FEAR THE REEP

[cleolinda]

Not feeling so good--haven't felt good since Wednesday or Thursday, actually, which makes me think it might be part of the hypomanic episode. But it's starting to wear on my nerves.

Comments

[particle_person]

The butterflies-in-the-stomach feeling is caused by your fight-flight response. There are drugs that can control it. I have trouble with stage fright, and I also have high blood pressure, so I'm on beta blockers which treat both problems at once. (The specific drug is Toprol.) You probably DON'T want to take beta blockers because one possible side effect is depression, but the fight-flight thing does sound like what your problem is.

ETA: You might read a little bit about chronic stress from a biological perspective (rather than a psychological one).

[cleolinda]

But why am I having a fight-flight response in the first place? I can't figure out what triggered it.

[particle_person]

All the money problems and things might be putting pressure on your family in general, and the atmosphere is affecting you? (That's a question.) I mean, maybe it could be that PLUS your usual hypermanic thing being in the "up" phase, so you end up with "I feel emotionally fine but my stomach disagrees."

[cleolinda]

You know, I was just coming back to say the same thing. After reading the Wikipedia article, I'm wondering if it was just the same-old same-old stress, but then it suddenly collided with a hypomanic episode. Because I really have worried about my blood pressure this week in particular--it's usually pretty good (back during the cat bite episode, the clinic nurse was surprised that it was so good), so I notice when it gets high. I went back and read over the entries here to see if there was anything in particular that could have triggered it (ah, the usefulness of LJ), and on Tuesday we had the water damage, which might have increased the stress somewhat. And then on Wednesday I started reading Twilight. COINCIDENCE?

[particle_person]

You know, that book really SHOULD come with a warning label from the FDA.

[honorh]

I have an anxiety disorder; my body is basically always primed for fight-or-flight. Fortunately, a very low dose of Paxil manages it without turning me into a zombie. I still have some trouble sleeping, but I handle that with herbal medications when I need to. You might want to talk to your doctor about your free-floating anxiety and see what he or she recommends.

[cleolinda]

Well, in terms of generalized anxiety disorder, yeah, that's part of why I'm on three antidepressants in the first place. Whenever there's a sudden difference in how I feel, I see if I can figure out a reason for it, to spot-treat that reason (therapy, stress management, whatever). What herbal medications do you use?

[particle_person]

If you try herbals, don't forget to check for interactions with your current drugs. The famous instance of death by grapefruit juice should stand as a warning:

"The doctor put the patient on atorvastatin (Lipitor), and the patient began dieting and exercising. Two months after the patient went to Florida for the winter, he suddenly had muscle pain, fatigue and fever, and went to the emergency room. The patient ended up going into kidney failure and ultimately died.

The only major change in the person's lifestyle had been that, upon arriving in Florida, he began picking grapefruit off a tree on the patio and drinking two or three glasses of fresh grapefruit juice every day."