Hello!
My history with anxiety:
In 2013 I was studying for an exam late at night and had a few glasses of energy drinks. I ended up going to the hospital thinking I was about to die, because my heart was racing and I couldn't feel my arms or walk normally. I thought I was having a heart attack and the doctors filled me in with hydrocortisone and dexamethasone thinking I had hypersensitivity to caffeine. After I went out of the hospital, a couple days later I was fine at home, no coffee and eating well, drinking a lot of water, I find myself going to the hospital again, starting with a hard time to breathe that mixes up with chest pain and then I can't feel my legs and my arms, my hands just close by themselves and I can't move them, sometimes for a few seconds, sometimes for a couple minutes. It feels littlerally like I'm about to die. Sometimes I throw up, can't eat normally for several days (just don't feel any hunger and have to force myself to eat) and it's even hard to drink water (I feel very little thirst). I thought I had something quite serious and the doctor asked for a ECG exam, which returned normal. After over a year, having begginings of this kind of attack often and some more complicated episodes, thinking all the time I had a heart or neurologic problem (which triggers the attacks even more), I go to a very nice physician who examined me and told me I had anxiety. He prescribed me sublingual pills of Lorazepam to take when I have attacks that can't be controlled by breathing in a paper bag (which controls the hyperventilation). I have spent several months without even having to use these pills, because I was away from the city I used to study. Now that I'm back, and living alone again, seems like it all comes back and I have to use the medication and almost every night I have a very hard time to sleep due to these attacks (they happen often at night). I find myself afraid of dying in the middle of the night having an attack while nobody can hear me, afraid of having something more than anxiety, but most of all, afraid of dying without propper medical care (this city doesn't have good medical care at all, and I'm intending to move soon).
About Lorazepam:
At first the pills were just making me go sleep. I would take them and go to bed right away, I'd pass out, but the anxiety would still be there, so I still needed to breathe into a paper bag until I could move my hands softly, with no pressure on them, and bend/stretch my legs propperly. But what is weird is that usually after I have an attack and taking the pill, I have another attack closer, like on the next day and when I don't take the pill it is much harder to control, but I could have attacks about a week apart.
Why I need help:
So, I wanted to know if anyone who uses or knows this medication could help me? I need to understand if I should go to the doctor again and have another medication prescribed, or if it is normal for these adverse effects to happen.
Why I'm looking for help in the forum:
My family really doesn't understand the issue, and most people who know me don't know I have it. Some very few people I told I had anxiety and had suffered several years of depression simply ignored me after a while and slowly stopped talking to me, and I only told them because I thought they were my friends, and that made me stop sharing things with people and stop making new friends. My mother thought it was just a "psycological thing", and she only started to take my condition seriously after the doctor prescribed me the medication and I started to have bad attacks again. I feel like there is nobody I can talk about this, because nobody really wants to hear any of it. Of course I try to keep my "image", and pretend that everything is fine, but the fact nobody really cares just makes me feel the disease is my fault, and I know it is not, but feels like it. Sometimes I think: what needs to happen so people care? Do I need to start my depression again? threat to suicide? go to the hospital again? And then comes my mother again joking and saying I just want attention from her, and all this problem is childish and psycological.
Actually most of all I'm scared. I'm scared of having to live with it without sharing and without my family and friends support. My relationships are destroyed, my self-confidence is going down, my eating disorders are going bad as well, sice for every attack takes me over a week to eat normally again... Any help someone can give me here will be very much appreciated
Mary