The Anxiety Report

This little tidbit appearing in the Start-Telegram from Ft. Worth, Texas, annoyed me. You be the judge. Somehow I am not impressed with that, why did they bother to print it? Was it filler space for the Women’s Section? Was it to tell us watch out in case we get stuck worrying about one thing?
Anxiety to me, and I suspect to anyone that reads here, is not as easy as not worrying so much. My anxiety had nothing to do with worry. Did yours?

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Here is a good story: Bipolar Disorder Over diagnosed? Read the Study Shows Many People Who Are Told They Have the Disorder Don’t Meet Standard Criteria.

About 20% had previously been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. But only 13% met the criteria, says Mark Zimmerman, MD, associate professor of psychiatry and human behavior at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University in Providence.

“In about half of patients previously diagnosed with bipolar disorder, we couldn’t confirm the diagnosis,” he tells WebMD.

Why is this happening? How did it get so far?

Patients with anxiety , agitation, irritability, and restlessness that does not persist are sometimes misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder, Zimmerman says.

I wonder if that could be because only therapists see us now, Psychiatrists have been turned into Diagnosis and Prescription writing machines, with expensive degrees.

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That’s all the news for today, but I want to ask a question: do insurance and and functionaries decide what treatments and drugs are right for us, or do the Physician’s do it?

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First, let us start with an almost uplifting bit on news. Brain boosters the drug of choice for the anxious intellectual. It’s back to those brain boosting, smart drugs. They are using Beta Blockers of course, for what strikes me as vanity reasons. However, I understand that before you give THE big speech, a little to calm you down might not be amiss.

Since the late 1990s golfers have been rumoured to use beta-blockers to steady nerves when they’re putting under pressure. Campaigning for drug testing in his sport, champion Australian golfer Craig Parry said he knew of three players who had won majors who had been on beta-blockers.

In a way I want to say, so what? But another part of me feels a little insulted by the occasional use people, such as those who wish to steady their nerves. I mean, I take what I take just to survive. For these people though, they do not need it to survive, but they do have to do something about stage fright, fear of public speaking, etc., I’m sure the list is nearly endless.

They should build their own drugs and not try to push in on the ones that keep us functioning, thereby raising problems for us because of their usage.

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It seems the Brain Blogger is someone I should visit more often. Check this out. It does my heart good when doctors ask,

While it has long been known that GAD can affect someone physically, new research is pointing to potential causes for GAD. Reported in Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers are studying the effects of some conditions such as thyroid disease, arthritis, migraine and respiratory disease and their connection to the onset of GAD. They approached this study knowing that physical illness often leads to depression. They wanted to find out if physical illness may cause GAD or other anxiety disorders.

That is a challenging stance, at least it seems so to me, because when GAD started with me, I was nine years old.

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As always the Archives of General Psychiatry  produce a beautifully designed sit and layout.  Bear in mind as you read it that escitalopram is really Lexapro.  Our old friend.  That is all that I have for you today.  Check tomorrow for more from the world of anxiety.

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It’s great! That’s what it is. Finding the right combination of drugs, which is no easy thing since most doctors only have a 50/50 guess on whether what they prescribe for you is going to work for you, or not. That’s because, you are unique. Every person has their own biochemistry, so when your doctor prescribes, he is hoping as much as prescribing.

Klonopin does it for me. I want all of you to know that. That is why I can be the Mad Anxiety Evangelist. I have the inner freedom for the first time in forty-one years to actually feel how much room anxiety took up inside of me, and with it gone, I am blessed by something even more rewarding. I can let God fill it up. Some of you may stop reading right here. I’m not going to say anything more about it if it bothers you, but if you know what I mean, then… yeah.

Action track to find your right medication.

I suggest that each one of you take a piece of paper and write down every medication that has been prescribed for their anxiety condition, be it OCD, GAD, whatever. Look through that list, and write down what effect each one had on you. For instance, Zoloft had me sitting on the toilet a lot more than was needed, in my humble opinion. Write them down, and how they worked, side effects, the whole shebang.

