I don't know what is happening to me lately. I am usually a very outgoing person could sit down and have a conversation with anyone.  I am starting to fear certain situations.  I now hate being the center of attention for even a short period of time.  WTF!!!!  I feel like I am hyperventilating.  I have a pretty big meeting this friday.  I hope I can fight through this shit.

I am thinking of taking the easy way and getting medicated.  Any one deal with something similar?  Advice? 

Changes in my life recently are less medication for CH, stress from health situations, and quitting smoking.

I used to get panic attacks and anxiety ... the panic attacks (siezures) are under control, but still have anxiety issues at times.

Non-chemical ways of dealing with it:
Exercise
Meditation
Sleep Hygeine
Cognitive-behavioral therapy
Diet (for me, too many carbs, and too much fructose specifically) make things worse. I think insulin tolerance or some other metabolic factor plays into it.

Herbs:
Scutellaria, Passionflower - relatively effective, but not too sedating. Lemon balm - good if taken daily, not quick acting. Rhodiola - preliminary results are good, but not 100% sure about this one. I haven't found chamomile to be any good for me.

Pharmaceuticals:
Klonipin or xanax - only when things get really bad. I usually get one script a year, and make it last. Can quickly bring anxiety down, but also make me seem slow and doped out to people that know me if I take too much.

sounds like anxiety issues to me.  I tried a bunch of meds from antidepressants which can fight anxiety in low doses to xanix.  Xanix and ativan are the only two that work for me.  Every one is different and you will just have to go by trial and error with you dr.  I tried the cognative behavior therapy and it helped some but not alot.  So I am left taking medicine which makes me sleepy as all get out when I take it.  Good luck and I will be praying for you to get through this.

Anxiety is the end result of what your mind perceives to be unsurmountable danger. It is caused by fear. Anxiety is nothing but an emotion created by thoughts in your mind. Often it is only experienced in passing then the reasoning mind regains control.

The difficulty comes when it is allowed to take a life of its own such that the body starts to respond to those thoughts by producing and releasing hormones and chemicals, which in turn cause physical reactions such as increased heart rate, breathing rate, muscle tension, sweating and so on.

The physical reactions will then reinforce those fearful thoughts causing an endless vicious cycle, completely locking you into the terrible realm of a panic attack. By then the reasoning mind ( the cerebrals ) have lost total control.

Anxiety peaks when it is unknown fear. Ironically, most unknown fear is also unfound fear. Your mind imagines something terrible that is going to happen in the future. Since it is unknown, unreal , imagined ... the brain can not figure out how to deal with it. Fearful thoughts start to form and anxiety starts to build.

We are all much more fearful of the unknown than of the known. No matter how terrible the danger is, once we know what it is, the brain then can focus on how to deal with the danger in a practical way instead of focussing on the fear itself. Have you ever noticed when watching a horror movie, we feel the most fear when the monster is lurking but cant be seen ? Quite often, when the monster finally shows itself, we actually feel a sense of relief.

The best way to deal with anxiety is to shift the focus from the unknown fear to how the body is reacting. The minute you recognise your heart pounding and your breathing heavy, focus totally on relaxing the physical body. Go completely inwards instead of outwards. Deep breathing meditation, conscious muscles relaxation, mind distraction,etc work well here.

The worst way to deal with anxiety is to use medication or any type of chemicals. Doing so and you are telling your brain that you have absolutely no control over your mind and body, and that you need something else outside of you to do it for you. Repeating the process a few times and your brain learns to become dependent on the substance, the first step towards addiction. Medication can work very well to calm the mind and the body, in the short term. In the long term, it makes it worse. When you dont have access to the medication, the fear and the anxiety will double, because now it has to deal with an extra fear : the fear that you have absolutely no control at all and the one thing that can help you is not available. That is actually worse than whatever it is you fear in the first place.

People who need medication do so because they seek help too late. They do not know how to deal with fear and anxiety but they try to by themselves when things first start to go wrong. They put up with it, put up with it, try various but ineffective methods ... for as long as they could. Usually by the time they seek professional help, their anxiety has already reached the uncontrollable stage that the doctor has no other choice but give them a prescription.

