Anxiety

Oh beautiful woman, I wish I could hug you right now just to say I understand and feel your pain.  You have described my life for the last couple of months to a T.  I have been suffereing debilitating anxiety to a point that my tongue went numb for 3 days with the constant panick.  It is a dreadful feeling.  I also tried deep breathing, meditation, exercise etc.  My GP has increased my anti depressant dose and they gave me sleeping tablets that I could take for a week.  After that my Oncologist nicely explained it to me in my visit to him the other day.  He said that it is so very normal for women who comes out of treatment to experience severe panick and anxiety even months after treatment have stopped because emotional toll of everything that catches up with us is too much.  Then throw in the good dose of menoupause symptoms from ongoing hormonal treatment that doesnt allow our bodies to sleep or function properly which adds to your stress levels and adrenalin levels cause we don't recover if our sleep is disrupted.  I mentioned the hot flushes being the main culprit of keeping me awake and the fact that I can' take sleeping tablets forever so he put me on an anti eleptic drug (used for epilepsy, restless leg syndrome and hot flushes in menoupausal women).  I only take them at night,  they are not sleeping tablets and aren't addictave but they sure take away hot flushes! Since I have been on these tablets I am finally getting some sleep and feel like I am coping much much better than a few weeks ago when I could not even walk into the shopping centre without feeling panicked and like my chest was closing up.

Having said all that.  I know you asked how do we get help for the anxiety without medication but unfortunately it seems we do sometimes need to take what is available to help with these things.  I would say continue doing the exercising, breathing ect. but if you are given any medication to help alleviate the anxiety then take it to help you get through this time.  I am so glad you have a wonderful partner to support you through this that is understanding.  All the best hun x