Anxiety

[joelsgirl]

When we flew back to the PHilippines last month, we had to do a ten day hotel quarantine before we could fly to the city where we live. Halfway through my quarantine, I came down with a pelvic infection that put me in the ER. I spent five days in the hospital, and the abdominal pain was gone almost as soon as the antibiotics got in my system. But the chills and nausea and heart palpatations and general feeling like I might die refused to go away. I would have 3-4 hour episodes with these symptoms. I kept telling the nurses about it, and they wouldn't do anything, which made me even more worried that they were going to send me home with undiagnosed symptoms. I finally had a nurse really sit down and listen to me, and he suggested I speak with the psychaiatrist because he felt like those were symptoms of anxiety.

I'm familiar with the kind of anxiety I feel when I'm stressed about missing my flight or my kid is in a taxi and isn't answerign his phone, kwim? Like my stomach hurts and I fixiate and I get cranky, but this is a whole new experience for me.

Once I talked to the psychiatrist and she said, "Your anxiety is legitimate." I stopped having chills/nausea, etc. But I'm still waking up in the night with my heart racing and my feet numb, and that seems to be from the anxiety. It's so weird to me because I'm not feeling stressed about my health right now, so I don't understand why I'm still having panic attacks in the middle of the night.

I'd love to hear about other people's experiences with anxiety, especially if you've found ways to manage it. The doctor has given me Lyrica for daytime use and Rivotril for night time use, but I'm hoping it's just a temporary solution.