Hello everyone! I am 19 years old and for the past 3 years I have suffered from anxiety and panic attacks.
First, a little history of my condition:
When I was 16, my parents took me to a dermatologist in order to treat my
Acne that I had at the time and the doctor prescribed me
Antibiotics . After taking the
Antibiotics for 2 months I had my first panic attack. I remember it vividly: I was sitting on the couch looking at my laptop computer and felt completely calm, then out of nowhere, my heart began to race extremely fast and thought I was going to have a heart attack. I stopped taking the
Antibiotics but the entire year after this occurrence was hell on earth. Every night I was either waking up in the middle of the night with a panic attack or having an attack in the process of falling asleep. all of these attacks were caused by a fear of my heart beating too fast, (a fear caused by the very first attack). I was having attacks every day at school, especially when we had to take a test since we weren't allowed to leave our desks for any reason. After going through a year of hell, the constant panic attacks suddenly and unexpectedly stopped and my anxiety levels decreased to almost zero. Over the following 2 years, I had only occasional panic attacks about once every two months that were brought on by stressful situations. More recently, I was alternating between anxiety and calmness. My anxiety spells lasted one day and then a week of calm and then a day of anxiety and week of calm and so on. In an effort to completely rid my self of anxiety, I began doing research on the internet for natural cures and found out about the interesting gut-brain- immune system connection. I have noticed that my stomach has not been the same since I took the antibiotics three years ago. I have random, uncomfortable bloating, gas, acid, and nausea with almost anything I eat and I get sick easily. So, about 3 week ago, I started taking a daily probiotic supplement in order to hopefully reverse the damage caused by the antibiotics (which I believe caused my anxiety problems). I have also been eating probiotic yogurt, and drinking raw kombucha. A week after starting the probiotics, I started getting a sore throat on and off and soft stool. Then, 3 days ago while I was driving to work, I started feeling very nervous and ended up having a full blown panic attack. I managed to calm myself down while continuing to drive to work. That day and the following day, I felt super anxious and depressed. Today, my head started feeling hot (almost like a fever) and my body felt crummy, nervous and depressed. As the day went on the hot head feeling, anxiety and
Depression started going away. But now I am having random spells of crying and extreme emotions, especially If I listen to a sad song. I don't even feel that depressed, but I just keep having crying spells at the slightest emotional stimuli. Anyway, sorry for the extremely long story. My main question is, is this a Herxheimer Reaction that I am going through? I am actually not sure and keep telling myself that it could just be from the anxiety. If it is a Herx, how long will it last?
Once again, sorry for the long story and any help or answers are greatly appreciated.
-Cody