Anxiety the return

[andy-xr]

gingerbeard said:

Yep those are usual s/effects, not nice but everyone is different and it is often a long time to find one that suits you. Venlafaxine can work well as long as your heart is fine and you don't drink too much but you are right about the head 'zaps' when coming off it, lots of patients complain of that and it can't be nice. I'm glad you found one that worked for you

GB

I'd disagree with an earlier post about some things settling down with time, I think it's more a case that people get used to it, but it's still there. The lack of pitching tents for example is a continued side effect for many men on many SSRI and SNRIs. It was something that bothered me about taking them, and I went out looking for ones that didn't have a Mr Floppy effect. Those were Mirtazapine, Venlafaxine and one of the tricyclics, but that made it hard to pee and that wasn't good. Mirtazapine = weight gain, venlafaxine worked well for me.

I did try a couple of others, started on fluoxetine and then sertraline each for a month. Neither were particularly good for me, mainly due to the side effects. I'm not a doctor, but I believe that SSRI/SNRI meds are a bit of a guessing game from both patient and GP as to which one works best and there's no harm in trying different ones to find something that suits. Sertraline is really really nasty, it felt dirty, that feeling where you're chemically adjusted and not in a good way. I've had that feeling before in my younger years with base and you can feel how nasty it is

[anonymous-user]

Rather than take any pills, which the NHS distribute with glee, I would cut out alcohol - not cut down, cut out finito. A great many people are allergic and even a small intake can give rise to the OP's type of symptoms. A number of people I know have stopped altogether and been amazed at the reduction in anxiety levels, one chap having had 20+ years of agony, depression and home life issues and the change in him having cut out his 5 pints a week is dramatic so he's stopped the multiple prescriptions and is back in business.

[Patch1875]

I drink very little, couple on a Friday and Saturday is usually my lot but since the anxiety kicked in a few weeks ago I've not touched a drop not really through choice I just don't fancy it with how I'm feeling.

[anonymous-user]

Patch1875 said:

I drink very little, couple on a Friday and Saturday is usually my lot but since the anxiety kicked in a few weeks ago I've not touched a drop not really through choice I just don't fancy it with how I'm feeling.

Good news in your case mate from the point of not being allergic

[Marc p]

Patch1875 said:

I drink very little, couple on a Friday and Saturday is usually my lot but since the anxiety kicked in a few weeks ago I've not touched a drop not really through choice I just don't fancy it with how I'm feeling.

Exactly the same for me, I don't know if it's anxiety/depression or what affecting me, I try to stay happy to others but I don't know what to do with myself, I don't want to go out, I find it so hard to concentrate on what others(including my freinds) are talking about, I want to care but I feel like I just can't even bother with anyone. I try and smile and nod when people talk to me, but I have no idea what someone has just talked to me about once they finish.

All I do is turn to work, it's the only place I can feel that I belong. I feel worried about everything though money/relationship/work and I constantly battle with this feeling of just wanting to not even leave the house.

At the beginning of the year I was fantastic, I was happy, now, very much the opposite.

[croyde]

Funny how Sertraline keeps coming up as a nasty one.

I was prescribed it just before the summer and apart from the first month which was really horrible, I stuck with it and now I'm rarely down, happy to try jobs that would have me so anxious I'd make excuses not to do them.

Not good as a freelancer.

I am more confident as well.

I suppose I will need to come off them at some point, which I dread, both because of the side effects and the fact that I'm sure it's the drug that has mmassively improved my life.

[Patch1875]

Good to hear, I'm 2 weeks in tomorrow can't say I'm feeling any effect other than making me worse! Have an appointment with the doc tomorrow to see how it's going.

[944fan]

V6Pushfit said:

V6Pushfit said:

If you don't mind me asking do you drink, and if you do then what sort of amount per day? And honestly please...

This isn't a trick question OP, are you out there?

I'm here. I gave up drinking this year for 9 months. I did feel better but the anxiety was still there (not as bad as it is now though). What I can't remember is did the anxiety get worse before or after I started drinking again. I think if I am honest it probably got worse after I started again.

And to be honest about the amount. I "try" not to drink on school nights, but do sometimes give in. When I do drink it is a minimum bottle of red wine. If I get over excited it could be 2 bottles, or 1 - 1.5 bottles and some spirits or beer.

I know I do myself no favours. But when I find the anxiety is bad it is really hard to live a healthy life and do things right. Alcohol is often an easy way out.

Going to quit again I think.

[944fan]

andy-xr said:

Dick disappeared off on holiday somewhere, sleep was patchy and not particularly good, anxiety and heartbeat through the roof, general unwellness, jumpy legs, zombie feeling. It's one of the worst other than Prozac.

With venlafaxine, my experiences of it were positive, other than taking ages to 'finish' and the bad head zaps coming off it, needed sleeping tablets through the day to get through it

Pretty much the same here. Lost all feeling in the old general. Remember one day trying to have a wk and gave up after an hour.

Also felt massively tired and just "out of it".

