Update on anxiety

1) Thank you all who vibed/prayed for me regarding my anxiety! This episode has proved much less debilitating and difficult than the two in the past, so I am extremely thankful. I am doing much better. I have such a great support system and have many skills that I learned in the past to help me through.

2) This post is going to be a rant and explanation of what I have been through, so please skip or skim if you aren't interested or feel it is TMI. I just a) wanted a place to document it for my own records and b) wanted people who are struggling with similar issues to be able to use it as a reference and to know they are not alone, as this is one of the things I have found most helpful.

I will start at the beginning. Early February, my parents went to Cabo San Lucas (Mexico) for a week with my godparents. I noticed I was starting to feel a little anxious at night time without an obvious explanation. I started to think I may have some sort of adult separation anxiety and started researching it a little. It's something I think could be related to my being adopted as an infant, but that's something to discuss more in depth at another time. It wasn't too bad, and I was able to handle it.

Then, a few weeks ago, it started again a bit. I talked to my mom about it and felt that I could handle it. I could talk myself down from small panic attacks that usually happened when I was home alone at night. I practiced my deep breathing, meditating and remembering that my symptoms (racing heartbeat, nervousness) was just adrenaline and that it would have to pass and wouldn't kill me. It always passed within a few minutes (although it felt like hours).

It wasn't until recently when the anxiety began being accompanied by slight depression and more serious physical symptoms that I started feeling like I couldn't handle it as well. Specifically, I was having some fluttering in my chest (palpitations) that I was convinced were serious arrhythmias (after reading an e-mail about female heart attacks) and tightness in my chest (that I later decided was from exercising incorrectly, and from the anxiety itself).

In the past month or so, I have been exercising every day, which is a significant change in lifestyle, as I hadn't been exercising at all on a regular basis for the last seven years. I have been walking at least ten minutes a day and had recently (a few days before these symptoms) been using an exercise ball and doing some strenuous muscle exercises. I was also taking 100mg Zoloft, 500mg Metformin HCL (usually at least 1 daily - sometimes 2 - I am supposed to take 2 but forget often), Isagenix Omega fatty acids capsule (at least 1 daily), and Isagenix multivitamin once a day. I had also taken Provera for 10 days at the beginning of December to bring on a period, and then on March 1st and 2nd I took it, as I'm supposed to take it the first 10 days of every 3rd month. Because of having PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome), I do not ovulate and do not get periods, so this is why I take Metformin and Provera. Anyway, I stopped after March 2nd because that was the day that I had the "major event" and decided Provera was not a good idea at the time. (I ended up having a period anyway after only taking it two of the ten days... hmm.)

So, on March 2nd, I was talking to my mom on the phone about how I had been having this tightness in my chest and fluttering, both when I was exercising and then once or twice when I was just sitting still, supposedly relaxed. I couldn't stop worrying about if something was really wrong with my heart. My mom assured me it was just my anxiety and that lots of people with anxiety disorders believe they are having heart attacks and end up in the ER with only symptoms of their anxiety. (She's a clinical social worker with a private practice doing psychotherapy.) After talking for a while, she recognized that I wouldn't feel much better until I got checked out by a medical doctor, so she offered for me to drive over to her house and we would go to the clinic nearby.

I had gone to that same clinic a couple months earlier when Daniel thought he'd broken his pinky playing basketball at the Y, and we were in and out really quick, so I assumed that even though we were going at 10 o'clock on a Wednesday night, we probably would make it home before 11 and maybe even beat my dad back from his meeting. (FYI, Rod was working that night, so I didn't ask him to help out with all this, which he later explained upset him because he wanted to be involved and needed.) Well, we ended up staying at the clinic until 1:30am... on my birthday... My wonderful mother was a good sport and very helpful to me.

After an EKG, hours of observation, blood tests and x-rays, it was determined that there was absolutely nothing immediately wrong with me and that it was probably just the anxiety and strain from exercising. They did offer to admit me to the hospital for further testing if I was still worried, but that it probably wasn't necessary. I said no thank you and we went home and went to sleep.

