Sudden Onset Constant Anxiety

[HMF34]

My boyfriend who I live with has recently been experiencing severe and debilitating anxiety almost 24 hours a day for the past 2 weeks. We have been dating for almost 6 years and living together for about 3 years. He has always been a fairly nervous person with the need to be in control of pretty much everything when it comes to me and his family. He has seen his share of horrible family tragedies, and I think because of this he feels responsible for making sure nothing happens to anyone else he loves, and the only way he knows how to do this is by trying to control the decisions they make. Over the past few months, he has experienced a variety of health issues beginning with common GI issues, progressing to anxiety after eating, and then extreme dizziness. He has seen his doctor several times, a variety of specialists and had a ton of diagnostic testing (even as far as a colonoscopy) and seems to be in good health for a 33 yr old man. There were no obvious causes for any of the symptoms. His doctor suggested it may be anxiety related, and this just angered him. About 2 weeks ago he was home sick with a  sinus infection and called me at work complaining of extreme dizziness, blurred vision, heart palpitations, sweaty hands/feet and a "tingley" feeling throughout his body. I left work because he felt he needed to go to the ER, but he called an ambulance before I could get home. They did everything from blood work, to an EKG to a head CT and couldn't find anything but low phosphorus levels. His vitals were all normal. After researching low phosphorus levels and discovering that panic attacks often cause a sudden drop in phosphorus, he finally considered that this all could be anxiety and panic. Since that day over 2 weeks ago, he has not been the same person. He can barely leave the couch. He hasn't had another "attack" but he feels waves of extreme anxiety and dizziness, he cannot drive a car, we can't go to restaurants or even social functions with close friends, he sleeps until late in the morning (he was always an early riser) He saw a psychiatrist who prescribed him Prozac with Lorazepam for the panic, and this made everything 10x worse. He is not suicidal, but said he started having horrible thoughts that he never would have had before. It also caused crying fits and feelings of depression, when before it was just the anxiety. After a week, the doctor switched him to Celexa, but this doesn't seem to help much either. He now is back to thinking that there must be something medical that caused this sudden onset of such extreme symptoms. He took a 14 day cycle of Doxycycline for a cat bite a couple months ago and has read about the horrible psychological effects. He blames this, among other things. We are now trying a different diet as he feels this is all related to the doxy destroying gut bacteria, which is now causing his symptoms. He thinks his doctor is incompetent for not being able to figure out what medical issue caused this sudden onset. I have seen symptoms over the years, but they always seemed like "normal" anxiety to me. Now its as if someone flipped a light switch one day and he can no longer function normally. This has been a constant state for the past 2 weeks. My question is, has anyone experienced a sudden onset of such debilitating anxiety? Is this normal for someone with GAD, or should we be searching for some medical trigger? I try to remind him that this is all temporary, and that the medication isn't an instant fix, it takes time to work. I try to remind him to pay attention to his breathing, and remind him that he just has to get through today and tomorrow will be better. I try to get him to think positive, that he will be the person he used to be again. But all he wants to do is Google 100 different reasons why he is like he is because he needs an answer. He doesn't think that the calming strategies for those with anxiety/panic disorder apply to him, because his condition isn't caused by him being "crazy" (his words, not mine) its caused by something medical and he needs to find out what. I love him very much and I want nothing more to help him, but its to the point where I cannot leave the house either because I'm afraid to leave him alone. He doesn't want anyone to know what is happening to him, so I cannot talk to anyone about how it is making me feel. I'm trying very hard to be patient, but I feel like he is only hurting himself by constantly being fixated on finding an answer that may or may not exist. So sorry for the long post! I just feel like I don't know enough about the condition. Do people have this sudden onset of such extreme symptoms that are so life altering, or should we really be searching for an underlying cause?

[psyv]

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www.psychologue-veronique-beaujeault.fr

[Paxiled]

Both.  Mental disorders are difficult to treat because nobody knows what causes them in most instances.  But if one looks back, what looks like something sudden happened was building over time.  But what you are describing is pretty dramatic.  You don't say how old he is -- mental illness in most people breaks out from the late teens to late twenties.  He's also right about the possibility it was the antibiotic -- those "digestive" organisms do much more than just help with digestion, they also help with the production of B vitamins and are a vital part of mental health.  One should always take beneficial organisms to protect as much as possible from this both during and for a time following taking an antibiotic from the refrigerated section of the best health food store in your area, but these won't supply all the organisms involved in mental health.  Most people don't get this reaction but if you ever listen to recent research by gastroenterologists you will find this is becoming more and more accepted as a problem and in some cases they've gone to the extreme of fecal transplants, but I don't know they've done this in regards to a mental problem.  The thyroid, sugar imbalances, hormonal imbalances and many other physiological problems can manifest in symptoms of mental disorders.  If he can afford it and if there is one in your area, there is a class of psychiatrist called a functional physician who will exhaust all possible physiological causes including dietary before concluding it is in the category of mental illness.  They seldom if ever take insurance, however.  On the other hand, much of the time with mental illness even if you find the cause it doesn't necessarily solve the problem, because the brain becomes easily conditioned in some of us to be anxious or depressed and hard to stop thinking like that once it sets in.  A form of therapy called CBT has been developed that sometimes helps to curtail this kind of thinking.  As for medication, you're right, it takes 4-6 weeks for most people to feel the positive effect if there's going to be one, but side effects begin right away.  Prozac is one of the more stimulating antidepressants, so that could explain him feeling worse.  Be careful, though, if he's been on one for any length of time about doctors switching from one to the other -- if it's been more than a short time on one it can be very hard to quit, and a slow taper off is necessary in those circumstances.  And personally, if he decides meds is an answer, a psychiatrist, not a regular doc, is the place to go.  Good luck.