Hello im in my teens and for a month ive been suffering from anxiety and panic attacks. The last 2 weeks have been the worst of my life. 2-4 panic attacks a day, when they pass i feel anxious that they'll come back and ill forever live like this. I visited my doctor and they refered me to therapy but its going to take weeks until i get an appointment. I cant eat, sleep or do anything anymore because im constantly worrying and getting attacks. Should i go to the hospital? I feel like i cant make it living like this anymore and having to wait weeks to start therapy.. any advice?
Should i go to the hospital?
- Thread starter isabel
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Hi Isabel, welcome.
Getting therapy appointments timely is a b*tch (at least in the UK). I had to wait for 3-4 months.
What you could try is checking out mindfulness, breathing techniques and maybe some supplements that can support becoming calmer.
My go to supplement is L-Theane, it helped me with learning how to drive and with my night terrors.
Maybe to get the energy that you have, which is going into your anxiety, out of your system. For me walking the dog helps a lot. But have a look at giving yourself some me time, alone, not sitting around, but being physically active.
For me it helps.
Check out some mandalas to colour out, that can focus your mind on the mandala and might give you some relieve from anxious thoughts.
janemariesayed
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Do some breathing exercises too when you feel an attack coming on. When you have an attack it is because you have been breathing shallow. Your heart then starts pumping the blood round quicker to get air around your body. So take a deep breath and hold it in for a couple of seconds then let it out slowly. Do that a few times and you will get over your attacks quicker. You don't need to go to the hospital. You could ask your doctor for a referral to a therapist but it will be a wait of a few months.
Perhaps ask your doctor for a sedative to help you such as Ativan or Xanax. They both will relax you until you get some professional help. I use a small bit of Xanax and it helps me tremendously. I use it as a last measure. First off I go for a walk or meditate. If that doesn’t work and I’m still anxious I will take a sedative.
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I'm 22 and I had the same problem about a month ago. I was having awful panic attacks 2-4 times a day, and I wasn't sleeping at all. I went to the doctor and he suggested an SSRI as well as therapy. I haven't gone to therapy, but I did give the SSRI a try. He put me on 10 my lexapro and I really think it has helped. My panic attack are gone, i dont panic anymore ever. Every once and awhile mu heart will start racing and it gets tough to breath, but I can control it. If I have a bad one I my doctor gave me kolonopin incase I can't control it. I think I've taken 3 in the past 2 weeks.
I found that going out side and going for a walk helps. Just walk and try to distract yourself. Try finding a Hobby that can keep you occupied.
Hoping you get better.
Jake
I found that going out side and going for a walk helps. Just walk and try to distract yourself. Try finding a Hobby that can keep you occupied.
Hoping you get better.
Jake
janemariesayed
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How are you Isabel? How is your therapy coming on, did you get a date to start it yet?
Thought to shared my experience with you. I can imagine how awful, stressful, ugly you name it the life can become with anxiety. I have been there with my breathing anxiety and let me tell you one thing, "DON'T WORRY, YOU ARE ALL FINE". put your hand on your heart and say "All is well". I suffered from it 5 to 6 years ago and I even recently this week I had it again because I made it up all in my mind. But first of all, most important is to know if this is really anxiety or maybe other lungs disease or other infection that cause breathing problem. If all is clear out by your doctor and you know it is anxiety then there is nothing to worry. I went to the gym last week, did some heavy arm workout and it gave me back pain next day due to some wrong postures. Now as we all know when we have upper back pain, it sometimes make breathing difficult. I am a person who is always thinking like what if this happen, what if that happen etc etc. And from here I started thinking that I am not breathing properly. This thought created extra adrenaline in my body and sends signal to brain that I am in danger. Guess what? My brain told me to breath heavy because it is not getting enough air. I started breathing deeply with my mouth and just in 2 minutes I fall into "HYPERVENTILATION STATE". Now this is not a good feeling. So I was still breathing heavy and made my hyperventilation even worse. This gave me more pain in my chest. The pain was sharp in the middle of chest. A tight feeling in the chest. I reached a stage where I thought ok that is it am gonna faint or die in few seconds because I'm not getting enough air. Then I told myself ok "All is well, All is well" I have to take control and get out of this or it will go even worse. Then I just closed my eyes, sat on couch and started breathing shallow with nose. I was holding my breath and then take it out in 7 to 8 seconds. Within next few minutes, I started to calm down and all was slowly going well. But I was not able to sleep the whole night. But slowly I am doing good and getting better. This was my story now lets talk about facts that why this all happened?
