Anxiety News Archives

"The number of Hoosiers who died from drug overdoses increased 147 percent from 1999 to 2004, a trend driven by the growing abuse of prescription medications, according to a new study."

Okay, this is surprising how? They have waged war on Marijuana, a drug that people grow out of very quickly. They have filled the prisons with people who grew and sold the drug, again, a drug people grow out of very quickly. And all the time they were doing this, they were popping Oxycontin, etc., having cocktails and giving lectures about how dangerous things are.

"Meth had been such a big issue, we had not recognized this (as a problem)," Bookwalter said. "Prescription drug abuse came on the horizon so quickly, especially among young people."

There is not doubt that Meth is a serious problem. Folks, take a look around, we drink and smoke like crazy, and leture our kids about the danger of street drugs while we're drugged up on pain killers, or anti-anxiety med.

Eli Lilly and Co and Boehringer Ingelheim today announced that the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use of the European Medicines Agency has issued a positive opinion supporting the approval of ...

Heather Locklear, Richie Sambora and daughter Ava Elizabeth, 2005 Bon Jovi rocker Richie Sambora intends to stand by his ex-wife Heather Locklear's side as she seeks treatment for anxiety and depression in ...

"Uh-oh. Maybe that 911 call a while back to Heather Locklear 's house wasn't such a fluke."

As I was perusing the other stories reporting Ms. Locklear's decision, I could not help but be struck by the sheer cattiness of the stories. There is a snippy piece in ever rag between here and the moon.

Is it any wonder with junk journalism like this floating around that anxiety issues are glossed over? No one takes anything seriously anymore. Because Heather Locklear is famous, let's all jump on the kick-her-while-she's-down bandwagon.

Sheesh!

As an everyday emotion, anxiety can be a good thing, prompting us to take extra precautions.

Anxiety is part of life. It's a natural byproduct of having a brain that is capable of such high-wire acts as considering the future.

Yes, that is true. But for others, myself included, worry has little or nothing to do with the following.

Sometimes anxiety explodes in a panic attack, marked by a general feeling of terror. A person engulfed in a panic attack usually experiences a racing or pounding heart, sometimes even pain or heaviness in the chest. Breathing becomes difficult. The body trembles and hands turn clammy. The person may notice tingling in their hands and feet, sometimes in their arms and legs. They may start to feel light-headed.

Small children who grow up in a family where the mother has psychological distress, the family is exposed to stress or is lacking social support, are at higher risk of developing anxious and depressive symptoms ...

I cannot see how this is news. If you live with a screeching harridan during your childhood, chances are you're cowed as an individual adult. Or, a father who blows up and gets violent for no apparent reason, is likely to make you a very cautious, and closed up adult. Huh. Imagine that.

U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley asked U.S. regulators on Thursday to investigate whether drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline Plc withheld data about a risk of suicide linked to its anxiety disorder drug Paxil.

April 18, 2007 - Visits to the doctor, in particular those for an annual physical, become increasingly important as we age.

"It is crucial for individuals to take full advantage of their limited time with their doctor during their annual physical," said Dr. Boyd Lyles, Corporate Medical Director, U.S. Preventive Medicine. "By preparing for the meeting beforehand, patients will be able to present their doctors with a more complete view of their current state of health, adding valuable information to help the physician during the evaluation."

Most doctors spend so little time with their patients that senior patients often get flustered and forget half of what they wanted to say to the doctor. This is a good article.

Employees who work overtime are at increased risk of anxiety and depression, suggests a study in the June Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, official publication of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM).

May father worked seven days a week because of all the overtime that was available to him. He was not a happy man. He was of a generation that believe your worth as a man was determined by your bank account. To that end, he was a success. After he lost both legs to diabetes, he finally chilled out and became a happy man.

The relationship between overtime and anxiety/depression was strongest among men who worked the most overtime — 49 to 100 hours per week. Men working such very long hours also had higher rates of heavy manual labor and shift work and lower levels of work skills and education.

Yes, it appears the makers of Paxil may have been a bit disingenuous in their publication of the risks of suicide associated with their medication back in the early 1990s.

You know, I've often wondered if they really even tested these drugs.

There isn’t much dispute about whether the original researchers’ data analysis was proper in any form, manner or universe — it wasn’t. It was a crass manipulation of the data in order to gain market approval for the drug (which was later accepted by the FDA as a part of the drug’s safety and efficacy new drug application).

