Hello Everyone, I hope everyone remembers me. I went to Ohio for a few months then we did not have a computer for awhile. I so missed everyone here. I was doing alright for awhile, I was nervous and anxious, always worrying but still functioning. Then at the end of August BOOM the panic attacks came back with a vengence, and now I am in a very deep depression from it.

It started with a small cut on my hand believe it or not that turned into a staph infection that almost became blood posioning. Then one day I could not walk my leg completely gave out, I thought I had a blood clot, that went away and I started having horrible chest pains, trouble breathing, lung pain coughing of course I thought I had lung cancer, I had a chest x-ray and it came up normal, thank God, then after all that a week later my husband brought home a very bad cold and of course we caught it, I am still coughing, I cut back to 3 cigarettes a day which caused nicotine withdrawal, I am smoking more now because of the anxiety, but I am hoping to taper back again because of the lung problems. The past 3 months I feel like I have been in hell.

The Zoloft must have stopped working, I still take the Klonopin, I am going to start Lexapro in a few days when my period is over, I hate starting anything new during my time because its bad.

I have become housebound somewhat again, with daily panic attacks that devastate me, now I feel very very sad and depressed, I feel like I am ruining my son and husbands life with my condition, I called many Doctors and some even scared me with talking about "pysch hospitals" "having a heart attack from the panic's" and "just go to the ER" things that I know do NOT help panic patients. I have even developed a phobia about my period afraid I will "bleed to death and die from it" can you imagine I have been having my period since I was 12 years old, I am 45 now. ITs been very rough, I am afraid to be alone, I feel like all of its come back so bad, and of course the biggest fear of all that "I will never get better" With a special-needs son I must get better and function, I am so afraid of dying and having my son find me.

I am so very very depressed this has come back with such a vengence, I have noone family or friends to help me and my only friend left me because she said she could not "take seeing me in such a way" that really broke me she was all I had close by.

I am praying the Lexapro will not kill me or cause a fatal reaction or interaction with the Klonopin. Please pray for me so I can recover and take care of my son, my faith in our Lord is all I am holding onto right now, Doctor's have been very mean to me.

God bless you all and thank you so much. Ramella.

Hi Ramella: Yes, I remember you...sorry to hear you are having such a bad time. Have you considered getting into counseling to address some of the fears you're having? Sounds like CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) might help you a lot. I've had irrational fears in my lifetime too. Try to remember that 'fears are not facts.'. You will NOT bleed to death from your menstrual period, (trust me on this one; I taught biology for years, and I have never ever heard of this happening.) Also, if you have been taking Zoloft for a while then I very much doubt you will "have a fatal reaction" to Wellbutrin. AD's and Clonopin don't have reactions together.)

It's so important to have family and friends nearby to help you when you are feeling low....is there a church nearby that you could attend? Try to hang in there...you will indeed get better, but it will take time and patience.

Welcome back!

I am so, so sorry you are going thru such a hellish period. I went thru the very same thing this summer and did end up in psych hospital for a week. It was the best thing I ever did. I cried all the way there thinking it was going to be like one of those horrid places you see in the movies. But it turned out to be a life saver for me. I was isolated from the world that was driving me crazy, I had wonderful nurses and a great doctor who got my meds regulated. I wish I had gone to the hospital when my doctor first recommended it - I would have saved myself a lot of anguish and pain.

Good luck to you, darling.

Ramella

I do so so understand the health anxiety stuff. I have got worse & worse over the last 2 years. About 4 months ago I had my first ever late & lengthy period. Oh my - the thoughts that crossed my mind - do I have a bleed that won't stop - will I bleed to death etc etc. I literally remember saying to my hubby the next day that I had gone mad for that day.Then 2 weeks later I started having heart palps (PVCs) and of course they brought their own worries. I worry about health problems I have & plenty that i haven't. I worry about my kids health, my hubby's, my nother's .. even people on this website's health (lol). I picture myself dying in hospital, or seriously ill so that I can't function & how it would affect the kids. I think i have every bad disease going - my only comfort being that by the law of averages I can't have all of them at least! I worry about my reacting to meds too since this all started at the same time as my allergic reaction to some stomach meds & then again with a different type too. I started to believe I would be allergic to all new meds. I won't take them when I am alone in the house just in case!

I constantly worry about any of my family or myself needing ops as I worry about MRSA or reactions to anaesthetics - so yes, I understand the HA very well indeed & you will find many more on here who are the same. We are the lucky ones because we have found PS & been enlightened to it all being due to Peri. There must be so many people suffering out there not knowing!

I have been waiting 8 months for a course of CBT and at last i am about to start on 1st November. I really hope it will help. Very occasionally i get a day when i am free of all this & it feels wonderful!

