Hi. Iam 38 years old and I have had anxiety,panic disorder since I was 19.It started were i could handle it and would get tired and some chest pains but as the years went by the anxiety turned into panic.Which from there was alot of visits to the hospital thinking i was dying and I even had to be admitted for a week to the hospital cause i was getting panic everyday.they put me on xanax 0.25 and the panic attacks kind of went away but not completely.then after 3 years I was told I was addicted to them and had to come off.I was happy cause I did lose alot of my life always popping a pill and not facing things direct.I wasn't clean minded.Now I have been off the medicine for 3 weeks and I just moved and I am getting panic attacks again.I just walked out the dinner last night on my boyfriend.and my mom says i need medicine now.The only problem is all the paxil,zolof,lexapro,prozac etc.Make me nervous and give me panic.Is there anyone out there that takes something natural with no side affects??????????I really dont want to go on medicine cause i am scared but i need to do something.and I am looking for a docter but the mental health is so hard to get started with when your a new patient.
Help someone!!!
I totally agree with you on the trouble of getting mental health help when you're a new patient. It's even harder when you hold a day job with a company that isn't "family friendly" and doesn't understand some doctors can't see you after 4:00 or on Saturdays.
I have never been able to tolerate any anti-depressants. I always have some side effects that make the anxiety worse. For me, the only thing that has worked is a benzo. Like you, I too wish I didn't have to take a prescription medicine for many reasons other than being reliant on them. I don't know about anything natural. Seems like if you were going to try that route then your usual relaxation or talk therapies would work. I think just like different medicines work differently for different people, maybe you will stumble upon an alternative that works for you. I would never give up trying. I still try. No luck yet but I'm not giving up hope.
I feel better being on this board talking with others, so at least I know I'm not alone. Other than that, I take a Xanax when I have an attack. Looking forward to the day when that no longer is the case. For now, I live with it. Just knowing that I don't won't to be tied to a pill for the rest of my life, lets me know that I'm taking them just to escape, or use as a crutch.
Were you taking Xanax every day and was it prescribed for you to do that? I'm only wondering because .25 mg is very low. You would eventually build a tolerance if you were taking it every day. Is that why they said you couldn't have it anymore?
I'm so sorry you are going through this. I take .25 to .5 mg. only as needed (when I have a panic attack or chest pain), and I never need to take it any other time. I can't take SSRI's either. Maybe you could try Elavil or another antidepressant like that? They are taken at night and help you sleep too. Just a thought. I don't know of anything natural that actually works. You could try Valerian, but it didn't work for me. If you want something natural, go to a health food store and talk to the owner...they are extremely knowledgable.
Well the xanax were getting to the point were I needed them all the time.I would take walks and shove them in my shoe and I was just a different person after being on them long.but i was on a low dose.I should go to a natural store cause i have problems taking ssri's too.Thanks for you help.I will try that
hi ,im 44 years old and have had panic attacks since i was 26.i now live a full and active life i have not taken medication at all. i have been checked out thoroughly by the cardiologist dept and was told that i was healthy apart from a couple of small heart murmers.so its been a long road and some would say that if i had gone on medication that i would have recovered quicker.personally i dont believe this as i feel that they block your ability to deal with the issues that caused you to be anxious.it can take years to discover those issues sometimes.i believe once an aggoraphobic always an aggoraphobic i dont say that to get anyone down i just mean that its always there and can tend to move to the surface when you become overtired and stressed .its our own personal warning system to say hay you need to take some time out for yourself as you are doing to much again.you can learn to control your mind and your thoughts and you can slow your heart rate down with those just as quickly as you can speed it up!.concentrate on your breathing ,focus on that when you feel the anxiety attack comming on .its useful to carry strong peppermints with you everywhere as you can focus on popping that into your mouth and breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth slowly.peppermints make you feel that you are getting a deep breath in which is one of the main triggers for panic as when your descending into a full attack its like getting an asthma attack and you feel you have no breath.try the peppermint it works.good luck
I used breath mints too when I had anxiety.. I used altoids though and bit them and inhaled.. the surge of burning peppermint in my sinuses really help.. lol as do wasabi peas.
Hey I'm late to the party here, but I use breath mints too! Tictacs, my husband calls them my anxiety pills. I've never known why they make me feel better. Like SR mom I thought it was the distraction, like smoking is a distraction for smokers...
My nephew has anxiety. My sister-in-law found out about it one day when they went into a restaurant and he suddenly said " I have to get out of here." They went home and he told them about the anxiety attacks he had been having. Then he started taking vitamins, most importantly niacinamide and vitamin C together, and that helped a lot. His friends could even tell which days he had forgotten to take his vitamins. Now due to an accident where he could not eat for several days afterwards, he has discovered that his symptoms are caused by allergies to certain foods, but he still does not know which ones they are. In the past we tried to get him to try a limited diet for 4 days, but he refused to do it, (he was 18 years old when they found out about his anxiety) so the accident was really a blessing in disquise. If anyone is interested in finding out if their symptoms are caused by or increased by food allergies, they can get the book "Brain Allergies" which is mainly about how allergies can cause mental illness, but the information on how to discover food allergies applies to any type of symptoms. What it takes is avoiding the offending food for 4 days and seeing if your symptoms improve. Any food you eat more than once a week could be the culprit so you have to eat foods you usually don't eat for 4 days to find out if you have food allergies, or you can just avoid gluten and dairy and you might get lucky because those are the most common culprits. If the symptoms get worse for a couple of days this is a pretty sure sign that they are caused by allergies, because for some people it is a type of addiction and they get withdrawal symptoms, and they crave the food that is causing the problem. For instance, my son was always asking me to buy cheese, and then we discovered he had a food allergy to it. Food allergies can cause an amazing variety of symptoms, including but not limited to: fast heartbeat, back pain, mental illness, fatigue, anxiety, and weight gain.