What you will have is a list of things that you can say to your doctor, and I beseech you, if you do not have a doctor, get one right now. If you cannot afford a doctor, there are clinics that will see you. But take your list to the doctor, you have or are going to get tomorrow, and then talk what other options are available. You want to find that one chemical preparation that is just the thing to stop your anxiety disorder.

You Must Have A Doctor

This can not be stressed enough. But some of these psychiatric drugs, well most of them, are dangerous if handled wrongly. The coming of of a drug, especially a benzodiazepine, you need to be monitored, because sometimes the sudden cut off can cause all manner of dangerous complications.

If money is a problem, and let’s face it, many Americans do not have enough health insurance, then there are places like Find a Health Center Feel no shame about using it. The drugs we take are serious.

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Cognitive Behavioral Therapy comes up a lot in the research pages, so I decided to do a little Googling, and came up with some decent resources to help find a definition. At first I was inclined to poo-poo the idea altogether, because in the past while I was in the midst of a massive attack that had nothing to do with my state of mind, I was told, you can make it stop right now by changing the way you think.

You can imagine how unhelpful I found that answer. It turns out, that was the dark side, the bright side is that even for those of us who are attacked by GABA misfiring in our bodies, and have anxiety attacks or panic attacks, we have developed a whole system of messed up thinking as a result.

An example. Joe loves to go to the library. One day Joe walks in and an attack suddenly comes on him. First he is convinced that everyone in the library knows what it happening to him, and are sneering at him. He leaves the library in a panic, goes home, and decides Everyone in town knows I’m crazy.

The leaps in logic Joe took to come to that dramatic decision are mind boggling. First of all, chances are not one person noticed Joe, even during his anxiety attack. Second, he is the one that decided everyone knew and was laughing at him, no one said anything to him, at all. He based all of it on a thought he had while having an anxiety attack. Admittedly, that is not hard to imagine. But breaking that train of thought for Joe, later when he does seek help, is going to be difficult.

Once the doctors get Joe on a medication which helps the GABA part of Joe’s life, the therapist can begin to help Joe understand that most of what he thought was built upon 1 + 3 = 34687598. It didn’t make any sense. It was irrational thinking. For that I recommend David Burns excellent book The Feeling Good Handbook.

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Imagine that, I have taken the Anti-Anxiety gospel even further afield than this meek little site. No more meek and little, I need to get the word out that you MAY have a full life, without anxiety, without obsessive Compulsive disorder, of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (which is hitting high levels amongst our men and women in the military), Panic Attacks, Generalized Anxiety, and Social Anxiety/Agoraphobia.

That getting help part is hard for people to grasp. It hasn’t always been easy for me to grasp either, but until you get a grip on it, you’re floating in the wind.  That is no way to live your life.  And you know it.

We are stopped because of what others think.  Get over to my Squidoo lens.

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It is no great surprise to find in our first article, “Feeling Anxious? It Could Be That Those Anti-Anxiety Pills Don’t Work.” And that doesn’t do much for creating a sense of security when taking ones morning dosage. What makes it even worse is that “physicians have no way of knowing whether a patient will be in one of the non-responsive 50 percent when they prescribe the drug.” You have to read the small article if for no other reason than to giggle at how important marijuana, yes the dreaded Pot, has become in anxiety research. Makes one wonder.

Let’s not quibble with the good doctors whom I do believe to be doing their best, even if they are working in the dark sometimes, and move directly to famous poets with mental illness. We should always bear in mind that a sober Hemingway never wrote a word. His routine down in Cuba was to drink until rather late in the evening, then go back to his hotel and write until dawn.  Also, that Coleridge became a laudanum addict.

Alicia Sparks, whom is featured here regularly, wrote this informative piece “Meet Famous Poets Who Lived With Mental Illness.” It’s encouraging actually to those of us who write, and deal with our own mental problems. Perhaps if we were all cured, literature, dance, film, and all the rest would cease to be. We’d all wear burlap, listen to drones, and read non fiction for the rest of our lives.

