Dealing with Anxiety and Panic Attacks
Today I wanted to focus on an issue that touched my life personally and I know has affected lots of other people as well. It is one of the worst situations I have had to overcome in my life so far. I am extremely lucky that my family are all healthy and doing well so that's why I can say this is the worst thing.
About twenty years ago, I started having panic attacks. I did not have a clue there even was such a thing. I was attending classes in a town about one hundred miles away from where I lived, and so I traveled a lot. During class one day, I started having a weird choking sensation all over my body. I can't really explain it but at the time I felt that I could not breathe. I didn't think it had anything to do with my heart or lungs or anything, I just felt like I was being squeezed.
The nurse checked my blood pressure and the rest of my vitals and of course found nothing wrong. The feeling went away after awhile and I kind of forgot about it. However, IT KEPT COMING BACK. As time went on, the feelings started to get worse and I found I was having trouble swallowing as well as having the weird choking in my whole body type feeling.
These sensations of course started causing me to panic. Every time I tried to swallow, (which of course is every five seconds or so) I felt like I couldn't. Then of course I couldn't breathe, and this went on relentlessly...….All day...…….All night!!!!!!
At this time I was working and going to school, and my husband and I had our own business, which I ran the office for and I had two teenagers and an eight year old at home. Sooooo………….this could of had something to do with the situation, but when I was told by the doctor that I was under too much stress and I had to let something go, the only thing I could really quit was the classes I was attending out of town once or twice a week.
I WOULDN'T WISH THIS ON MY WORST ENEMY!!!!!!!! And if you have never experienced this, thank your lucky stars, because it is crippling.
Gradually, after loosing a lot of weight, over the course of about six months, from the time it started till it started to go away, the feelings of panic quit. I still do not quite know why or how, but one thing I changed was I switched from sipping only water, (the only thing I could comfortably swallow at the time), to drinking milk.
Now this may not be what eventually turned things around but it sure seemed to help. I contribute this to a deficiency in MAGNESIUM! which milk has and also vitamin D which helps your immune system for overall good health.
Since then I am an advocate for keeping your magnesium levels up if you can. Either by getting it in your diet (kind of hard to do) or by taking supplements or by using magnesium oils or salts. Since I also struggle with Celiac Disease, (an autoimmune disease that effects your ability to absorb nutrients - see my post "Living Healthy and Gluten Free") I also recommend using Magnesium Oil and/or Magnesium Bath Flakes.