does anyone experiece the same symptoms

[bmcornell]

so im just wondering if others feel the same way. a little about myself im 30 years old male and im a professional law enforcement officer. I have seen some really bad things in my life but I've never had the bad nightmares people talk about. but what I experience is a constant feeling of instant death looking around me. I constantly feel like im going to have a stroke or a heart attack or what ever else my mind messes with me. I have been to the ER multiple times and I have seen multiple specialist and had multiple test completed. I just recently seen a neurologist. I have gotten thousands in medical bills to the point that I had to bankrupt. My body is in constant pain, I am always dizzy, ad I find it so extremely hard to pay attention because I constantly feel like I need sleep. im always in a fog and my memory is just gone. and finally my eyes are constantly playing tricks on me im always seeing little squiggly things and it seems like a darkness is coming from behind kind of like im loosing my peripheral vision. ive been to doctors but they all say that besides me being overweight they cannot find anything wrong. ive tried to go to therapist and ARNP but they have only given me Drugs that at first seem to help but then they make me feel worse. my last dr put me on celexa but after 3 days I felt like my anxiety was gonna explode. I was so embarrassed because like I said im a Correction Officer and this attack happened at work and people that I work with saw it. I thought I was having a major medical problem. my supervisor put the prison into emergent status and sent medical staff to me. after being looked over for like 20 min it was determined nothing serious was wrong. so many people saw it. having anytype of issues like this in my career is really frowned upon. kind of like having the plague or you appear weak. im sorry I'm rambling now. does anyone have any thoughts?     

[insights]

Welcome to AnxietyZone.

What you describe is fairly typical of anxiety disorders. Most are diagnoses by ruling out all organic causes for the symptoms reported by the patient.  Symptoms can vary greatly.

Depending on your health insurance cover, you have up to three treatment options, medication, therapy, or both. If possible, both is the ideal option.

Antidepressants are effective with about a third of patients achieving very good to excellent outcomes, another third deriving moderate to good benefits and the remainder not getting a significant response. However, they often produce a range of unpleasant initial side-effects, including increased anxiety. These mostly begin to diminish after a few weeks. The best way of making them bearable is to start on a low dose and increase it by a similar amount every 7-10 days until the target dose is reached. Small doses of a benzodiazepine (Ativan (lorazepam), Klonopin (clonazepam), Valium (diazepam) or Xanax (alprazolam)) can help get you over the rough patches, but some doctors are reluctant to prescribe them. For the Celexa you should have been started on no more than a 10mg tablet and half would have been even better. Celexa also comes as a liquid which makes even lower starting doses possible if necessary.

Psychotherapies such as CBT can also be effective achieving similar response rates as antidepressants. The biggest hurdle is that many health insurers will only pay for limited sessions. But it is definitely worth pursuing if it is available/affordable.

Ian

[floridaguy65]

Ok, since you have been checked out medically numerous times with the appropriate testing, it would time for you to focus on treating your mental health challenges. Do not feel alone, there are so many peeps who have to learn how to live best alongside, in accord with, their anxiety / panic issues. It CAN be done. Easy? Prob not....but in the end you will be thankful that you put in the effort and acceptance. And, your life can be awesome....which is probably not what you are envisioning currently, as we tend to feel pretty helpless and hopeless, at times, as we are moving towards a healing path. Do not let anxiety / panic make you feel that you are in the group of peeps that might be "too far gone", so to speak. We can often feel this way...all of us:) Overwhelmingly, most of us can find some lasting peace:)

Try to have some compassion for yourself and try to not let 'guilt' creep, too much, into the equation. Asking 'why me?', which is common (I did it, once upon a time), will not lead you to some relief. Acceptance and then a dedicated (yet calm) approach to your treatment is what's need, IMHO. One of the more difficult things to face with seeking treatment for anxiety / panic is what WE feel others might think about us. This can be tough, but we do have to keep in mind that these type issues tend to NOT simply go away on their own and, in actuality, if we do not get the appropriate help and learn how to best help ourselves, then the issues tend to amplify. So, that said, it is imperative that we DO continue seeking out help and learning what we can do (our own self-help) to move towards a healing path and we just cannot let what we feel others might think dictate our actions. And, often, with anxiety / panic, we tend to have some pretty wild intrusive thoughts about what others are thinking and saying about us....and most often it isn't nearly to the level we believe in our amped up minds. You health (physical and mental) have to come first, of course....or all else tends to keep on sliding more and more out of our control.

Again, we CAN learn how to live very well with anxiety and panic. It does NOT have to define us:)

Peace and Feel Well:)