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In the past few days I’ve had people tell me, “there are more important things than anxiety.”  Pardon me while I vomit on your feet.

Let’s see. Paula Deen, whom we all love as everyone’s fav country cook on FoodTV was agoraphobic for several years of her life.  What would FoodTV be without Paula Deen?  Or for that matter, the world would be impoverished by not having her humor and delightful view of life.

That’s just one.  I think the people who say there are more important things than anxiety, have never been struck down by a four day, ass-ripping anxiety attack, or embarrassed beyond all comprehension by a panic attack in public!  Oh, those are important to those of us who have endured them, you can bet on that.

You see, the problem is that if it can’t be seen externally, you know, like a broken arm, then it simply can’t be real.  Cancer eats you alive, so it can be seen.  Anxiety, panic, social anxiety, those cannot be seen, so they must simply be something we’re just too weak to deal with.  Rather like the wilting violets of old.  Personally, I think that’s just wrong.

An example, I had to have two vertebrae in my neck fused.  My right arm had taken to jumping around on its own, and misbehaving in general, so they had to go in and fix my neck so it wouldn’t just sever the nerve.  Well, until the day of the surgery, everyone was giving me the “uh huh, sure” look when I said, I don’t dare lift that with my right arm.

After the surgery.  Oh my, then they couldn’t fall all over me fast enough.  Why?  because I had on a hard plastic neck brace and could barely walk.  It could be seen.  If seen, then it must be real.  Not seen, well, they’re making it up.

If you have read The Anxiety Report, then you are by now detecting a distinct change in tone.  I am not here to fight for cancer patients, or for manic-depressive patients, or for the paralyzed, or any other medical condition known to humanity.  I am here to put the reality of anxiety and its cost to society right in the spot light.

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I am continuously amazed by the statements made by those who work for Captain Obvious. First, let’s begin with this little tidbit. It seems that

New Orleans residents who lost their homes in Hurricane Katrina were over five times more likely to experience serious psychological distress a year after the disaster than those who did not.

I’m sorry, did I forget to mention that’s just one of the findings presented at the annual meeting of Population Association of America in New Orleans. The article really is worth reading, in case you didn’t click the link before, do it now. Now one last block quote, I can’t resist it.

Blacks reported substantially higher rates of serious psychological distress than whites, Sastry and Van Landingham reported. Almost one-third of blacks were found to have a high degree of distress, compared to just six percent of whites. Those with higher incomes and more education were much less likely to experience serious psychological distress.

Really?  I do wonder why that might be the case?  Could it be the the “blacks” feel fairly certain that no one really gives a flying flip about what happens to them?  And chances are, they aren’t in that lucky group of higher incomes and more education.

How about this?  Stop with the number counting and pointing out the obvious and do something substantial to help these people?

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Warning: Author Approaches

Since The Anxiety Report has come online I have made every effort to remain detached from what I read and write on this site.  I find that is seriously against my grain.  I don’t care about something enough to detach from it, I shouldn’t be writing about it at all.  I am no crusader, but I am tired of the general pablum that gets fed to us, the public and the patient’s of anxiety disorders, that we’re supposed to take seriously.

Sometimes I feel like all I’m reading is advertisements for Pharmaceutical companies.  Anxiety is big business and never think otherwise.  From therapists to drug companies, money is made off the anxiety disorder business.

In every post up until today I have felt like I was doing nothing more than being an obedient servant of Sicko Inc., an advertising firm.  The deeper I dig the more this all looks like the same material rehashed again and again.

Now here’s the kicker.  It’s not the doctors fault.  They do the work and write up their papers in language it is taking me a long time to decipher, but they are honestly trying to get to the bottom of these disorders.  And, in some instances it isn’t the pharmaceutical company either, because some really do want to make a drug that truly helps.

So now you want me to tell you where the fault lies, and that is something I can’t do.  Why?  Because I’m not the one paying for various studies, such as are people who lost their houses more depressed than those who did not.  I am disgusted in a way by this study.  It is insulting to the people who were studied, and to the intelligence of everyone who stops to think about it.  Are there not better uses for resources at the University of Michigan where the study was conducted?  I praise the people who did the study, because at least they were doing something.  I blame those who couldn’t imagine whether or not the loss of your property, your whole life accumulation of things, and maybe grandma drowning in her attack, might make you depressed!

