What could be causing these attacks?

Illmissucat,

Good Morning.  First of all , I am so sorry you have so much going on.  I read back through some of your posts here in the Anxiety forum as well as the Depression Forum.  Your history of mental health problems is very complicated.

You mentioned the drugs you have tried for the PMDD but I am wondering if you have a Pdoc that coordinates all of your mental health medications. I have had Major Depression and anxiety for 30 years and PTSD for 22 years so I can identify with how you are feeling when you are depressed.

PMDD was never a problem for me and I guess I am lucky but here are a few tips I have found that others have posted over the years.

Exercise has worked for some people even though it is not easy to do when you feel so lousy- try to do something. Try  drinking  a lot of "calming teas" such as chamomile. It's a tea to drink before bed but many people  drink it throughout the day.  Magnesium is helpful for some women too. Try to do breathing exercises when you  feel "out of my mind" and that sometimes helps. The other thing  is "self-talk." Try to remind yourself that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Whenever it's your  PMDD weeks, and it seems  like you have  been feeling like crud forever remind yourself that there are  good weeks on their way.

I am sorry but I had to do a little editing on your post re the toic of suicide.

Take care and please be your own best advocate.

Kindly,

Kitt

 

Addendum: SSRIs are often the first-choice medicine for treating severe premenstrual syndrome (PMS) and premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) symptoms, including depression, anxiety, irritability, anger, mood swings, breast tenderness, bloating, headache, and joint and muscle pain. Celexa and Luvox are 2 more that seem to be used for PMDD so don't give up -

 

