I am in my mid 40's and always had high anxiety all my life. I never let it stop me though until recently. About 10 years ago I decided to get help. I mentioned something to my doctor and he threw some pills at me and everything went downhill from there. I had bad reactions and started to have my first panic attacks. Anyways, I think I took the wrong route. I was very ignorant about mental illness or what to do about it. Looking back I should have seen a therapist first before I tried taking meds but like I said before, I did not know better.
Anyways eventually I kind of got used to the panic attacks when I got them. They did not happen often. They would hit me at random and was very obvious that they were panic attacks. I traveled a lot and sometimes I could even keep driving during an attack knowing it would not last much longer. In fact, my bag of tricks included cracking the car window to let the breeze mask my lightheadedness.
What stopped me in my tracks is a little over a year ago after having an extended time of not getting an attack I got one that was the mother of all panic attacks. I walked 3 miles every day and I also had a very labor intensive job working 12 hr shifts. On my daily walk, I lost my breath and collapsed unable to catch my breath. After about a half hour alongside an empty road, I recovered somewhat but had a few more attacks walking home at a very slow pace. I started having multiple attacks every day, became agoraphobic and could not even stand up to get out of my bed. I lost my job since I could not leave my home. What fitness I had is gone.
"Deep breathing and exercise are great for anxiety" I was told. I can't do either of those. I went through lots of therapy. In fact, I could be feeling fine and decide practice deep breathing and actually give myself an attack. I noticed that exercising causes me to get bloated. It is literally impossible to take a deep breath. I concentrate to use the proper technique but it is just like overeating way too much and deciding to run a marathon. I develop this pot belly pressure and when I try " breathing from my diaphragm" it is impossible to move my stomach in or out. What the heck am I missing? So many people find deep breathing relaxing but all it does for me is make me realize even more how tight my chest is. It kind of reminds me of when I had to get my gallbladder removed although it is not nearly as painful as that was.
I realize that I have an anxiety disorder. Although I walked every day I ALWAYS got bloated and had times when breathing got difficult. I would burp and the feeling would pass. I never could jog for long because of this so I always just did mostly fast walking. I never hyperventilated and I don't swallow air. I notice that many panic attacks my first symptoms is burping even when I am feeling good and not exercising. Shortly after that, I start to feel out of breath. I have had every test under the sun but I am beginning to wonder if something was missed. I am wondering if anxiety is causing the bloating or if the bloating is causing the anxiety? I just can't exercise for long. I do what I can but this is holding back my recovery. I am trying to figure out if I want to try a new med because something needs to change.
Has anybody experienced this? Did the pressure and pain go away with antianxiety meds? I do have a hiatal hernia, PFO, and a right bundle block. The doctors say that none of these issues are bad enough to worry about and exercising should help but I am not sure. I have a big intolerance to exercising. I have made some improvement but it has been so incredibly slow with occasional setbacks.
I too, do not find deep breathing helpful. Sometimes when I'm in the midst of a panic attack I do find myself breathing deeply, but not too often. I need to exercise, it's just about finding the motivation for me, really. I absolutely hate exercising but all I hear is how good it is at reducing anxiety. In regards to your bloatedness, I believe being bloated causes the anxiety. When I'm bloated I am definitely more anxious. I really dislike the feeling. It makes me very uncomfortable which makes my anxiety worsen. I have taken Lexapro, Celexa, and Prozac. None of the medications helped me at all. I didn't like being on them, I personally try to steer away from medications, but I know sometimes we need them. I've been off medication for almost two years now and I don't plan on try any new ones. I've been feeling anxious all of the time. Never really at ease. I'm agoraphobic as well so it's difficult to leave home but I do it anyways. For me, it's been this constant cycle of really good days and extremely bad days. Not fun. I applaud you for exercising, that is something I really need to do, but the occasional setbacks are more than understandable. If you decide to try another medication, let me know how it goes. Take care! x
"For me, it's been this constant cycle of really good days and extremely bad days." Yes exactly, some days I think "I got this beat." Then the expectation is that you need to do that good the next time out. It adds more anxiety that this must go as smoothly as yesterday otherwise it is a setback. That or the next day I am in so much pain.