The next day, I went to work and shortly after I got there, could not control my emotions. I was all waterworks. I had called my psychiatric APRN to talk about doing something different with my Zoloft in case that was the problem (although it had always worked great for me), and she called me back at work and as soon as I heard her voice, I started hysterically crying. I had to go outside and my boss eventually came out of her appointment and got on the phone (her in the office, me in my car) and asked what was going on. I told her I'd be right in and she calmed me down and made me a cup of calming tea, which I only took one sip of because I don't like the taste of tea. I was able to continue working until about one o'clock when I had made an appointment to see my APRN. Rod came and ate lunch with me before that, which was sweet. It was partially because it was my birthday, and partially because he was worried about me and I wanted to see him. A drug rep brought my favorite Greek salad and some desserts, which I graciously shared with him because I didn't have much of an appetite (although more than previous episodes).

At my appointment with my APRN, we decided to switch me from Zoloft to Lexapro because it might have less of a weight gaining (or weight-loss-preventing) affect.* I have since titrated the Zoloft completely and have replaced the 100mg of Zoloft with 10mg of Lexapro and it seems to be working just as well. Only side effects with that were tiny headaches toward the end of the day, but they seem to be going away.

A couple days later, I had an appointment with my general practitioner who I really like; he's great. I also made an appointment with a psychotherapist here in town. I met her the other day, she's great, too. So far, so good. She's interested in the fact that I was adopted, as well. I've only had one session so far but have my next one on Monday. I was lucky to find a good one on the first try... in my experience, this doesn't always happen and you have to be picky.

I also had an appointment with my gynecologist to make sure there aren't any drug interactions with the things I'm on. I also talked about the Provera and told her I'd stopped it after the 2nd day this cycle because I was so over-emotional and felt either the Provera was causing this or that it was at the very least adding to it, and she agreed. She prescribed a different, related med for the next cycle which will be in June. Around that time I may actually decide to switch to Chlomid to make myself ovulate so we can start trying to get pregnant. :) But that depends on how things are going with me. I also talked to her about this, about my concerns that pregnancy will not be a good idea for me with anxiety and dependency and she explained that it could or it could not, you just never know. I also explained my concerns about not being on the Lipitor that my GP had prescribed to me and she took me off of because it's "devastating" to be on if you should become pregnant, and she said that even though my cholesterol levels have come up again now that I have been off of the Lipitor, that it won't be bad for me to not take it for a few years until I am done being pregnant. So that was good news.

My therapist also told me that in her experience, all women she's known with anxiety disorders who have become pregnant, have had no problem and actually have gotten BETTER during the time they were pregnant, maybe due to the hormones or due to the fact that their focus is elsewhere. This was good news.

Again, I sometimes wonder if it's selfish to become pregnant when I am thinking about myself and my issues, and also selfish to pass on my mental illness history to children, along with Rod's history of addiction (family members, not him). But in talking with my therapist, I realize that this shouldn't stop us from having babies, that everyone passes along something to their children and with our knowledge and experience, we can help and support our children should they ever face what we have been through. And Rod has never had a sip of alcohol (except in church communion) and can pass along his judgment to our children on this, too. It's not inevitable that our children will suffer from these struggles we might pass on.

* Speaking of weight, today is Wednesday, my weigh-in day, and unfortunately I have gained a pound this week! Better luck next week... gotta get back on track here. Trying to remind myself not to push myself too hard, though, because losing too much too fast will probably have adverse effects on my body and I definitely don't need that right now.

Did I mention I also have poison ivy now? The same night I went to the ER, Rod had an "exposure" to scabies, of all things. He was wrestling a kid and his mother, and the mother announced that she was pregnant and had scabies. We took all the general precautions and Rod got the cream and prevented as best he could, but of course when I woke up the other day with little bumps on my inner elbow, I was like, "You've got to be kidding me!" We went to the doctor who said it didn't look like scabies and probably wasn't because of how careful Rod was and we didn't even have contact with each other between the time he was exposed and the time he took a shower and put the cream on. But he prescribed me the cream, too, just as a precaution. Not fun. But now I definitely think it's poison ivy or poison something (oak or sumac) because it looks like it and it is spreading that way, and doesn't look like what scabies rashes generally look like (from what I've seen on the internet). Anyway, just lovely, huh?

"Happy birthday sweetie, here are some scabies to go along with your anxiety!"