Hello
Thanks for your query at DoctorSpring.com.
I have gone through your question in detail and I can understand what you are going through.
The condition that you are having is basically panic attacks along with specific phobia i.e. phobia of vomiting. This is a disorder of anxiety and occurs cause of imbalance of certain neurotransmitters in the brain. especially serotonin, noradrenaline, and dopamine to some extent. Yes, you are right that hormonal changes also play a role in the anxiety disorders. And nobody dies of anxiety,
Medicines are the best options to take care of these symptoms. Paroxetine is the most popular medicine and my drug of choice. I generally prescribe my patients 12.5 mg per day at night which takes care of anxiety symptoms. Also certain medicines like propranolol and clonazepam can be given as required when there is a panic episode or expected situation where panic attack can appear.
Also there is an option of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). This therapy is taken by either a psychologist or a psychiatrist in which the therapist identifies impaired cognitions (Thoughts) and try to correct them. They are 15-20 min weekly session and there should be around 8-10 sessions to help you with your illness. This will reduce the panic attacks frequency. For the phobia the more appropriate psychotherapy is graded exposure and systematic desensitization. This is taken up by a clinical psychologist.
Do meet your doctor and discuss the mentioned medicines and also seek for a clinical psychologist referral.
Hope this helps,
In case, if you have any further query, do let me know.
Kind regards
Dr. Srikanth Reddy MD
Patient replied :
I am so terrified because I have been complaining in the last four months from, IBS, nausea and fear of vomiting (since last time I vomited at the end of September 2014), pulsating head, great anxiety, insomnia, loss of weight and appetite, and panic attacks especially during menstruation and fever (beginning with a slight fear with any bowel movement then diarrhea, nausea, trembling, sense of cold hands and dry mouth. The doctor told me that these panic attacks are psychological and because of my fears and neurotransmitters and I began partly to partly improve, but when I made the last test hormone and saw the results that indicate that I have problems with the thyroid gland, I began to feel more anxious and the panic attacks continuous medications that my stomach can not endure. I want someone to help me calm down. Are these results very bad and indicate something serious (given that my TSH was normal in June 2014)? Do these medicines affect the results? I take colospasmin, librax and sometimes liquid motillium and aspocid. I also take feroglobin syrup (one spoon twice or thrice times per week) and seven seas syrup (one spoon per week) and theragran stress (one capsule every five days, but I already stopped it three weeks ago) because I am lacking appetite and can not eat well?
The late hormone test analysis I made on 15/2/2015 showed the following results:
Free T3 2.62 pg/ml normal range (1.7-3.7)
Free T4 1.66 ng/dl normal range (0.70-1.48)
TSH 0.24 Uiu/ml normal range (0.35-4.50)
I am also attaching other tests I made. Thanks a lot