I know you will find a way through this - we all will!

Gwenhurvera-

I hope you don't mind my asking, but how do they regulate your meds in a week if its takes weeks to months for an AD to work?
I struggling now trying to get relief from my symptoms with an AD and this has gone on forever its seems. You seem to be doing well on Zoloft. Did you feel better on Zoloft right away at the hosptial? I've always wondered what they can do for you in the hospital other than keep you from harming yourself or pump you up with Valium and send you home in the same state.

Ramalla-

You are not alone. I have a son to raise too and am struggling.
I keep telling the shrink that I must get something to work as I have responsibilities. I know what you mean about doctors. If its possible to find a better one, try. I know these are just words.
Try to impress on your doctor that you have enormous responsibility to your son and must have support. Perhaps he can help you find a group. Of course you can post me anytime you want. I wish I had an easy answer.

Lexapro and Klonipin are fine together. Don't worry about that.
Were you taking Zoloft a long time? Was it working before?

I too know about having family or friends abandon you. My sister
hasn't spoken to me in about a year because of the same reason you cite. You find out pretty quick who really cares about you when you are down.

I am trying to hold on to hope and pray that you will do the same.
If you started the panic in peri, perhaps hormones might help.
I haven't had success myself with it, but other women have.
I know what you mean about meds and having your period. Its just all too much at once.

Please know you are not alone and can post me anytime.

Let me pass along some reassurance. A very similar thing happened to me this summer. I had been on Prozac since 1989, and then all of a sudden it stopped working. I, too, had medical problems over the summer; namely a misdiagnosed gallbladder infection which went undetected for a week and then I became very ill and finally had it out. This, coupled with a lot of stress in my family and hitting menopause sent me into a tizzy with panic attacks, hot flashes, weight loss, lack of sleep and that on edge, shaky feeling all of the time. Because I was a on a high dose of Prozac, I felt I would get no better and that it should stop me from feeling like this. I was trying to work and pretend things were okay at the office, but inside I felt terrible, just like I did before Prozac and ended up in a psych ward for three weeks. I was absolutely terrified. I made an appt. with my psychiatrist with the attitude, "what can he do anyway...I'm already on Prozac" (lousy attitude) and when I walked into his office, he reassured me that I WOULD GET BETTER. That day, he switched me to Lexapro and Klonopin and guess what??? The next day I felt eons better...much more relaxed and less on edge...a bit sleepy even. That was two weeks ago. Now, I feel more like myself again...not quite like I was but very close. I can't guarantee that you'll feel like me, but I do think things will get better for you. Do what your doc tells you and give Lexapro a chance. I think you'll notice a difference. Let us all know how you do.

12k-

I was told that Lexapro would make you feel better in days, but I tried it last year and just felt more anxiety. I'm baffled why these drugs work fast for some, but not for me.

Also, I notice you wrote a post in which you mentioned that your psych understood meno. Where in the world do you find such an animal? I've been to three shrinks, the first two total old school nightmares. My current one is compassionate, but other than mentioning postpartum depression, he doesn't seem to be able to
put together the meno and depression in a way that makes any real difference in the way I feel. All he states is that the ADs work even if the cause is hormonal. Is there something beyond that you get from a psychiatrist that understands meno?

It seems to me that AD efficacy is complicated by meno and there has to be some more comprehensive plan for attacking the myriad of miseries we are enduring at one time. I am frustrated beyond belief.

Lidge

Hi Ladies,

The way my naturopath doctor explained the anxiety , depression, mood swings, etc is that serotonin (neutrotransmitter in our brain)
decreases when estrogen decreases and this affects sleep pattern,
and moods. With the fluctuating hormones during peri, our serotonin levels are also fluctuating and AD's help to restore the serotonin levels or at least gives our brain a steady level of it.

Some serotonin is also produced in our gut which may explain some problems with irritable bowel during peri also.

I have tried prozac at the same time I was on bioidentical hormones and I stopped the prozac in July and so far (knock on wood) the hormones are keeping my anxiety and depression at bay. I still have moments of panic and sadness but not nearly as bad as a year ago.

Ramella - I pray for you, I know how hard it is to bottom out because I was there last December and if I was not thinking about my daughter, no telling what I would have done. Take it a day at a time and know that we are here for you.

Plumeria

My psychiatrist basically explained the whole serotonin/estrogen relationship exactly as Plumeria's naturopath described it. He stated that the receptors in the brain are the same for both estrogen and serotonin. What affects one, affects the other. He said he had a lot of female patients in this phase of their lives going through the exact same thing as me, and we would take this one step at a time until I felt better. I saw him every week for a while, and even called him in between times. He was very reassuring, but also knowledgeable in the brain and pharmacology. He is not a therapist, but a doctor trained in mood disorders and how to treat them. He also knows a lot about new medicines coming out, and told me he just attended a seminar on why antidepressants stopped working sometimes. I guess I do feel lucky that someone genuinely understood. My biggest mistake is that I should have put two and two together when I started to feel bad and made an appointment with him instead of making unnecessary trips to my regular MD and the emergency room.

