, even really small things. It's nice to focus on those when you can and nice to look back on, especially when you can see the improvement.

[Maca44]

Since I increased the Ven to 150mg my sleep has gone mad again, up at 3am come 5am I just had shower and got dressed. Sure this will settle as it did before so not worried about it but I get tired at work now.

[Dying_Swan]

Yes, give it time to settle. I think that it might settle quicker for you this time as you're not as stressed about it. Following way too many years of poor sleep, I have learned to remind myself that if I don't sleep well, I'll feel tired but nothing bad will happen. Hope you continue to do well

[Jo79]

Sounds like you pushed yourself to go for a coffee and enjoyed it so that's good. Funny how we both feel better in the evenings, l never really understood why that is, maybe we have had such a hectic day of anxiety our minds just take a break. I still have the odd 1/2 a Zopliclone to calm me in the day but the need is getting less and less. Hold onto the positives.

I think it’s because your cortisol levels are naturally lower in the evening and high in the morning so that would explain why most people with anxiety are worse first thing. So if you’re ever having a crap day just remember it won’t last all day 🙂

Luckily i’ve had a fairly good day today...no anxiety at all until this evening as I had to take my son to the out of hours doc as he had a really high temperature (turned out to be an ear infection so nothing major) but I managed to stay pretty calm. Two weeks and 4 days on 150mg and things are looking up 🤞🙂

[Maca44]

Lets hope its all starting to come together for us all I hope so.

[Dying_Swan]

Absolutely agree about cortisol. If I'm going through a bout of anxiety it's always worst in the morning. Sorry to hear about your son Jo, but glad it turned out not to be too serious and you got it sorted. Well done both, looks like perseverance is paying off

[Maca44]

I've done more garden work over the last couple of weeks than I've properly done over the last year. Something is changing in my brain and work has also been good, I actually enjoyed it yesterday and had abit of humor back. Still early days but if this a sign of things to come then its welcome. Had some acid reflux in my sleep last night after eating a late meal then going straight to bed at 7.30pm, woke up choking like when you have a drink and it goes down the wrong way and you lung flaps close for a few seconds. I have had this scary thing happen a few times in as many years and normally I would go into HA anxiety mode and I would be in a panic for days and scared to go to sleep but last night I got up in a panic and by the time i got downstairs I was pretty calm. Went back to bed and went to sleep. This med is blocking me from escalating things and I am much more calm. Got to give my food time to digest before lying down to sleep. So Gaviscon before bed what's next, a walking frame, O the joys of being in your 50's.

[panic_down_under]

O the joys of being in your 50's.

Wait until you hit the 70s!

[Maca44]

Wait until you hit the 70s!

I will report back in 15 years and we can compare notes 😉