Huge Improvement

Hi everyone,

I wanted to post something positive to give people hope that things do get better.  I have been anxious my whole life.  I can remember as early as 7 years old and feeling terrible going to school with tums in my pocket because I was so worried.  I have had periods in my life that were more difficult and have tried Lexapro in the past, however I had to go off of it once I became pregnant and haven't taken anything since then.  I am now 40 years old and started having really bad panic attacks back in early November.  They came out of the blue and then I started to have a hard time going places and going to work because I thought I was going to have another panic attack.  I am a teacher and it is difficult to have a panic attack in front of my 6th graders and pretend that I am fine so I don't scare them.  So I went to my doctor and they prescribed a ton of different meds which didn't work.  I ended up in the hospital 3 different times and missed a bunch of work.  Finally I saw a psychiatrist and he gave me sertraline.  I started on 25mg for a week and then 50mg after that.  I have now been on it for just about 9 1/2 weeks total.  I started to feel some relief from the anxiety and side effects at about 6 weeks, but would still have good and bad days.  Now I finally am feeling about 95% back to normal.  I have been working the last 6 weeks and have only had to take two days off of work.  I can now go places again by myself and the worry, obsessive thoughts have decreased greatly.  I haven't just relied on the medicine though.  I see a therapist every week.  I go for walks, do Yoga, meditate every day, go for runs, take baths with epsom salt, and am constantly trying to tell myself good things.  So for those of you at the beginning, I felt frustrated and scared and hopeless and didn't think it would get any better, but I kept doing all these things and kept taking the medicine and kept believing that it would get better and it does!  Hang in there!  It does get better.  I think it is really important to see a psychiatrist because they are better than regular doctors.  They are more knowledgeable about mental health and meds.  It is also really important to give the medicine a lot of time to work.  Sorry for the long post, but I hope this post helps make some people feel more at ease.

Monica

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