Question:
...I had a feeling like the front part of my brain was quaking while in a
half-conscious state of trying to awaken. After what seemed like 30
seconds, I woke up and felt fine. Very strange stuff, indeed.
Anyway, now the doctor has me on 10mg Paxil and Atenolol for anxiety,
depression and to calm the heart and blood pressure. I still am having
bad sleep problems, waking every 1-1.5 hours with numbness in my arms
and am suffering from depression, some anxiety, and lack of
concentration during the day. Just 3 weeks ago, I was suffering from
none of these symptoms.
Its funny how the brain works. Has anyone else had symptoms anything
close to these?
Answer:
Your symptoms are not at all uncommon for people suffering from anxiety and depression. When
My symptoms started I thought I had some exotic illness. As time wore on I
found more and more symptoms were developing. I got to where I was waking
every hour or so at night. My mouth was totally dry, and I was getting
headaches. After a battery of test, I was diagnosed with General Anxiety
disorder. I started on Buspar which took a lot of the edge off of my
problems, but did not rid me of them. My psychiatrist prescribed Paxil,
and I was already taking atenonol for my High blood pressure. As for the
symptoms, they come and go but they are definately better. What I have
noticed over time is that my symptoms get better, and I am able to
function. As for sleep the paxil helped me do that. Once the paxil is in
your system you should see some improvement in your sleeping patterns,
however you may have different results. Paxil tends to take at least 2
weeks to show any benefit, and for some people even longer (I think I have
heard up to 6 weeks), but give it a chance to work. When an illness strikes "out of the blue", you tend to get very anxious
about it, like you and I both did. You are lucky you found a doctor who is
up enough on anxiety disorders and started your treatment early. Some
people go years before they know what is wrong. The next strategy to
battle this, in my opinion, is to become educated on the disorder. It will
really open your eyes to things that you may have never noticed before.
When I first became ill, I thought it was out of the blue. After about two
weeks of reading and doing my homework, I noticed the warning signals have
been there for years. Like you I am 26 and I kept thinking to myself I am
too young to be feeling like this, but you will find a lot of people who
had anxiety disorders begin in their mid twenties. Like you I became very
depressed at times over my condition, but that will pass as the medication
kicks in and your symptoms decrease.