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CBS News and PTSD

Not two acronyms you would expect to find next to one another, but this morning on the CBS website was posted an FYI: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Learn About Symptoms, Treatments, Warning Signs And Where Those At Risk Can Get Help and a good article it is. The article provides a surprising amount of information about the condition, as well as signs to watch for, especially for soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. A series of questions are answered about the condition. A link is also provided to United States Department of Veteran Affairs, National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. More and more of our soldiers are returning from war, having faced things that have changed their lives forever. You don’t have to lose an arm or a leg to be traumatized. Just seeing your friend loose an arm is enough to mark you.

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Jazz Pharmaceuticals and Luvox CR

A press release from Jazz Pharmaceuticals

announced today that Once-A-Day LUVOX(R) CR (fluvoxamine maleate) Extended-Release Capsules is now available at pharmacies throughout the United States. LUVOX CR was recently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of social anxiety disorder (SAD) and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) in adult patients. SAD and OCD are two difficult-to-treat, under diagnosed and under treated anxiety disorders.

Now when I did some internet research each page started out with a list of warnings. But don’t be alarmed because all antidepressant and almost all psychiatric medications carry some type of risk. We do not live in a risk free world, and that includes or medications. I do think it is unfair of some sites to post the WARNINGS first before anyone can read what the medication is, and what it does.

However, further research turned up a couple of worrisome things. First was this one from The Carlat Psychiatry Blog.

It has very little going for it. Its half-life is about 15 hours, and it causes more drug-drug interactions than any other SSRI. Before, Luvox was a pretty useless drug; come next year, we’ll have a pretty useless drug that lasts even longer than the original.

That is not encouraging as the writer is a psychiatrist. And this less than encouraging opening page. But, go to this page, it is a research page, and read the conclusion. Lastly, make your own decision based on MedMaster Patient Drug Information

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Brain Cells Inc.

Apparently this Phase II study for BCI-540, is ready to start. A few things you might want to read: From Medical News Today , and from The Scientist.com.

It seems to me that if someone comes out with something new, then someone else is going to oppose it for some reason. Also, this is listed as a clinical trial, and I tend to trust their view more than others, but this study is still recruiting people.

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Every time I try to do something today it goes wrong. I’m not going to complain about it, but most of the sources I use for Anxiety related articles are rehashing what’s already been up for two or three days now.

I did find this somewhat disturbing article about the flu “Seasonal Flu Starts in Asia and Migrates Throughout World”

The flu arrives in Europe and North America six to nine months after the viruses infect Asia, and finally ends its travels in South America after another six to nine months, the researchers reported in the April 18 issue of Science.

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Caffeine Has Its Perks
Use moderate amounts of java and smooth the bumps in life.

Without doubt this is my favorite article of the day. Coffee, since it’s appearance in the 17th century, no one can get enough of it. The stock market had it’s start in London coffee houses. They were considered quite sinful, in fact, Johann Sebastian Bach wrote “The Coffee Cantata,” about a girl trying to express to her father how much her daily coffee meant to her.

After several hours of hard work, a busy brain has its own mechanism for recharging; it seeks a rest. It triggers a release of adenosine, a neurotransmitter that, like a key opening a lock, attaches to special receptors on the surface of nerve cells throughout brain and body. Once the chemical has opened the lock and delivered its payload to the brain cell, the connection causes drowsiness, promoting sleep.

Now you see! It’s more than a caffeine addiction (who said that) it’s the best way to combat the evil adenosine.

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Treatment Effects of Narrative Exposure Therapy is a study begin conducted by University of Bergen
Norwegian Center for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies. You might wonder what Narrative Exposure Therapy is so here’s a page that can explain it far better than I. It’s a long article but there are two drawings by children, one from Kosovo, and the other from Africa. Both are blood curdling.

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