Anxiety can be overcome by :

1- Awareness 1: be aware that anxiety does not kill you, it is nothing but a thought in your mind and it can be controlled.
2- Awareness 2: be aware that the symptoms of anxiety ( such as heart palpitation, hyperventilation ) do not kill you, wont make you faint and wont cause you to totally loose control, they can be stopped or reduced by refocussing and by relaxation techniques.
3- Meditation : Meditation doesnt mean you have to be calm enough to sit cross legged and be quiet. Meditation can be in the way that you consciously slow down your breathing, close your eyes and take deeper breaths, distract yourself with a cold drink or cold water on your face, taking a walk or even start singing ...
4- Self analysing : When the wave of anxiety passes, go over the whole scenery to analyse what triggered it, how did you respond, what helped and what did not help ie psychotherapy yourself.
5- Work through the worst scenario: go past the imagined scene of fear and see for yourself what is really the worst worst thing that can happen to you, work through it, devise an action plan. Once your brain learns that it can deal with even the worst scenario, it wont feel so much fear anymore.
6- Practice: practice every day starting with the little things that you find scary or stressful. Role play as often as you can. Make it as real as you can. Practice in front of a mirror and see how well you do it.

Only when all the above fail, that you should consider taking any medication or chemical for the anxiety. Even then, go back and try the steps once more.

Shoot me a PM and we can talk more specifically about your particular case if you wish. You do not have to live with anxiety.

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I am sorry, but this is pure quackery.  Did you come up with this on your own or are you borrowing this from someone else?  Regardless, you would be wrong in leading people to believe that anxiety or an anxiety disorder is something that should not be treated with medication 'across the board.'  There are too many different types of anxiety causing situations/ailments to make such a bold and arrogant statement. Albeit, there might be actual scenarios that a person could benefit from some of what you suggest, but you describe like a cure all; in which, I believe to be an erroneous action on your part.  If we were to buy into your "control your mind" mumbo jumbo, should we also believe that we should not need medication to treat our CH hits...

I have to wonder if you even suffer from CH...

Thomas

I have read differently of the subject.  Rollo May's doctoral dissertation, The Meaning of Anxiety, viably important, receiving the first PhD in clinical pyschology Columbia University ever awarded.  The book has a revised edition in 1996.  Excellent writer, Of Love and Will and especially The Courage to Create influencial.

Thomas,

I think that the write up by Annsie is excellent.

The point was made that medications are required once the emotions are out of control. Most of what was written is a series of approaches for keeping the negative emotions from getting to the level requiring medication.

While some feel that medications are the immediate answer to everything, there are times when it can be avoided.  That obviously doesn’t mean everyone, every time - and I didn’t see any claims about CH’s in there………

Marc

So, Thomas, you're calling a medical doctor a quack? Sounds like a violation of the code of conduct to me.

And no, she's not a sufferer - she's a supporter.

Get your ducks in a row before you pull out the big guns.

Actually, sometimes the reverse treatment is needed (and this depends on how quickly the attacks need to be controlled).  Control the anxiety/panic attacks first and then work on the reasons behind them and work toward finding a way to work through the situation.

Inderal is an old standby for panic/anxiety attacks.  BUT, it can leave you feeling really lethargic if the dosages aren't tweaked and monitered carefully (although it will not make you sleepy).

It's extremely difficult to control the physical reactions when you don't know what's causing them.  That can take time and quite a bit of work on your part.

while its all well and good to practice breathing exercises and tell myself that its "all in my head",  when I wake at 3 am with a full-on panic attack,  no amount of looking inward is going to help at that point.

I've always (and still do) respect your opinions and advise Annsie, but this time I disagree.

Months and months of anxiety built up and as much as I tried to calm down, things just got worse.  I am GRATEFUL for the lorazepam the doc put me on for the attacks.  Do I look to them as my sole solution?  No.  Do I take them at each attack?  No.   But I sure as hell am glad that I have something to help when everything in me is completely out of control and I can't stop shaking, my heart feels like its flying around inside my chest, I can't breath, sweating, and I'm stuck somewhere between vomitting and screaming.

That pill is NOT the worst way for me to handle it. The worst way would be to jump off a building- and yeah, I really did think of doing that.

I too carry a script for lorazepam for the really super bad ones.  Good thing is that it's a script from 2007 that I didn't need to get refilled.  I had broke them all in half and still have about 15 halves left, lol.

Sometimes it's necessary to get medicated first in order to slow the brain down so thinking can become more clear.

Ever heard of varying degrees of a disorder?