Nightly Panic Attacks After Surgery

The worst thing is to not be comfortable sleeping because of a fear of an anxiety attack, and that anxiety about it can compound and it just gets worse. I know the feeling of sleeping not being the relaxing thing it should be due to anxiety.

Your doctor is probably right that it's anxiety if everything is coming back fine. I'm sorry you can't go to Boston Universities Center for Anxiety sooner. Is there any way to see an urgent care physician this weekend in the interim? I went to urgent care today because my new insurance for my new job just started and I really needed Xanax since my anxiety has gotten worse despite the fact that I have been used Lexapro everyday. Any chance you can do that this weekend? If not, I'm gonna give off good vibes because I know how much it stinks for this stuff to happen on a Friday.

Hi Stonge and welcome!

I am sorry to hear of this recent increase in the anxiety, post-op.

You are probably in a temporary vulnerable state due to the mental and physical taxes that a surgery naturally brings about.

Do you find the benzo mostly relieves your physical symptoms? If so, you can be reassured that this is indeed anxiety that you are dealing with. (I say mostly, because a med can only do so much...which brings me to the next part!)

How about coping skills? Do you find any relief from practicing them? If so, you could try increasing time spent on the techniques...and seeking to expand your tool box.

We have great material in our Resources as the top of the main forum page here. Check it out and see if you find anything that looks beneficial for you.:)

I think with time and the right tools (horray on your upcoming appointment at the university!!) you will find this cycle broken...and your anxiety management will get back to where it once was...and even beyond.:)

Keep posting with us! We understand, care and support is key!

Talk soon,

S.C.

You mention Strong (Stonge) who last communicated on 7-1-2006 so she’s probably no longer posting.

As for your situation, you say you have the same symptoms but worse as Stonge with her situation being:

“about 4 days before the surgery, I woke up in the middle of the night gasping for air and in a complete panic. It then turned into a full blown panic attack. I chalked that up to be extremely anxious about the surgery. Well about 4 days AFTER the surgery, Ive woken up the last 4 days in a row to the same thing. I go to bed tired and not anxious and as soon as I get to the point where I am about to fall asleep, it feels like my hearts stopped and I shoot straight up and gasp for air and my heart feels like its going to explode. This happens for the following 1 to 3 hours until I get so exhausted that I finally fall asleep.”

I’ve had panic attacks before as a bipolar from being on the wrong medicine which threw me into mania and panic attacks with no counter medicine like Lithium to cap the mania.
This latest poster, Thejosephbear, said he tried “recreational drugs and a steroid cycle” two weeks after surgery and started having panic attacks.

You said, "They've put me on a cocktail of medicine but I found citalopram has definitely calmed the night attacks done where they are more like "pulses" of anxiety now and I can some Little sleep. “

Nami.org says “Citalopram is an antidepressant medication that works in the brain. It is approved for the treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD).”

As an amateur observer, this long term approach sounds more like what may be needed rather than a short term Zanax or Ativan. The net also says don’t stop abruptly with the medicine simply because you may feel you’re doing better.

How are you feeling now? How often do you see your doctor?

Thejosephbear:

Sounds like you are doing much better, thanks to modern medicine.

My grandmother didn’t have the benefit of that there in the 1930s and 1940s so she was sent to a central state mental hospital 100 miles from her house where they had basically no effective medicine for bipolar (which is what I have) which would include her lows or depression and her highs or mania. Can you imagine?

But they did have high walls around the mental health facility.

While you go to a psychiatrist and your pharmacist for your scripts, she went into people’s medicine cabinets at whoever’s house she was visiting to try out their pills. It pills could treat other conditions, maybe one of those in the medicine cabinet could treat mania or maybe depression.

You know, to get that relief you and I take for granted.

So, let’s time travel back to days gone by when there was virtually no medicine for mental conditions and try to imagine what that was like.

As you curl up and watch your favorite TV show tonight in the comfort of your own home, picture being in her shoes: 100 miles from home, no effective medicine…or you’d probably want to change the channel on that one. Maybe a good sitcom. Have a good laugh. And don’t forget to take the medicine that she could only wish for.

So, I guess we need to be thankful and glad we were born into an era when there is medicine for our conditions. We’re just lucky, I guess.

You say, “How are you doing now panic attacks and anxiety? “

It was one of the roughest times of my life. I’m bipolar who had a nervous breakdown because of my refusal to go to a doctor. It wasn’t so much my refusal as it was my negative thinking and inability to solve problems due to my negative upbringing. I knew I was sick, I didn’t know which doctor in the yellow pages to go to, or, negative thinking.

So, I had a nervous breakdown. I had a mother who was a psychologist who knew a psychiatrist in her clinic, and he was at her beck and call, not mine. I was very angry, so to please her, he put me on an anti-psychotic, old style years ago, which froze my emotions, and my anger which was all he was worried about.

Well I went around like a zombie for months. Years later I got correctly dxed by a lay counselor who said, “I knew your uncle. He was bipolar and you probably are too.” So, then I got on the right meds.

That has gotten me level for many years and I’m able to write this.

I’m on Mirtazapine anti-depressant and Lithium stabilizer which treats both sides of the bipolar, the depression and the mania. One medicine doesn’t treat both illnesses, although I’ve seen a recent TV ad for one that does treat both.

What helped me was reading a column that talked about being positive when trying to solve problems. It said, be positive going into the problem that you can solve it, which unleashes your unconscious to start working on it.

So now, before taking on a problem, I tell myself, “Think positive, think positive, think positive” to clear my mind of any hidden negative. Only then do I think about the problem.

The problem is often not the problem. My thinking (possibly negative) is often the biggest problem. So, I work on that for a few seconds before going into the problem.