# Anxiety Disorders > Panic Disorder and Agoraphobia >  >  I need help

## kyfowl20

Hey guys. This is my first post here. I've researched countless hours online to try to help calm myself down. Here goes:

Anxiety and depression runs in my family (both sides). About 3 weeks ago I went to Dr for depression/anxiety and she put me on wellbutrin xl 300mg daily. I took it for about 4 days and decided to come off because of the scary side effects I was having from it (felt like I was on another planet). She then prescribed me celexa 20mg once daily. I held of starting it for the fear of side effects while at work and ended up waiting nearly two weeks. 

The week leading up to my ER visit was filled with trips to the hospital, watched my wife's uncle pass away, visitation, and then funeral. During the funeral I started getting a tingling feeling in both arms and then felt faint. This went on for a few hours before I decided I needed to go to the ER. 

They ran blood tests, urine tests, EKG, and a chest X-ray. Everything came back 100% normal. I started the Celexa the next morning and they prescribed me hydroxyzine for anxiety. It's now been 4 days and I haven't been to work and only left the house twice for just a few minutes. I stay in bed and I have these spells where I will sort of sweat, feel weak, fatigued, and jelly legged. These spells will come and go every 5 minutes or so, but stay constant. So it's really wearing me out going through ups and downs like this. It seems the feeling hits me every day around the same exact times. And it also seems that around 6pm every night I feel nearly 100% myself again (until I wake in the morning). Can anyone tell me if this is normal? I'm starting to get really scared that something else is wrong with me because I've never felt like this before. I also have zero appetite unless I stop feeling bad. So then I try to gorge myself because I'm worried in not eating enough. 

This morning I woke in almost a paralysis state feeling very anxious and restless. Also felt nauseous. 

Please help. 
Thanks.

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## Otherside

Hey there, welcome to the forum. And I'm sorry to hear about your recent loss. 

The symptoms you're describing (The appetite loss, the sweats, feeling weak, tiredness, fatigue), they're all symptoms of anxiety and it could be that that's what you have if theres nothing physically wrong with you. It's gotta be pretty hard though having it every 5 minutes though. 

Celexa will time to work (a couple of weeks from when you first take it), not sure about the hydroxyzine though. If those don't work, there's others you can try that work in different ways and may have an effect. 

Therapy could help you as well. There's a type called CBT that helps quite a lot of people with anxiety. 

As for eating...when I was struggling with eating because of anxiety, I would eat a lot of things such as yogart that are easy to swallow.

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## Total Eclipse

Hey, welcome to the forums... 

Wow, you seem to have had a rough few months... I'm sorry to hear about your wife's uncle passing away, seeing someone degrade like that can be really hard. It can cause anxiety and depression in someone whom doesn't suffer from those things let alone someone whom already is prone. It can cause what is called "exacerbation's" or spikes in anxiety disorders and for some people can onset anxiety disorders. It makes sense your more anxious in the morning and less so at night. Your Corstiol is the highest in the morning and with anxiety and trauma the coristol goes wonky and spikes too high and most likely adjusting and evening out around 6pm for you. Everything that you explain is very common in acute anxiety and stress. It also sounds like your alternating between an anxiety attack and panic attacks (I struggle with this too)

Please go back to your PCP and tell them about the worsening anxiety and depression. There is a lot of medication and different treatment to look into. 

Hope you feel better soon  :Hug: 

EDIT: As 
@Otherside
 has said Celexa can take awhile to work. 

& for me hydroxyzine didn't help me and so the doc switched to something else.

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## kyfowl20

Thanks to both of you for replies. I am going back to Dr on Tuesday for a follow up, so I will talk with her about different options. 

This is the scariest thing I have been through in my life. I am a 27 year old male and up until this week I have felt great. This thing has put me on my azz and it's hard for me to understand. I'm considering trying to go back to work tomorrow but I'm kind of scared I will have an episode and draw attention to myself. I by no means have social anxiety, but this has made me want to just bury myself under the covers and not leave the house.

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## Total Eclipse

Please let us know how Tuesday goes!!

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## kyfowl20

> Please let us know how Tuesday goes!!



I will. 

I decided it was time to get outside today and take a drive since I hadn't been out of the house in a couple days. I felt "ok" when I walked out the door, but when I got in my hot car and started down the road, I got a "tingly" sensation in my arms and legs and started feeling bad again. I made myself drive down the road for a few minutes through town but the symptoms didn't really decrease until I was back in my bed lying down. 

This is very worrisome for me, I have NEVER felt this way before. Never been afraid of being in public, or away from my home. 

Is it strange for me to have such intense symptoms that it basically disables me when I've never really experienced anxiety like this in the past?

