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Anxiety - Fear of vomitting - Treatment options?
I am not suffering from anxiety. I am writing on behalf of a loved-one (though unbeknownst to her).
I am also not 100% familiar with her condition. We have talked about it quite a bit and I have helped her through some bad episodes, but there are some things she isnt comfortable talking about.
Heres what I know:
She is afraid of vomiting (emetiphobia?). I have gathered that this is related to a traumatic childhood experience, though she has never actually told me what the experience was.
She frequently feels nauseous. We are unsure if this is because of her anxiety problems or if it is a trigger for her anxiety problems.
She is able to maintain a normal weight and eat normal amounts of food (she is 5'7", 130 lbs and in impeccable shape).
She has been diagnosed with GAD and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
She has been to multiple therapists over the past few years
She currently takes 0.5 mg Ativan and 20mg Lexapro per day. These seem to stave off most of the symptoms (but we need to treat the problem, not the symptom, right?)
Now, what I would like to know is what treatment options does she have?
Traditional talk therapy has not worked well for her. She becomes frustrated and feels that there is no improvement from this. Are there alternatives to this type of therapy? Maybe some kind of cognitive-behavioral therapy (does that exist?)?
As far as meds go, the idea is to get her off them when she is ready. We are considering raising a family and she cannot be on the Ativan, or anything else really, during pregnancy.
I'm not looking for definitive answers. I'm just looking for new types of therapy or counseling that can help her through a lot of this stuff.
What has worked for you? What has worked for friends/patients?
Please help!
I am also not 100% familiar with her condition. We have talked about it quite a bit and I have helped her through some bad episodes, but there are some things she isnt comfortable talking about.
Heres what I know:
She is afraid of vomiting (emetiphobia?). I have gathered that this is related to a traumatic childhood experience, though she has never actually told me what the experience was.
She frequently feels nauseous. We are unsure if this is because of her anxiety problems or if it is a trigger for her anxiety problems.
She is able to maintain a normal weight and eat normal amounts of food (she is 5'7", 130 lbs and in impeccable shape).
She has been diagnosed with GAD and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
She has been to multiple therapists over the past few years
She currently takes 0.5 mg Ativan and 20mg Lexapro per day. These seem to stave off most of the symptoms (but we need to treat the problem, not the symptom, right?)
Now, what I would like to know is what treatment options does she have?
Traditional talk therapy has not worked well for her. She becomes frustrated and feels that there is no improvement from this. Are there alternatives to this type of therapy? Maybe some kind of cognitive-behavioral therapy (does that exist?)?
As far as meds go, the idea is to get her off them when she is ready. We are considering raising a family and she cannot be on the Ativan, or anything else really, during pregnancy.
I'm not looking for definitive answers. I'm just looking for new types of therapy or counseling that can help her through a lot of this stuff.
What has worked for you? What has worked for friends/patients?
Please help!
I am an emtiphobic have been for many years... Well 20 years. Am currently writing a self help book for people with 'the curse'. I am a qualified psychologist by the way... Not some guy writing a book. Feel free to mail me for advice and general chat...
***@**** m
Speak soon.
***@**** m
Speak soon.
EFT is about exploring the emotional aspects of things. That one can lead to the other. Hence it is a suggested therapy.
I'm going to suggest something pretty radical for you to consider. Please understand that I am NOT a professional and have no medical basis whatsoever for what follows. It is based strictly on personal observation of some individuals who have presented with similar issues.
What do we know? Answer: we know we have a diagnosed anxiety disorder and PTSD. And we know the patient reports nausea and fear of vomiting. And we know she takes a benzodiazepine AND an SSRI. And we know she reports that talk therapy "doesn't work."
What do we NOT know? What was the trauma that gave the PTSD disganosis? How long has the patient suffered from her condition? Does the nauseu trigger the anxiety, or the other way, or both? If talk therapy has been reported as not working, what was the target outcome?
We have quite a mix here, quite a mystery. And it is possible that the failed talk therapy is ITSELF part of the "syndrome," perhaps not even within the patients awareness. That is to say, for a fairly well embedded issue, getting close to discovery or disclosure in therapy may prompt the patient to leave the therapist and thereby avoid the issue. STRICTLY HYPOTHETICALLY: let us say that the lady had a baby brother who was born as a monster and died after a few years; and that she fears she may carry the gene to produce the same. This makes her sick -really! She wants to marry you, to have children, and so the challenge of addressing birth of a monstrosity now presents itself. And let us say that some early childhood experience has caused her to think she was at fault for monster sib. <-- I'm making this all up, you understand, but if it were so, it might support an unsolvable psychology that presents in the way you describe -while at the same time ramping up the emotional stakes, considerably.
What I'm suggesting, therefore, is that you (well, she) may have one emotional condition wrapped in a defense so strong as to present as a syndome in its own right. And what THIS REALLY MEANS is that the therapy probably has not been aggressive or focused enough. The idea of some "new" approach is appealing, but there is no new approach (that I'm aware of) that has the backing of the bona-fide medical community. Behavioral/cognitive, flooding, projection, analysis -whatever -it is all done through talk. If the therapy has failed on multiple occasions, then the patient bears at least 50% of the responsibility for that -so the question is WHY has it failed? Why does she not stay with it?