[944fan]

Evolved said:

Sorry I never followed this after my advice..

As the DR's in the UK are next to useless when it comes to TRT, what were the actual numbers from your blood tests? To just say you were 'marginally low' says nothing but it's typical of the NHS!

I was on the cusp of 11nmol and the 'specialist' said I was within range but at the low end, I felt absolutely awful at that number. They seem to treat numbers instead of symptoms in this country, an argument I've had with two supposed specialists now, for record when my body was producing test and I felt good my reference number was 20nmol.

Without numbers it's hard to say what the cause is but the results of a full blood work would help, in the US the blood panel results are shared, not so here so you may have to pester to get them.

I'm still confident if he says you're low, that it's low test that's causing the problem.

Edited by Evolved on Wednesday 16th December 07:58

They didn't give me the numbers. I will ask for a print out. They are doing the T test again on Tuesday. I suspect if it is still low they might do something.

Otherwise might get the results and go private. They said the Vit D was defo low and will be starting on that also, but after this second test

[anonymous-user]

944fan said:

I'm here. I gave up drinking this year for 9 months. I did feel better but the anxiety was still there (not as bad as it is now though). What I can't remember is did the anxiety get worse before or after I started drinking again. I think if I am honest it probably got worse after I started again.

And to be honest about the amount. I "try" not to drink on school nights, but do sometimes give in. When I do drink it is a minimum bottle of red wine. If I get over excited it could be 2 bottles, or 1 - 1.5 bottles and some spirits or beer.

I know I do myself no favours. But when I find the anxiety is bad it is really hard to live a healthy life and do things right. Alcohol is often an easy way out.

Going to quit again I think.

Thanks for being so open in reply. Your choice of a way forward, but stopping will help greatly by the looks of it as your intake will at the very least be fking up your metabolism. Drink can greatly increase anxiety while at the same time telling you it's not. And cutting down won't help as its still there to increase if you want.
My advice is nil mate as a base line and take it from there with a view to avoiding medication too.

[944fan]

V6Pushfit said:

Thanks for being so open in reply. Your choice of a way forward, but stopping will help greatly by the looks of it as your intake will at the very least be fking up your metabolism. Drink can greatly increase anxiety while at the same time telling you it's not. And cutting down won't help as its still there to increase if you want.
My advice is nil mate as a base line and take it from there with a view to avoiding medication too.

Yes your are probably right. Its hard to judge as my stress levels and anxiety triggers have gone up recently. But at the same time I have been drinking more and exercising less. Be interesting to see how I deal with increased triggers when I am being healthy.

Giving up was quite easy (not one for going out much) so I think that is worth doing again. Its amazing how after having not drunk for 9 months within weeks I was back at my usual level of tolerance.

[anonymous-user]

944fan said:

Yes your are probably right. Its hard to judge as my stress levels and anxiety triggers have gone up recently. But at the same time I have been drinking more and exercising less. Be interesting to see how I deal with increased triggers when I am being healthy.

Giving up was quite easy (not one for going out much) so I think that is worth doing again. Its amazing how after having not drunk for 9 months within weeks I was back at my usual level of tolerance.

For a number of reasons you have confirmed it as being the way forward. I can't remember if you said you were on medication or not, but if you are I would suggest kicking it into touch for a while.
It's surprising how drink gets overlooked as a core reason for depression and anxiety.
Good luck, you'll be fine

[5potTurbo]

I posted in the Depression thread, then saw this one.

I had my first counselling session with a psychotherapist (just noticed how that word breaks down!), but it was more to find out about me, my work, family, symptoms, etc. €95/hour but hey, ho.

She said it's clear I'm very close to 'burn out' at work, and my holiday, which starts on Sat., being outdoors, exercising, no work phone/email, and being with my wife and daughters, may just be what I need.
It's clear I must say "no" at work more often, and not end up buried with stloads of work, meaning none of it's being done to my usual and expected high standards.

I've another psych session tomorrow lunchtime to work out a strategy for saying "no", that doesn't involve me saying "fk OFF!" to most of my colleagues.

In other news, like 944fan, I've been trying to keep my head down at work until my holiday starts. Last day in the office today.
Unfortunately, I had a meeting with a board member at 08:30 and he started it by being arsey and swearing at me about another situation at work that I'm on the periphery of. I kept calm and amazed myself I didn't tell him to go fk himself. I felt my fists clenching as he walked around his desk. I didn't lamp him. Oh, for that Euromillions win. He'd be the first.

I don't want to go the route of medication, although I realise I've been "self medicating" with a large increase in my alcohol intake in recent weeks, so a holiday is really what I need.

I hope others can find a way of working things out, or knowing how to live with anxiety, without it overtaking you.

[andy-xr]

5potTurbo said:

I posted in the Depression thread, then saw this one.

I had my first counselling session with a psychotherapist (just noticed how that word breaks down!), but it was more to find out about me, my work, family, symptoms, etc. €95/hour but hey, ho.