What is hyperventilation? - we all know the word "hyper" right? Hyperventilation is a condition where you start breathing fast and disturbs the natural oxygen and carbon dioxide balance inside your body. In hyperventilation, you upset the balance of these 2 gases by exhaling more than inhaling. When we think about carbon dioxide gas we think it is a waste gas but actually it plays a very important role in our body. In our body we have two type of actions. 1) conscious (which are in our control example moving your hand etc) 2) unconscious (which goes automatic like your heart or eye blinking). breathing is a unconscious type. Take an example of 1 day old child who is just born and look that child keeps on breathing automatic. Take an example of when you sleep. you keep on breathing automatic. Take an example of someone who passed out on floor after drinking lot of alcohol. Even thought that person is out and now on the floor, you can see that his body will keep on breathing automatic. The problem comes when we try to take the breathing in our control means we started controlling it and started to decide when to breath or not. When we started to control breathing we sometimes inhale more oxygen than what our body really needs. Believe me your body needs very little oxygen and your body decides automatic how much it needs. so when we inhale more oxygen than required, we have now upset/imbalance the ratio of oxygen and carbon dioxide in our body. The oxygen in our blood is converted to carbon dioxide and during hyperventilation, you have thrown out more carbon dioxide out from your body than what your body can produce. So you see? you have completely messed up the automatic natural reaction by deep breathing. And during this deep breathing and anxiety, you start to breath from the upper part of your chest/lungs which further gives a feeling of tightness in your chest and you feel like you are not getting enough air. So you again starts to breath deep and try to breath while yawning and keeps on falling yourself to the worst hyperventilation state by completing messing up the ratio of oxygen and carbon dioxide.
Hyperventilation is not dangerous but it is going to give you a very severe discomfort feeling. Hyperventilation is caused by and cause severe anxiety. I would say never breath from your mouth but from your nose. if you breath from your mouth then try to learn breathing with nose because then you inhale very little oxygen compared to when you breath with your mouth. Remember "mouth is for eating and nose is for breathing".
You might also be feeling sharp pain in middle of your chest. Why is this pain there? It is because once your have upset the balance of O2 and CO2, your blood vessels that comes out of heart starts to shrink due to presence of less CO2. When they shrink and get small, your heart has to do extra work/job to push the blood through those shrinken vessels and this results in sharp chest pain.
How to get out of hyperventilation?
first of all as I said, tell yourself all is well, all is well. close your eyes and try to calm. start taking slow breath from your tummy instead of chest. Inhale with your nose (using your tummy, means your tummy should expand like football. NOT WITH CHEST BUT TUMMY) for 5 seconds, hold it for 3 seconds and then release the air through the lips in 7 seconds . the lips gonna make slow whistling sound. keep doing it for few times. This is going to increase the carbon dioxide level in your blood which will bring you out of hyperventilation state. the moment your body builds up enough Carbon dioxide, you will feel clam and relaxed. Once you made the perfect balance of O2 and CO2 again, you will see that your sharp pain the chest will start to go away because now your vessels are open again and your heart is doing less work.
Second way is breath in paper bag. because as you will release breath (co2) in the paper bag and then when you inhale it again, you will be actually inhaling carbon dioxide instead of oxygen. so it will again increase the level of co2 in your blood and makes your calm. Don't do it more than 10 times.
OR what you can do it that you stand up, go out of home and start walking. when you walk your body will automatic start taking smaller breath and will produce enough co2. thus the level of O2 and CO2 will start getting normal.
And what you have to learn is that you should not be thinking about your breathing. Let it happen automatic. focus on other things. Do not focus on breathing. You can do this experiment right now to see the results. try to think of your breathing, try to focus on you breathing, try to control on your breathing, I bet you within next 5 minutes you will find yourself in hyperventilation state.
So again do not worry about it. you are totally fine and just do not think about breathing. and also start to learn by breathing with nose instead of mouth. (remember mouth is for eating and nose is for breathing). I hope after reading this you will find yourself more calm and relax and I hope you will get out of any anxiety or hyperventilation. I wish you very best of luck with it and I pray that you get back stronger and healthy. Again mouth is for eating and nose is for breathing and breathing is unconscious process. do not control it).
Greetings and let me know how you feel later