My own wacky suggestion is offered merely to shake up your thinking, to think outside the box. One thing for sure -there are an awful lot of unknowns -and you should make it your business to get the data- which need not be posted here.
I wish you the very best.
What do we know? Answer: we know we have a diagnosed anxiety disorder and PTSD. And we know the patient reports nausea and fear of vomiting. And we know she takes a benzodiazepine AND an SSRI. And we know she reports that talk therapy "doesn't work."
What do we NOT know? What was the trauma that gave the PTSD disganosis? How long has the patient suffered from her condition? Does the nauseu trigger the anxiety, or the other way, or both? If talk therapy has been reported as not working, what was the target outcome?
We have quite a mix here, quite a mystery. And it is possible that the failed talk therapy is ITSELF part of the "syndrome," perhaps not even within the patients awareness. That is to say, for a fairly well embedded issue, getting close to discovery or disclosure in therapy may prompt the patient to leave the therapist and thereby avoid the issue. STRICTLY HYPOTHETICALLY: let us say that the lady had a baby brother who was born as a monster and died after a few years; and that she fears she may carry the gene to produce the same. This makes her sick -really! She wants to marry you, to have children, and so the challenge of addressing birth of a monstrosity now presents itself. And let us say that some early childhood experience has caused her to think she was at fault for monster sib. <-- I'm making this all up, you understand, but if it were so, it might support an unsolvable psychology that presents in the way you describe -while at the same time ramping up the emotional stakes, considerably.
What I'm suggesting, therefore, is that you (well, she) may have one emotional condition wrapped in a defense so strong as to present as a syndome in its own right. And what THIS REALLY MEANS is that the therapy probably has not been aggressive or focused enough. The idea of some "new" approach is appealing, but there is no new approach (that I'm aware of) that has the backing of the bona-fide medical community. Behavioral/cognitive, flooding, projection, analysis -whatever -it is all done through talk. If the therapy has failed on multiple occasions, then the patient bears at least 50% of the responsibility for that -so the question is WHY has it failed? Why does she not stay with it?
My own wacky suggestion is offered merely to shake up your thinking, to think outside the box. One thing for sure -there are an awful lot of unknowns -and you should make it your business to get the data- which need not be posted here.
I wish you the very best.
I think with such a condition you tend to read the side effects leaflets of the tablets and if you see vomiting as a side effect it scares you away from that form of tablet. To get one without such side effects would be powerful. If anybody knows a good one please add it up here. Would love to know the name. Other than Xanax.
I dont kow if this is the same, but I have a fear of vomiting. But it's because I have socail anxiety disorder, Not in the origanal sense where I am shy and all that. You wouldn't even know if you met me. SAfter a long time of trying to figure out what was making me so nervous I realized it was because I had a fear that I was going to throw up in someones presence thought I don't have anxiety about it if I were alone. Paxil helped allot. Effexor helped and I took that while I was pregnant though I had to stop it to breast feed. therapy didn't help. I tried that and finally gave up and movedd on to the drugs. It almost cured me while I was on them THough paxil comes with a high rate of wight gain. Hope this helps
Here in Ireland I couldn't find anywhere that recognised the condition at all. So I wrote away to an eating disorder clinic to see if they could help me. Now, they didn't know anything about the condition as well. But they took the step of writing to another clinic in the UK about it. Here is the reply sent back to them, and forwarded to me. Might help, might not help.
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This is an unusual phobia but I am absolutely familiar with it, and
there is
a lovely case study on emetophobia by Milton Erikson in his book "My
voice
shall go with you".
However, I would deal with such a phobia now using EFT because I
simply
have no other practical suggestions to offer. It isn't as simple as it
sounds. We would first need to explore the phobia using cognitive
techniques
and then do many rounds of tapping on the fear itself, past memories
and
related issues such as feeling out of control.
The fear of eating itself may only be in part related to this phobia.
I would advise this client (who is copied) to consider finding a
competent
EFT therapist in his area. Failing that, a good NLP practitioner
because
this is a very powerful phobia which does not respond to talking
therapies;
but it definitely can be treated.
EFT stands for Emotional Freedom Techniques and your client may look on
the
web to research it, and in particular visit the website run by Gary
Craig.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is an unusual phobia but I am absolutely familiar with it, and
there is
a lovely case study on emetophobia by Milton Erikson in his book "My
voice
shall go with you".
However, I would deal with such a phobia now using EFT because I
simply
have no other practical suggestions to offer. It isn't as simple as it
sounds. We would first need to explore the phobia using cognitive
techniques
and then do many rounds of tapping on the fear itself, past memories
and
related issues such as feeling out of control.
The fear of eating itself may only be in part related to this phobia.
I would advise this client (who is copied) to consider finding a
competent
EFT therapist in his area. Failing that, a good NLP practitioner
because
this is a very powerful phobia which does not respond to talking
therapies;
but it definitely can be treated.
EFT stands for Emotional Freedom Techniques and your client may look on
the
web to research it, and in particular visit the website run by Gary
Craig.
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