She said it's clear I'm very close to 'burn out' at work, and my holiday, which starts on Sat., being outdoors, exercising, no work phone/email, and being with my wife and daughters, may just be what I need.
It's clear I must say "no" at work more often, and not end up buried with stloads of work, meaning none of it's being done to my usual and expected high standards.

I've another psych session tomorrow lunchtime to work out a strategy for saying "no", that doesn't involve me saying "fk OFF!" to most of my colleagues.

In other news, like 944fan, I've been trying to keep my head down at work until my holiday starts. Last day in the office today.
Unfortunately, I had a meeting with a board member at 08:30 and he started it by being arsey and swearing at me about another situation at work that I'm on the periphery of. I kept calm and amazed myself I didn't tell him to go fk himself. I felt my fists clenching as he walked around his desk. I didn't lamp him. Oh, for that Euromillions win. He'd be the first.

I don't want to go the route of medication, although I realise I've been "self medicating" with a large increase in my alcohol intake in recent weeks, so a holiday is really what I need.

I hope others can find a way of working things out, or knowing how to live with anxiety, without it overtaking you.

Therapy went well for me. I used medication to help, kind of a two pronged attack. What came out was that I needed to change my thinking patterns and rather than run away from problems, or bury my head, or bury the problems, I had to see them for what they were. Rationally, without them becoming this horrible ball of mess that had me fearing for my life.

In changing the way I think about things I've become a lot more open and honest with myself and with other people. So I dont bottle things up, in some ways things that bothered me before dont bother me at all or as much (ie I can cope) now. In a session, I was talking about stuff and the therapist asked me if I was sadistic. It burned right across me because I wanted to be such a good person that I could never ever be thought of as sadistic and that's just for paedos and rapists and I'm not one of them, no way Sir.

She said my reaction was all over my face, I burned up inside and outside because the thought of it, just the thought rather than any action was enough to strike terror into me and I must at all costs defend myself and prove to me and anyone that I'm not like that.

Turns out I was a bit like that. I was also a load of other things as well, some were good, some werent.

I was also a big people pleaser, didnt like to say NO, avoided confrontation, always wanted people to like me. If they didnt, then people=st or I=st

Now, people can either like me, feel nothing either way or dislike me and that's OK. I can say no, either as the word, or as 'this isnt what I'm planning on doing' and then not do it without guilt or remorse.

I've also learned to be a lot less judgmental or myself and of other people. I had overly high expectations of myself and would beat myself up continuously if I failed on something or got it wrong, and I'd do that to other people as well. Mainly that's how I was managed in my earlier working life (dont fail, ever), and work became something that I was. I couldnt answer the question 'who are you?' as in, I identfied myself as my work position and that tied me to a social class and all that other stuff. My brain, basically was talking st to me and I was oblivious to it on the surface, but taking it all in subconsciously and to get past that I had to be more aware of it and question it.

I question quite a lot of stuff (quietly to myself) when it's presented, either at work, at home, in general thought, as I found it's really helped me look at how I think things are and whether the reality is different to the judgement I'd already made (which was mostly negative). Through doing that I also dont finish people's sentences for them, which apparently was really annoying. I did it because I was ready to give the answer that I thought they'd like or thought they wanted to hear. Not always what I actually thought, mind.

I hope that a holiday, some R+R will help you get some distance and with that some perspective. If your problems are proximity based, dont put yourself through the mangle at work, there's ways to deal with it. Many jobs are available, but there's only one you.

[anonymous-user]

andy-xr said:

a lot

You're a deep and detailed thinker. It can cause all sorts of problems if not kept in check, and also lead to frustration that in turn leads to stress and depression.

Very difficult to reverse but it can be done. As I said earlier stay off the booze and drugs and any form of metabolism changing influences is a great start.

[5potTurbo]

Thanks for that input, Andy. We're similar in a lot of ways.
You're completely right, there's only one "you".

[944fan]

andy-xr said:

a lot

Yep I do a lot of the same stuff. The beating myself up about making mistakes and letting people down I do loads.

For example at work at the mo I am leading a project. The timescales were tight, but not unreasonable, there was a slight chance we might miss the deadline by a couple of weeks.

Probably worse that would actually happen is the client would give us some grief. Absolute worse thing (and unlikely) be we lose the client. We don't make that much money from them and they are aholes so that wouldn't matter.

I've been worrying about it like someones life depended on it!

[944fan]

Oddly I feel worse today than I have done in a while. Its my last day at work before hols and all my work is done.

Christmas party later which should be a laugh.

Not sure why I feel like this.

[andy-xr]

944fan said:

Oddly I feel worse today than I have done in a while. Its my last day at work before hols and all my work is done.

Christmas party later which should be a laugh.

Not sure why I feel like this.

I tend to try and just notice things, it's part of mindfulness, ie I might say to myself 'I'm feeling a bit off, I dont know why' and then carry on what I was doing. I dont need to know why, I can just notice it and let it be there.

It's little things, but for me it helps to pinpoint them so they dont get out of hand, no-one wants a murderdeathkill

Enjoy the party for what it is