Well I just got out of the ER and as I'm sure you know it was mostly pointless. But that is where County Mental Health told me to go. Which is funny to me because the ER automatically refers all patients with mental problems back to County Mental Health. But, well here is how it happened... Last night I woke up repeatedly with hotflashes which would become anxiety attacks. My dreams were that semi-lucid surrealistic, stick with you sort in which my mother and I discussed hereditary mental illness and in the end I said, "this is a dream isn't it." She smiled and said it was. I floated sideways to be sure. Then I woke up to the horrors of reality. Cold abrasive edgy reality. I was frightened but tried to convince myself it was just the post-sleep jitters. I stood and tried to pull it together but everything just looked so intense, so jagged, so... I started freaking out. I started pacing. I called my therapist. Voice mail. Hung up before I could leave a message. What would I say? I'll go to her office. No! That's crazy. What would be the point? I'VE GOT TO DO SOMETHING! I paced. I grabbed my keys, ran downstairs, de-frosted the car, started it, buckled up, switched gears, idled... idled...idled. Maybe she isn't in the office today. Maybe I should go to the ER. Or the Walk-in Clinic. Or CMH. Why? No one can help you! What can they do? You can either take the drugs you have or not and wait for your next appointment. I HAVE TO DO SOMETHING! Shut off the car, run upstairs, get on internet look up number to Therapists office because last time I'd had to be transferred and I didn't want to be transferred again. I just wanna talk to Mary! Just Mary! Can't find number. PANIC. Call main number, get transferred, leave message. "Um, Mary, it's Katrina. I'm freaking out and I don't know what to do. I just... I just don't know what to do. I'd ask my psychiatrist but I can't so I don't know what to do." Hang up. It wasn't enough. MUST DO SOMETHING. Go back down stairs, sit in car. Time is 9:30. Idea. Text aunt. Aunt is home. Go to Aunts. Surely this will keep me from doing something stupid like going to the ER. Step into aunts house. So much going on. TV so loud. Ugly colors. Ugly noises. Beauty in the Beast is playing upstairs. It reminds me of my little sister. I'm horrified and sad and want to scream. Aunt takes stock of situation, takes my many pill bottles prescribed by an assortment of doctors from various clinics and practices, listens to my "I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do," rant. She calls County Mental Health to demand to speak with my psychiatrist. I assure her of the futility of it all. She leaves the room. When she returns she is annoyed and says, "I thought they might say that." They want me to go to the ER. SIGH. I assure her of the futility in that as well. While she prepares herself for house-leaving I nibble a tacoshell, the staple of my diet for days since this blasted stomach illness set upon me, and tremble in cold fear. When she emerges from her room we depart. The trip there is not memorable. Nor is checking in. The hospital is an old building, once run by nuns, with lots of pointy spires and the like. It boasts a brain, spine and heart center unequaled to any in the area. The ER is a filthy little hovel squished in the back. Nearly impossible to get to. As a suicide (am I allowed to use that word) risk I am placed in a holding cell where which my shoes and purse are confiscated. My shoes, I am told by a creepy security guard with a cleft lip, so that I don't try to run away. The tiny cell is devoid of all medical interments sans a bed. There is a stainless steel bench and sink sunk into the back wall and three grimy chairs, one of which my aunt takes. The walls would be white were they not scuffed with what I assume are the shoe prints of former desperate patients trying to escape. There is dried spit on the door window and the floor is a distressing array of eye bleeding colors. My panic rises. The nurse is about 6'3" and looks like a mental patient himself. I stare at him awhile before I can actually speak. I've never seen a nurse like him before. His dirty hair clings to his hollow hippy cheeks like mud on a dead raccoon tail. The doctor is a squat gray-haired sow who clearly wants as little to do with my uninsured, mentally unsound butt as possible. Though I've barely eaten or drank a thing for days she maintains I am fit as a fiddle and though I tell her my stomach is really really bothering me, she assures me I am quite insane. However she orders a slew of blood tests and a urine sample. All of which will be taken with the least professionalism and care to confidentiality, sanitation, or identity I have ever witnessed. A case worker is summoned. The case worker hears my case. By now my list of complaints against this facility has grown large and my stability has too. I am moved from Cell Block A into a nicer room. The case worker has deemed me questionably sane and calls for back up from... COUNTY MENTAL HEALTH. I assure her of the futility in this. The time is roughly 12:45. I've started to calm down. My dad's fiance arrives to relieve my aunt of duty so that she may go to work. The two start talking. Why haven't I been hooked up to an IV? Why havn't I spoken to the doctor in ages? Where are those blood tests? Why am I still nauseous and anxious? I am in the ER darnit! Anxiety returning. I punch the nurse button. Stranger comes by, asks what I want. I don't know... my nurse? Another stranger ambles in awhile later. "Who are you?" I ask. "I am the assistant nurse. What do you need?" "Questions answered! Can we get someone in here to answer questions about some of these medications. about drug interactions. about how sick I feel and whether I'm sick or whether I'm having a bad reaction. Does anyone here know anything about medication?" He says, "The doctor does. She should have gone through all that." I yell, "Well she's a dumb *itch who doesn't know a darn thing apparently because she didn't have two words to say to me!" He slips out of the room as the CMH worker slips in. My Aunt also departs. The CMH worker is the only competent person I will meet here at Borgess Hospital and she doesn't work there. "I was told I was to come screen a stable patient but now I see that that may not be the case," is her opening line. I'm half offended and half flattered. I tell her everything. She asks questions. She even listens to what I have to say about PMDD. And she gets it! And I am half in my own little world. I forget to get her name. I forget to ask how to go about getting a doctor who works with my psychiatrist who works with my therapist like she mentioned. I forget to ask so many things. I'm overwhelmed. In the end she gives me options. Hospitalization, which is an option still should I not recover from this current bout of madness (though I'm already perking up it seems) and DBT, which I was already looking into or an appointment with yet another psychiatrist tomorrow morning and DBT. I went with the latter. Then like a dream she vanished from my room. And all the questions I should have asked were left dangling in the air. A euphoric feeling of all my problems being solved settles over me for about ten minutes until I realize I am about to be discharged, still felt like crap with no reason or remedy, still can't eat or drink without wanting to puke, and don't know if anything I have is safe to take. Plus the panic attacks likely looming in my future as soon as I return home for which I'd been given no solution... but maybe I can take it for one more night. As long as there is hope for tomorrow. And that is what the nice lady said, that there was hope. That I still had options. That I was prolly going to feel like crap for awhile but if I could keep fighting I'd eventually be put right. I really want to believe that. I want to hold her to it. Make her write it down and sign her name. Some hope for a future free of depression and desire for oblivion. Free of anxiety. No never completely free but free enough to live a normalish life. How wonderful that would be? If only more people would be so friendly. I worry I'll never see her again and that everything he said will go right down the tubes. After all, I've been fighting with CMH for months and that's where she came from. And who will I be seeing tomorrow I wonder? What will he have to say about me? How many times will I have to tell my story before I get a regular doctor, regular psychiatrist, people who listen and care? People to tell me, you're going to feel like crap for awhile but hang in there because you are not alone and we've got your back?