12k, PLumeria

Thanks for responding. It is well known that lower estrogen equals lower serotonin. I thought a good shrink might shed more light on this. For example, every woman has diminshed estrogen at peri or meno, why isn't every woman suffering depression?

If the psych states that estrogen and serotonin receptors are the same, why prescribe ADs, why not just straight estrogen (unless a woman can't take estrogen). I just think that if the explanation
were simple, the remedy would be simple too. I'm very frustrated
with all this. I don't think many doctors or psychiatrists know enough about the interaction between hormones and the brain.

I think the answer to the question of why not every woman suffers from depression or anxiety lies in that woman's individual makeup. I have several friends who sailed through menopause. They did not have the history of anxiety and/or depression that I have. There were three times in my life when I went through absolutely horrid panic attacks and depression (1) puberty; (2) post-partum; and (3) now. The female members of my entire family, including my daughter and mother, suffer from panic attacks and depression. I do believe that some of us have a genetic makeup that makes us prone to panic/depression. We may also have environmental triggers as well, (i.e., stress) that when combined with our genetic predisposition, can trigger a panic attack. Then there are some of us who have gone through life with no problems at all until meno or peri-meno. I think the predisposition may have been there all along, but our levels of serontin perhaps didn't fluctuate until our hormones went whacko. This is also a time of life when we are dealing with empty nests, aging parents and/or out-of-control adult children...a lot of stress. And then there are those, like my friends, who neverPMS'd or had any trouble post-partum or during perimenopause and also handle stress very well. They are very lucky women indeed. I don't think there's a solid answer to why some of us can roll with the punches just as there are no answers to why people have panic attacks in the first place. Unfortunately, a lot of psychiatry is trial and error...what works for one may not work for the other. Unlike medical science, psychiatry is in its relative infancy as a medical, not psychological, discipline. Before the 1950s, people were analyzed to death or locked up. That was the time when medications were developed that actually treated mental disorders as brain diseases and not as a psychological condition relating to one's childhood. If you compare that amount of time to the time people have worked on discovering treatments for other types of diseases, it's a very short time indeed.

Believe me, I've tried a lot of different meds in my lifetime. But sooner or later I hit on one that does a great job and I get relief. There are a large group of us women going through meno here at work and all went out and sought help from psychiatry. Every single one of us didn't sail through this easily, but we all eventually came out on top and we're all feeling great! I just want to give hope to those of you who are suffering. Be persistent and resourceful because eventually, you will get better

Thank you all so much for taking the time and trouble to write me back. Its been so very hard lately for me. Tonight my husband left me shaking crying and panicking and bleeding heavy, it was to take my son to a carnival, which I know is a good reason, but he was drinking beer heavy, had a fight with his boss and is dead tired so of course that is causing me so much more anixiety.

I think peri on top of depression anxiety and panic is sick cruel joke! I am trying so hard to recover but its just not happening, last time this happened I suffered almost a year and its only been 3 months, I feel like I am losing part of my life, last time with prayer and lots of it I finally recovered, I still worried and was anxious and nervous but at least I was not panicking and crying everyday.

I have started seeing a therapist twice now, she is out of pocket so of course I am worried about that since we do not have much money at all, I am praying the nurse-practioner will help me, I am waiting till my period is over to start the lexapro, I am scared but so desperate right now, if I do not get over this I am going to lose my husband and son, I already have lost some family members and my best friend, how I wish I could just feel a little bit better.

Thank you all again, I am sorry I sound so scared and down, I hope I did not depress anyone, I am so grateful for all your help thank you so very very much, especially for the prayers. God bless you all, Ramella.

You do not depress me at all because I feel your pain. I know exactly how you are feeling and how frustrated and hopeless you are at the moment. It also sounds like you have a lot of stress in your life on top of all of the physical symptoms you are experiencing. Your brain is experiencing chaos at the moment and yes, this is a horrid, cruel joke life is playing on you. For those of us who are prone to anxiety anyway, peri menopause and menopause just make matters a whole lot worse. Do not blame yourself for this and know that you WILL get better. I can't guarantee the Lexapro will work for you, but I know that for most users, it works very well for anxiety. Prayer is also a great treatment, but I feel that God gave us doctors to heal us, and that's what you need right now...a lot of prayer and a good doctor. I do feel in my heart that things will get a lot better for you soon. Best of luck and God bless!