"I applaud you for exercising, that is something I really need to do" I found that I got to keep pushing. If I don't keep pushing I get more panic attacks over "nothing at all" and I find this life so boring. I absolutely hate exercising too and always have but did it anyway. Perhaps it was because of my hole in my heart but even as a kid in gym class, it was a struggle. I would ride bike 25 miles a day but with rest areas. Many of the symptoms of exercise are the same as panic attack, it is hard to tell when something is normal or not until I am laying on the ground feeling like I will pass out with some ridiculous heart rate. Whatever that switch is, it happens quickly. I noticed a lot of things before I became agoraphobic. I could no longer swim the length of the pool underwater or stay submerged in the bottom of the deep end for over a minute. Bending over to pick things up would send my rate up and make me out of breath. I thought it was age related, just something normal. Everything just seemed like it was getting harder to do, lift objects, go upstairs and whatnot. Whatever the build-up was I am not 100% sure but it took years to manifest. I don't know if my problem is my anxiety increased slowly or my health decreased slowly over the years. My exercising is lame, I cant do cardio except for very short bursts. Lifting weights gives me pain for days. I walk around my home as fast pace as possible for half hour interval. Sometimes I carry big jugs of water if I am feeling more confident. When I watch TV I get up and walk when the commercials are on. When the show is back on it helps me distract from being out of breath. My goal is to get feeling better about exercise so I may be able to eventually transfer it outside and them get back to hikes in the woods. I just feel if I can get rid of some of these physical symptoms I could get over this much faster. Bloating and burping is a major problem.
Anyways I was reading that stress hormones (cortisol) are released during exercise. Bloating is experienced in people that are out of shape when they exercise and supposedly it goes away over time. So I guess I keep trying to exercise what I can much like any other exposure therapy. Hopefully, it will get better. I went from walking and working every day to spending almost two months straight in bed when I developed agoraphobia. Perhaps I just did not realize how much my body atrophied. I lost 30 lb and I look like I am in better shape now but I have no idea how much of that weight loss was me losing fat vs muscle.
I hope you beat this too.
How are you doing? I am in the same boat. I combine psychotherapy with my meds and it works fine for me. Two common forms of psychotherapy utilized for treatment of anxiety disorders are behavioral and cognitive therapy: in cognitive therapy, the therapist helps the patient to adapt his or her problematic thought patterns into those which are healthier. In behavioral therapy, the therapist will help the patient to combat undesirable behaviors which often come hand in hand with anxiety; for example, the patient will learn relaxation and deep breathing exercises to use when experiencing hyperventilation as a result of panic attacks.
I was going up and down my stairs for 45 minutes everyday, but that lasted maybe 3 days. It made me dizzy sometimes and I can't motivate myself to do it anymore. Exercising at home is difficult. If I had a treadmill or something it would be far easier to get exercise out of the way. Most agoraphobics find themselves stuck in their beds for months and I definitely think that has impact on our health. We aren't moving, we aren't getting any sun, we most likely aren't eating well. It can take a toll on our health for sure. I feel a million times better when I've gone out, even if I just sit at a coffee shop for 15 minutes and go back home. The only thing I've noticed is that if I stay home for more than one day, it's extremely difficult for me to go out again. It's as if I need a routine of leaving the house every single day. I remember when I had a job, I would work nearly everyday, from morning to night, and that helped my anxiety tremendously because I was out of my house a lot and it was all of the time. Now that I've been jobless for over 3 months and glued to my bed for that long as well, I can't imagine starting my new job soon, I just can't see myself being okay. I'm also still in high school and I do online classes, but I can't focus on anything. It's extremely difficult to care about school work when my life is basically in shambles. I hope we can both beat this. I know it won't be easy.
Hi Margusha, That's the thing, I had all that therapy. I have not ever hyperventilated. Being told that I am breathing wrong made me paranoid about my breathing and now I pay too much attention to it. In my case, it makes my panic attacks worse every time I try deep breathing. Yeah, I feel like I am drowning at times during a panic attack but my breathing was always correct. Altering it and attempting deep breaths makes me feel even more light headed and gives me a bigger rush of adrenalin. Obviously, it helps many people but I think for some it makes things worse. Everybody is different. I find if I stay distracted my breathing will stay automatic. If I pay attention to my breathing everything becomes worse and I have no clue if I am over or under breathing.