# Anxiety stronger than any treatments



## mr120 (Sep 1, 2013)

Hi all,

A quick list:

imodium - makes me feel worse/doesnt do much

buscopan - no effect

Mikes audio 100 tapes - hmm nope dont think it helped

VSL#3 - nothing

Symprove - nothing

5htp - made me vomit

L-Glutamine - nothing

CBT, Hypnotherapy, EMDR(4months) - nothing

FMT (twice) - didnt really do much for me

FODMAP diet (1month) - actually getting some BS3-4 on occasion now - and feel less sluggish after dinner - but no help so far in the trigger

So that's my list i can remember.

I'm trying to work out if its purely anxiety, or the anxiety is side product of something else..

*Any time I "don't want to do something" - travel, have guests, wait on a parcel (fear hell knock as soon as i go to the toilet), and randomly.. just before getting in bed at night (this ones the odd one out)*

*Any time I do this I have what I would say is really heavy feeling around my.. anus like a pushing down (not from my gut).. and then I have to go - D - but not water in most cases just soft.*

I'm starting to wonder if maybe I've had celiac disease and the anxiety is created magically from that...

Or something like hyperadrenalism, or hyper/hypothyroidism.

Just because I kind of feel I don't really have much pain or spasming, its only when i deal with those situations above.. and my therapist (while i was doing cbt) said i dont really exhibit over anxiety.

So I am thinking maybe something is releasing this anxiety on its own..

Anyone clued up on this or think im just wishing on finding a cure..


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## BQ (May 22, 2000)

How about giving CBT a try? Cognitive Behavior therapy has helped many. See our CBT/Hypnotherapy forum for more info.

Also here is an excellent and easily read article about it:

http://ibs.about.com/od/treatmentofibs/p/cbtrx.htm


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

My sense is each person has a certain amount of "prone to anxiety" built in. Usually something somewhere along the way triggers it.

May be a one (or few) time thing that set it off and now it is rolling on it's own most of the time (generalized anxiety) or may be only in response to certain things (so only when you have to speak in public)

There are other medications if you want to try to go down that road, and often people need a combination of medications and therapy at the same time to get good control of the anxiety.

Now IBS may be triggered by things other than anxiety, so it isn't always clear if the anxiety by itself with no help from anything else in all the world is why you have IBS symptoms today. Also it isn't clear that the only thing in all the world that set off the anxiety to day is IBS symptoms and nothing else no matter what would ever cause an anxious feeling (after all a certain amount of anxiety emotions are part of normal human existence so you can't expect no anxious moments ever at all ever again).

I don't know if we ever really know if you just have pure anxiety which has zero relationship to anything else or how much there is a mind-body connection (as you really can't ever completely separate the brain/mind from the body).

However, I will say it does seem people's anxiety often needs to drive them to find something else or something else or no that other thing over there, not that, the really scary deadly thingy over there, that is the source of the anxious symptoms rather than the anxiety. Almost as if the anxiety has a sense of self-preservation and will do anything to make you stay anxious and not actually work on dealing with or calming down the anxiety. Which may be why sometimes the treatments don't work, the anxiety either keeps you from being able to do the treatment effectively or will convince you that it can't work. Which is why sometimes that combo of meds and therapy works, IMO. The meds sometimes break the cycle just enough that things that give you better long term control can be activated and once that cycle gets broken for awhile you can return to a less anxious average state. However things can send you back into the cycle/spiral of anxiety even if you were out of it for awhile.

And you can have IBS without any anxiety. You can still have thoughts that are not anxious that tend to ramp up or ramp down symptoms. There is CBT designed for that sort of IBS thing and that is not just for anxiety or depression hoping that once those go away the IBS will just go away on it's own with no direct intervention.


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## mr120 (Sep 1, 2013)

Thanks to both replies,

I have tried CBT from a therapist as well as the IBS audio 100 program, and in all honesty I feel they did nothing, zero effect - the therapist was an IBS and anxiety specialist.

I would say i'm very open minded and like to believe in things that are make believe - quite the dreamer - so I would say I should be quite open to suggestion of CBT and hypnotherapy.

I do agree that it's often not the anxiety, I only jump to anxiety as people always say - "oh well if it happens at those times it must be an anxiety problem". But I really don't feel anxious - I just start to need to toilet - 95% that's all that happens, I will need the toilet and nothing else, no other symptoms - no major pain (just discomfort relieved by emptying), sweating, problems breathing.

My blood pressure and heart rate don't change before during or after the trigger and the only time I might call it 'anxiety' is when I start to think 'oh ffs, why must you do this every bloody time' so get a little angry at myself but not in the sense of hating myself.. just annoyance.

Throughout each experience i tend to be quite level headed, not freaking out as such - but obv's in major discomfort and inconvenience as I sometimes just cant stop the need to go so wont be able to leave.

I've started EMDR again on my own after reading material on the subject, i dont think its doing much yet but we'll see.

On top of that I still find it fascinating the FODMAP diet is changing things, a few days i'll have normal BM, then softer again (even over a time period where I stay home with no stressor)


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

I don't think the thoughts connected to a need for a BM have to be anxious thoughts, or anxiety provoking thoughts.

As an example for me from something that often can be triggered by anxiety but isn't for me.

I have SVT (a relatively harmless kind of tachycardia). I tend to find my symptoms interesting, although they can cause panic attacks and severe phobias in other people. Some peopel definitely get this happen to them after the anxiety hits, and the symptoms definitely can provoke anxiety and panic attacks.

They happen when I am (to use a southern phrase) fixin' to do something. I'll be hanging out and I'll decide that it is time to do something. The body does prepare for getting up out of the chair and all that, it has to, and something in that cascade of signals causes the extra couple of nerves in my heart's natural pacemaker to go off. And then my heart is off to the races (usually at 220-280 beats per minute as best as anyone can try to estimate as it is that fast).

This doesn't feel good, and I can see how people "think they are dying" when it happens. Luckily medication prevents it from starting, and I suppose deciding to never be fixin' to do something ever again could work. It isn't anxious, but there is definitely thought involved. It never happens when I'm not fixin' to do anythin'. It doesn't happen in the midst of doing something. Just in that brief moment where the body prepares to do something because my brain sends the "going to get up and do something prepare for that so I don't faint and bonk my noggin".

For another example. I grew up with the concept of you better go to the bathroom and pee before you leave because once we are in the car Mom and Dad ain't stopping for nothing. I do think some of needing to pee isn't because I am anxious about leaving, but that I've been trained to empty my bladder before I leave the house. So I probably check in with the bladder and if there is anything in there (and stuff does build up over time) but probably in that unconcious check it before I go I notice a fullness that may not otherwise have been noticed. I usually don't pee a lot, but once I pay attention to the bladder and know something is in there it isn't always easy to pretend I don't know and leave without peeing (even if when I do that usually within a moment or two the feeling I need to go fades until I'm really full).


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