[quote name='lidge26' date='Oct 20 2006, 11:22 AM' post='142200']
Gwenhurvera-

I hope you don't mind my asking, but how do they regulate your meds in a week if its takes weeks to months for an AD to work?
I struggling now trying to get relief from my symptoms with an AD and this has gone on forever its seems. You seem to be doing well on Zoloft. Did you feel better on Zoloft right away at the hosptial? I've always wondered what they can do for you in the hospital other than keep you from harming yourself or pump you up with Valium and send you home in the same state.




My doctor had started me on 25 mg. of Zoloft and given me ativan about a month before I went into the hospital. The only thing the ativan did was make me sleepy and I couldn't even tell I was taking the Zoloft. As soon as I was admitted to the hospital and had my first visit with the psychiatrist he upped my zoloft to 75 mg. per day and switched me from ativan to klonopin (klonopin stays in the system longer and it doesn't make me sleepy). After I left the hospital I had to see a pyschiatrist once a week for the first month to make sure I was still doing well on the medicine. I don't know why going into the hospital was such a turning point for me. Maybe it was the fact that there were other people there going thru exactly the same thing I was enduring. I also think it was the feeling of safety and isolation. I had become so agorophobic and was having so much anxiety about my health that I was literally driving myself insane. When I was in the hospital I felt secure and I felt that the staff there really wanted me (and all their patients) to get better. Some of the nurses and therapists had been thru depression and anxiety themselves (most menopause related) and they were a great source of comfort and hope to me. I was very lucky. I was in a really good psychiatric ward at a small hospital and my psychiatrist was very understanding and really listened. He explained how low estrogen levels cause adrenal surges which lead to anxiety attacks. He answered all my questions and he was never condescending.

I forgot to respond to the question about being pumped up with valium in the hospital and then sent home. It wasn't that way at all. There was group therapy, there was one-on-one therapy with counselors and psychologists and I saw the psychiatrist every day. Plus, the patients there really bonded with each other. We would sit out on the patio at smoke break time and talk about our "illnesses". We watched movies together, ate meals together and helped each other. I often wonder how my "friends" are doing.

Ramella..You touch my heart..Add to the existing anxiety many of us feel and the ensuing stress can be overwhelming. The right medications can help but those of us who have had negative reactions to meds in the past feel very tense about trying anything new. I am way too cautious with medications and anesthesia is really a dreaded thing for me, though the only time I have undergone general, I did great. Right now, I need a minor procedure which would be done under a local and I am procrastinating about even that! Underlying much of our fear, I think, is a mistrust of our medical system. Most of us have spent a fortune in our attempts to find knowledgeable help and too often, get physicians too busy to really listen to us. I also wonder how large their fund of knowledge is concerning women's health issues.
In my area of the country, it is almost impossible to find a Dr. who knows half as much as I do about HRT. So, we play detective with our own bodies and we come here to get hard information about almost everything we suffer. Hang in there, holding in your mind the idea that, "This, too, will pass." Very few of us will die as a result of a condition tied to the symptoms which have made us so miserable. Blessings to you and your son.

[font=Arial]Ramella:
I don't write on this board much, but I felt like I should rspond since I, too, have had many of the symptoms you describe.
It's so hard to get a grip on things when everything seems so bad. A few years ago, when peri first started, I had every symptom in the book and then some -- palpitations, twitching, crying, depression, health anxiety fixation, thought I had MS or Lou Gehrigs's disease -- you name it. Like others here, I believe some people have a genetic predisposition for this kind of thing, and I think that's the case for me. If others in your family have similar hard times, that might be true for you too.

I still have a tendency to dwell on symptoms that I have, and even some I think I might have. However, sometimes older does = a least a little bit wiser, and I have learned -- after years of doing this - to allow all these bad feelings to come, but to remember that they will pass and that most of my health anxiety is probably for nothing. I try hard to remember that all we really have is here, today. I'm trying to more often check out the birds, the cute kids on the block, my fabulous tree that's starting to turn great colors -- things like that.

I know that "advice" like this seems ridiculous, especially when you're in the middle of a bad period.

Try, if you can, to carve out a little time each day to do something you really like -- and too bad if anyone else objects. Do you like to read? Sew? Garden? I remember when I had panic/palpitation attacks at home that doing a crossword puzzle often helped me get over it sooner. Little tricks sometimes work. And -- this is going to sound strange, maybe -- try meditation. Not that whole blown big meditation thing, but start by sitting still in the morning for just five minutes and think only about your breathing. That was the advice I was given and, after a while, just that five minutes calmed me down and focused me, at least for a little while. Small steps.

Please be good to yourself. Remember that you actually have to be a pretty tough cookie to put up with all this.