Severe Anticipatory Anxiety/Social Anxiety

[HANNS]

I suffer from severe anticipatory and social anxiety.  I often go into terrible mood swings, have a loss of appetite, and am extremely nauseous when I am anticipating social events.  I have vomitted in the past in social events and I am terrible embarrassed.  I am getting married in a few months and been having debilitting anxiety attacks.  My fears are not over marriage but over the whole event of the wedding.  It has already been planned for 150 guests.  I have fears of embarrassing myself in front of others and vomiting on the altar.  I have feelings of hopelessness and fear that I will not be able to make it through those few days.

I am currently on Paxil (30mg/day) for SAD and GAD for 2 months and seeing a psychologist. My psychiatrist also gave me Xanax and Inderal for my anxiety over these days at the wedding.  How effective will these medications be for me at my wedding?  Will I have nauseous and social avoidance feelings?  What order should I take these medications so that they will be most effective?  Also, if I am on Paxil, why am I still having consistent worries over this social event? How will I perform on these medications?  I still worry about if these meds will work?

Thank you so much for your time.

[Roger Gould, M.D.]

There are several things you can do. You can ask your psychologist about some de-sensitivity training, or a cognitive short term approach to this program.  That is where you deal directly with the imagery of your fears.

Secondly, Inderal is a very good candidate for the wedding whereas xanax may work, but you will feel a little out of it. I suggest you try each of these medications on alternate days before the wedding, and even have your psychologist incorporate this into a de-sensitivity protocol.

congratulations..have a happy wedding

[Roo]

It's great if your meds help you feel better.  Have you tried natural remedies? There are quite a few products that help to relax and calm your nerves.  I'm just posting this because my experience with antidepressants makes me want to warn you of possible side effects/withdrawal symptoms that are not known to the general public or dr.s because of money and the fact that pharmaceutical companies do not inform dr.s or the public.  Expect side effects and withdrawal when you discontinue it.  It's like the best of the worst it'll help but you will have to pay a price.

[Mr.p]

Having had SAD for the last 17 years (diagnosed 5 years ago), I'm interested to know how often you experience the vomitting symptoms? Social sittuations are the obvious place to experience vommiting, but I'm curious to know if it occurs at times when you leat expect it? Also, do you actually bring anything up, do you feel ok afterwards, and does the vomitting cease only after you have released some wind?

If you would like to contact me direct, my email address is ***@****

Regards, Andrew.

[HANNS]

I would always want to vomit because of severe social anxiety.  I would also want to vomit because of anticipatory anxiety as well.  These feelings came to me before major events and dating.
They have subsided because I have slowly trained myself to relax.

I rarely get these feelings.  Probably the last time was a year ago before a date.  When I would meet a woman for the first time on a date or before we would kiss, I would get very nauseous.  I would have to leave the room.  I would normally dry heave or burp.  However, after I returned or finally kissed my date I felt so much better.  My anticipation and finally witnessing a social event makes me nauseous.  Once it is over I get so relaxed.  I hope this helps.

[Gilad]

Interested how you are doing these days?

Feel well.

S. Freeman

[aggbobcat]

I too suffer from anticipatory/social anxiety. In my case I feel extremely nauseous before a social event in which I'm unsure of how it will go. For instance, I'm less nervous if I've been in the social setting before, but if it's a new setting I feel sick and often vomit before going to the event or on the date. I hadn't experienced the vomiting in a while until I started dating a woman a few months ago. Everything was fine, I was comfortable eating in front of her and my anxiety level was very low. But after about a month her work forced her to be out of town off and on for about 4 weeks straight. I saw her only sporatically and started to feel like I didn't know her anymore. We started to drift apart and then when we would see each other I'd be so nervous before and even during dates that I wouldn't be able to eat. I would say that I was sick, but that got old. I would be relatively fine until I started eating or was around food... then I would feel sick to my stomach. Sometimes even thinking of her when I was eating would make me feel sick. It got to the point where I would avoid taking her out to eat and wouldn't eat anything before our dates. But then I would be hungry and I would lose weight. We broke up about a month ago, but we've stayed in contact. I started eating normally again and felt fine. Lately we've seen more of each other and my anxiety has started to increase. Tonight she is coming over to see my new apartment and the thought of her coming over made me vomit after eating lunch at home. In every case of the anxiety-related vomitting I feel completely better after I throw up. The anxiety is usually gone once I get the food out of my stomach. I've never seen a doctor about this. Like many people I keep thinking it's not a big deal and I can handle it. But this latest episode scared me because the anxiety came out of nowhere and made me vomit. Any advice or similar experiences would help.

Thanks.