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## Cuchculan

The start of any anxiety disorder is always the worst of all. There is so much going on to us. Things that never happened before. We can be at a loss to try and explain, to ourselves, why all this is happening to us. So we can have a head full of questions. No answers at all. With anxiety we have a series of connections that follow on from each other. We could be feeling in a horrible mood. So the mind then has a thought as to why we are feeling this way. We then react to this thought. How we react brings about all those bad symptoms we feel. One thing follows the other. If you were seen a therapist they would be trying to get you to change the way you think or the way you react.  Change either of these two and the rest will begin to change as well. At this moment the mind is working against you. But it can also work for you. It is this you have to learn. This is why therapy is important. It teaches us new things. If I told you to let those bad feelings come on. you would probably think I was mad. By letting them come on we are no longer feeding them. They do begin to get weaker. The body gets used to them. The mind gets used to them. First reaction when a bad feeling hits you? Probably to run away. To a place you feel safe. This is normal with panic attacks and anxiety. Fight or flight. Flight is the first option a lot of people take. A panic attack is the mind's way of actually protecting us. From what? From danger. Though there is no real danger. We have sent a signal to the brain that danger is close by. The danger in this case to us is just those bad feelings. But they are just feelings. I will admit that when they first hit they are horrible. They make us feel horrible. But they can't harm you. I used to run from them too. Then I stopped. Simply said ' whatever will be, will be '. Just stood my ground. Bad as I was feeling. The more I began to do this, the weaker those feelings began to get. I was no longer feeding the fear. This will all take time to learn. But if you believe in yourself, it can all be learnt. You can learn to control your anxiety. No matter how bad things might seem right now, there is always a road back. Believe.

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## Otherside

I hope the appoinment on Tuesday (Well, today now I guess) goes well for you. 

As much as you may not want to here this, keep trying to go out when you can. If you give in to the anxiety, as easy as that is to do, it will only get worse with time and harder to defeat. 

 @Cuchculan That was a good post. You know a lot.

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## kyfowl20

Thanks for the words of encouragement. The dr appointment went well (I guess) she told me over and over that nothing is physically wrong with me that it's just depression.....that's where I got confused. She had absolutely no concern to these episodes I've been having. She told me to stick it out with the celexa and get back with her in two weeks to let her know how I'm feeling to see if we need to up the dose. 

Besides the dr appointment, I decided today was the day to return to work. I've had a few spells where I haven't felt so good, but for the most part I feel 3x better than I have for the past week laying in bed. My main complaint is that I'm pretty weak ( I'm assuming because I nearly never got up for almost a week). Going to see how the next couple hours go, but it seems as tho I can stand the whole day!

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## Cuchculan

You mention feeling weak in one sentence. Then answered it in the next sentence. Yes. You stayed in bed for a week. We all need even the smallest amounts of exercise. Nobody is telling you to run miles every day of the week. Small walk at pace. If anything it will help break up the days when you are doing nothing. Because sitting around looking at the walls of your bedroom won't do you any good at all. I know it is hard when depressed. Hard to motivate ones self. Hard to want to do anything. Our drive is gone from us. Our passion for the things we once used to love doing. Everything can seem like a task and a half. That is when we have to try and dig that bit deeper. Set yourself small goals. Challenges. Doesn't have to be much. Just to keep your mind active and busy. See how the medication goes. It can be a case of hit and miss with medication. It works or it doesn't. The doctor will try out various doses to begin with. If there is no change at all in how you feel after the dose changes, it might be time to try a new form of medication. We have all been there. So keep pushing forward.

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## kyfowl20

> You mention feeling weak in one sentence. Then answered it in the next sentence. Yes. You stayed in bed for a week. We all need even the smallest amounts of exercise. Nobody is telling you to run miles every day of the week. Small walk at pace. If anything it will help break up the days when you are doing nothing. Because sitting around looking at the walls of your bedroom won't do you any good at all. I know it is hard when depressed. Hard to motivate ones self. Hard to want to do anything. Our drive is gone from us. Our passion for the things we once used to love doing. Everything can seem like a task and a half. That is when we have to try and dig that bit deeper. Set yourself small goals. Challenges. Doesn't have to be much. Just to keep your mind active and busy. See how the medication goes. It can be a case of hit and miss with medication. It works or it doesn't. The doctor will try out various doses to begin with. If there is no change at all in how you feel after the dose changes, it might be time to try a new form of medication. We have all been there. So keep pushing forward.



Thank you very much. You have described how I feel completely and totally. Today was a new leaf for me, as after my last post my symptoms almost completely faded away and I was able to work an hour over what I normally do. I think going back to work got my mind off of how terrible I felt and really helped me.

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## Total Eclipse

Hey, *kyfowl20* glad you where able to go back to work yesterday  ::):  I'm glad you feel a lot better! Please still keep us posted on how your doing  ::):

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