Anxiety/panic Attacks And Chest Compression

[seeeker]

I've experienced one form of depression, anxiety, angst, ADD, under achievement, or another, bla bla, bla, just about my whole adult life.

Not sure if describing any context is necessary, but basically lately I've been spiralling downhill - having pretty extreme anxiety. It's a result of an my fragile nature combined with very significant bereavement and grief, (I lost my son to my ex half way around the world) many personal failures - you wouldn't believe all the layers of failure and frustration to my dumb life.

Anyway due to my self-induced stress and anxiety I'm actually lately feeling a kind of compression - not really pain though - in my chest. My stress and anxiety is a palpable, almost visible part of my existence, and lately it's really feeding on itself and degrading my state of mind. I don't have the balls the **** myself, but I need to do something powerful and effective to relax - I don't know what. I literally feel the damage being done to my body, heart, mind in the long term due to all of this. I am convinced I will have a heart attack in the next ten-fifteen years from the toll it's taking on me.

I'm totally paralyzed - if I knew what to do I would do it. But I don't. I've been on meds, I don't want that again (many side effects). I've been in therapy, I can't afford it any longer and it didn't help anyway. I'm trying to meditate a bit, but all I can think about is my problems. I'm quite isolated as well, and I have a bad attitude that no one really gives a s***. I have a few friends I see occasionally, but they all have their own lives.

This sounds pretty negative I'm just trying to pain a general picture, and I'm just wondering if, due to the degree to which I feel chest compression from stress, what should I do to chill out very fast?

[jonine1975]

Does relaxing music help you at all? I found that meditation type music helps me to slow my breathing and I am able to somewhat relax. If you have access to pandora just type in meditation and it has a channel. I wish I could just rely on that alone, but I have to use my klonopin at night to get away from anxiety. It helps me to remember that it is unnecessary adrenaline coursing through my body, and if I can get in a relaxed state things seem a little easier to handle. I know easier said than done, but that is what helps me. Now if I could figure out how to curb my depression.

[Spiritual_Wanderer]

It sounds like anxiety or panic attacks. That sort of thing can escalate. Sorry about your son - that is horrible and I can only imagine your pain. I think most doctors would recommend an antidepressant for the anxiety, but you said you are not interested in that due to side effects. There is anti-anxiety meds like valium. You only take them in emergencies, like having an anxiety/panic attack. The chest thing is an anxiety symptom. It happened to me and I thought for sure something was wrong with my heart. But it checked out fine.

Have you tried supplements or vitamins, been checked to make sure everything is good with your body (blood work). Do you exercise and eat fairly well. These things can help. When I didn't have anti-anxiety meds to take, I would read some inspiring quotes or scriptures and listen to peaceful music. It's a horrible feeling. I'm sorry.

[seeeker]

Thanks for the replies. I have always had a problem with excessive worry, so I often have a million thoughts racing around my head, and that i have to get everything done right now. I need to just go easier on myself, but I can't. It's a long story.

If the panic and chest feeling continues I might go to my doc. He is my general practitioner, but in the past he has prescribed me Adderall with the help of a psychologist I was seeing. I do have a few sedative pills from past unrelated events (Lasik surgery), but they usually knock me to the floor for a day or so. I've taken those maybe once. I might dig those out just in case.

I think in general I need to go the meditation/yoga/breathing route, it's the only thing that seems to have any holistic, lifestyle change built in. I meditated yesterday for two periods of 20 minutes. It's hard to relax but with regular effort hopefully this will help. I'm just a high strung, yet low evergy, person in general.

I have tried a few supplements - I take Tyrosine regularly, and I've tried Borage Oil, Gaba, Arginine, but honestly I can't tell if they do anything at all.

If you can recommend any other vitamins/amino acids/supplements that have been found to be noticeably helpful, please let me know.

Thanks.

[taysmom1016]

First of all, let me say how sorry I am to hear about your son. I have an 11-year-old son myself and his dad tried to get half custody after ignoring him the first 9 years of his life, just because I asked for a raise in child support. I knew he wouldn't win but just the thought of him TRYING, well that was the day I started smoking again (just cigarettes).

As for the supplements, I take L-theanine (the only side effect the pharmacist could find was counteracts the effects of caffiene, okay, not a bad thing) every morning. I also take L-tyrosine but find that one can be stimulating, to me, at least. I'm on Klonopin but when I don't want to take that but want to calm down, I find 2 valerian root capsules and 1 GABA can relax me to the point of dozing off (a huge thing for me as I cannot sleep more than an hour at a time at night and haven't for over a year). I also take L-trytophan and kava kava at night to help with sleep (and I need all the help I can get) with my ambien and clonazepam. I guess what I would recommend for calming that I've actually seen results with, would be the valerian root with GABA. Amazon has great prices but I've actually found the valerian root at the grocery store if you don't want to wait for delivery. Good luck, I hope this helps. Warning, the valerian root STINKS like a wet dog but if you can get it past your nose, it really does help.