Stress Center Peer Support

Has anyone else out there had strange physical reactions that may be related to drugs but your doctor couldn't help you? I'm not asking anyone to diagnose me because I know that's not allowed, but my symptoms aren't logical. I started with OCD and then had a horrible life experience and may have PTSD because of it. My doctor has me on an anti-anxiety medicine but sometimes it works great and other times I feel like my nervous system is on fire. I've experimented with alcohol and vicodin to calm me down (which I don't take together), but sometimes I'm great and other times...on the same dose of the SAME THING...I'm jumping out of my skin. I don't want to get kicked off this board so please don't try to diagnose me. I just want to know where I can get answers. My doctor is clueless and so is any other doctor I've tried that I can afford. Where can I get answers? It's torture...and I HATE alcohol (plus it's bad for me.) Any thoughts? All I have is Medicare and Medi-Cal.

What I can offer you is this. Alcohol and Vicodin are CNS depressants. So, if you are suffering from any mental disorders, these two will only worsen your symptoms! Not to mention the fact that with anti-anxiety meds, alcohol and narcotic pain pills, you aren't doing your body any favors.

I am on Xanax, and somedays it feels as though it isn't doing a thing for me. So, I can relate to that part of your post. I just feel like a surge of electricity is overtaking my body from the anxiety... that is when it is time to get up and out, and burn off the overload of adrenaline being produced by your body.

I will not try and diagnose, but I would offer the advice to stay off of the alcohol and Vicodin, at the very least.

Good luck

Hi there!
I will only share some of my experience.
Due to life situations which I didn't know how to handle, I began to use alcohol in the early 60's to control my depression and anxiety. (at that time I didn't know what the depression and anxiety was - I was afraid for my mind).
I became an alocholic.
In the late 70's I ended up in a doctor's office . He recognized the depression as well as the alocholism.
So I was given an anti-depressant as well as sent to AA. Both those things were life savers.

I was never given things like xanax or any other relaxant like that. Because of my depression and because of my leanings toward addictions. (Having been an alcoholic). The Benzo's were depressants for me. And they affected me much as you described, on the rare occasions that some new doctor may have given them to me.
The anti-depressants worked very well for many years.
I found this program at the very end of 2006.
I ordered it and received it in the very beginning of 2007.
Mind you , I was not as bad as I'd been years before. I'd been free of using alcohol for over 20 years. I was still on anti-depressant meds.
But they made me tired.
I was still having some anxiety.

To end this story -:
I am not taking any medication now. Not that kind of meds. (I take diabetes and BP meds)
The program and this forum have done wonders for me.
I would not use alcohol or pain pills . I am afraid of them.
I would use pain pills for extreem pain. Like for surgery, etc. I have done that. They explained to me way back there (in the 70's)in AA that with my history of dependance on Alcohol,that I could easily be addicted to pain pills. That they could affect me like the alcohol had.
If I truly need pain pills, for pain, I will and do use them. Otherwise , absolutely not.

I have to work the program and also pray a lot,
but I'm quite comfortable now without the anti=depressants.

I hope that this may help you a little.
Best wishes.
MJ

Thank you everyone. I saw a section where you can post just on drugs, so I guess it's OK to say what I'm on. My doctor put me on Clonazapam and it worked great at first. Then I was still going through the trauma (it was a court thing) and I started having total breakdowns where I lost control and would just start screaming till I hyperventilated. So I needed more and more to feel calm. If I were the kind of person who could commit suicide, then is when I would have done it. Luckily, I am not. I want to live. But I freely admit I have a problem with vicodin, and I really do hate alcohol but I guess I have a problem with it too because I force it down to calm me down. I have PTSD since the court thing and I see a therapist. I'm afraid to give up the vicodin or the clonazapam because I'm afraid I might become suicidal if I did. I was also left peniless, so I think the jumpiness is added to by the fact that I have very little to eat.

I've had those same feelings of electricity pulsing through my body, See Bee. Never heard anyone else describe anxiety that way. I just went through a couple of days of really bad anxiety, and then today when I was sitting watching a movie, something in the movie triggered some negative thoughts and the "electricity" started again. I said "on no I'm not doing this again". I jumped off the chair, and got busy using up the energy. My closet and bedroom are all clean and my laundry is nearly all caught up. LOL Fringe benefit. But i just had to say that the anxiety sure does cause some very strange sensations.