Waking/morning anxiety
Posted , 7 users are following.
Hi guys,
I am week five into fluoxetine, and so far it has been a hellish ride. I just upped to 20mg four days ago. I think I am coping/functioning better, and I've stopped crying all the time, but the severe anxiety persists, and the mornings when I wake up are HELL. What are others experiences of this? How do you manage waking with such awful anxiety? Will this get better? Thanks, and hope you all had a good Christmas.
0 likes, 14 replies
liz19864 lucy57040
Edited
Hi Lucy, hope you enjoyed xmas yourself? I'm also on week 5 of taking fluoxetine I've always been on 20mg but I can completely relate to the morning anxiety you are experiencing! for me it was the first 2 weeks I'd wake very early around 4am and as soon as I opened my eyes the anxiety kicked in full force. Horrible thoughts racing, palpitations, sweating, literally thought i was going to vomit i felt so sick from it. I did find that dragging myself out of bed no matter what time and reading/watching tv/ making a cup of tea anything to distract helped, even though when you feel that way its so hard to get up because its almost paralysing! This eased after those two weeks I woke up one morning and the anxiety wasn't there - in your case maybe due to upping your dosage recently you are experiencing the intense morning anxiety as a side effect? but it will ease off and you will come through this it just takes time for the meds to balance out properly. i woke up yesterday and today with the morning anxiety again after nearly three weeks of feeling nearly normal and felt like i was back to square one again but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as the initial weeks and think was due to me being silly and missing a dose. i think we are both in the early days still and just need to take each day as it comes, progress is happening each day and it will get better. Sorry for rambling and I hope this helps - you're really not alone in what you're feeling.
Take care
lucy57040 liz19864
Posted
Hi Liz, thanks so much for replying, ramble away, it's a real help! It's just a relief to hear from other people who are/were going through the same or similar thing. I've been on 10mg for four and a half weeks, with some improvement to mood/functioning, but no relief from the anxiety. And my experience when I wake is just like you described - 4.30-5am the anxiety hits before I even open my eyes, and I just feel so ill, shaking, just awful. And then I spend the day in high anxiety. When I've taken SSRI's in the past they kicked in within 3-4 weeks. Fluoxetine seems to be taking forever and the side effects have been brutal! And I'm meant to be going on holiday on Sunday 😦 I'm glad to hear you had a few weeks feeling much better, that must've been awesome! I'm
sure things will balance out for you again. I'm finding alcohol is not a good mix right now... At least we are both five weeks in, we can keep each other company!
liz19864 lucy57040
Posted
Hi Lucy, you're right it's almost reassuring to hear about others experience! It's great to know someone in here is at the same timescale as myself too. I'm glad you've had improvement in your mood I've heard these types if med can help tackle the depression before the anxiety side so you are definitely making progress there, and it is a good sign that flux will work for you in time. The side effects are truly horrible aren't they! I couldn't bring myself to eat a thing and was like an insomniac for the first three weeks. I've never taken an ssri previously so didn't know what to expect to be honest but side effects were worse than I imagined, the high anxiety being the worst part 😦 When you were on different ssri's previously did you experience these 'blips' where your anxiety increased again?
I can relate with the alcohol too, I don't drink much but do on occasion and think I had a few too many xmas eve so woke up feeling so terrible 😦 it must counteract the fluoxetine as alcohol is a depressant. It's difficult with all the festivities to avoid situations with drinking though!
Oh that's lovely that you're going away - maybe it will do you good even though it may seem daunting right now to get out the comfort zone, a change of scenery could lift your mood. Still feeling pretty 'meh' today myself but didn't wake up as early as the past two days so maybe thats a good thing. Hope you're doing okay today x
jojoach lucy57040
Posted
Lucy i am at the stage you were at, its crippling me i am so close to giving up can you advise me how you progressed? did it ease off, did you stick with it? how do you feel now?
lisa30697 lucy57040
Edited
Hi ladies
This may sound very strange what I'm about to say but this is honestly a game changer so you have nothing to lose so please let me know if it works for you as I have been practicing this for weeks and its helping. They call it neuroplasticity (YouTube it) emotions and the brain clip is fab.
when the anxiety hits you in the morning just accept it that it's there stop fighting it then shift your body. star jumps, running on the spot, push ups anything. it shifts cortisol in your brain and releases calming chemicals
its working ladies, thank God as I've suffered Terrible too so trying to share to help others. Good luck
lucy57040 lisa30697
Posted
Hi Lisa,
Thanks for the advice - do you mean as soon as you wake up, leap out of bed and get moving? I'm awake at 5am, and feel so terrible that I can't imagine getting out of bed and doing star jumps!! But if it would help I'd do it...
lisa30697 lucy57040
Edited
do some gentle yoga or movement, try a hot water bottle in different places on your body, it really works so yeah give it a try. It's called propriception I'm learning about how it helps you to regulate. Good luck and let me know if this helps you x
bel17571 lisa30697
Posted
hi Lucy how you now?
peejay640 lucy57040
Posted
Im on week three of a re-start. Have to agree with you. It's a hellish ride ! Like you, my mornings are rough right now. Seem to get better in late afternoon early evening. Just trying to "power" through at this point...
yu69395 lucy57040
Posted
Hi
I just started week 7 on Fluoxetine (20-40-60-40mg currently). I feel overall anxiety is somewhat less lately ( starting afternoon toward night).
But I wake up with horrible dissociation with so much anxiety. The first thing i do in the morning is to take Fluoxetine and Hydroxyzine (antihistamine) for anxiety. I cannot take strong anti-anxiety med since it makes my dissociation worse. I don't move for a while. Then I usually eat sweets such as chocolate cookies etc to raise my blood sugar level. it reduces anxiety a bit. Then I take a warm bath. It also helps reduces anxiety in my case.
Hope you're getting better.
lisa30697 yu69395
Posted
please also try and use propriception activities it will help you so much. if you go onto Beacon house website you can read about how to ground yourself when experiencing dissociation
The more you learn about it the more empowered you feel. Good luck 🙂
yu69395 lisa30697
Posted
Hi
THANK YOU
i didn't know propriception activities
lisa30697 yu69395
Posted
if you Google it you will get a list to try but all movement swimming , yoga and compression is so good for you. Good luck on getting better 🙂
yu69395 lisa30697
Posted
Hi
Thank you so much. I'll do so.
Hope you're doing ok.