Now I wonder if we can really trust them at all? Let's hope Health 2.0 helps straighten things like this out.

Doctors don't like the word "addiction." It has overtones of moral weakness when applied to drugs like alcohol, nicotine, cocaine or heroin.

"I had been on Zoloft and Cymbalta for about a year. I stopped the Zoloft with no problems and then was weaned off Cymbalta by gradually dropping the dosage until stopping completely. I expected some emotional consequences, but did not expect to be a prisoner in my own home for more than a week, unable to function in any way. If I had not had the Internet to confirm my suspicions that the symptoms were Cymbalta-related, I would have assumed I was dying of some strange flu!

Why is it surprising to people that prescription medications have side effects, or that coming off of those medications is not a walk in the park? I agree, doctors should warn you about it, and help you through it. As a person who has been on, and weened off, medications, I can say that my doctors did all they could to assist me. Perhaps the people in this article need a different doctor?

Drinking water in Arlington, Texas, tested positive for trace concentrations of the anti-anxiety medication meprobamate, city officials revealed Monday in response to a series of public records requests.

An Ohio coroner recently ruled the death of R&B singer Sean Levert to be the result of natural causes, much to the chagrin of his family members.

This is a very interesting article. Especially as the coroners report said

Levert’s health ailments, which included heart disease, high blood sugar and withdrawal from anti-anxiety medications, as contributing factors to his early demise.

Yeah, withdrawing from Xanax. However, according to HealthSquare.com

Side effects due to a rapid decrease in dose or abrupt withdrawal from Xanax or Xanax XR: Anxiety, blurred vision, decreased concentration, decreased mental clarity, depression, diarrhea, headache, heightened awareness of noise or bright lights, hot flushes, impaired sense of smell, insomnia, loss of appetite, loss of reality, muscle cramps, nervousness, rapid breathing, seizures, tingling sensation, tremor, twitching, weight loss

It says nothing of death. But that doesn't mean it could not happen, especially as Xanax is a benzodiazepine.

I must get 50-60 spam emails a week from out of country pharmacies for every drug on the market as I am sure many of you do.

We live in a society where that "feel good buzz" is marketed to all of us every day - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week - in movies, on our TV sets and our talk shows. Our children have role models who are in rehab, or winning Grammy awards while in rehab, or ending up dead in the bedroom of their very expensive homes with the media talking on and on for days about the poor dead actor, or singer or movie star. And the most important role models, their parents, are talking to their children about the evils of drugs while holding a beer in one hand and anxiety pills in the other. There is really something so wrong with this whole picture!

I think that says it all, don't you?

Let's start with full disclosure. I am a professional musician - an oboeist - and have performed with four major orchestras in the US, including the New York Philharmonic. Like many people my age (I'm 48), I've tried marijuana and Valium in the past. Today, I drink alcohol on a social basis, as well as beta blockers, which are prescribed by my doctor, and which I take for performance anxiety once or twice a year.

The author makes excellent points here how musicians are the same as anyone else, prone to the same pressures. He does make a point of saying that Pot is not favored among musicians because it is more likely to induce stage fright than to help it.

I think there is just a witch hunt going on for drugs in every place in society. What I want to know is, when does the witch hunt for alcohol begin? When do prison sentences for alcohol use being?

I think it’s certainly good news for those women that I see whose cancer has unfortunately returned and who come to me and are really blaming themselves for not having thought positively enough or having been depressed or anxious after their cancer diagnosis. And they come along thinking that is the main reason their cancer has recurred. And now I’m able to tell those women, look that’s just not true.

Cancer really doesn't care about our thoughts. Our thoughts do affect our state of mind about treatment choices, so positive thinking can keep you going when the going gets rough, but in the end, Cancer is not controlled by the mind.

What if you could get out from under what's been bothering you - anxiety, depression, low self-esteem - in three or four months for about $320? That's the promise of cognitive behavioral therapy .

Ah yes, the talk it out therapy. For some it works, for others it's just another way of ignoring something more serious going on in the body

Another thing, how seriously can we take medical advice from CNN Money? Aren't the money people who took over insurance and medicine the very reason health care is in the mess it is now?

With as many as 70 million Americans suffering from insomnia, according to a 2007 report by the Institute of Medicine, the need for ZZZs has led to a booming market for a new class of non-narcotic sleep drugs like Ambien, Lunesta and Sonata.

Generalized anxiety disorder , is a disorder characterized by excessive worry about simple life events.

What a glib generalization of a complex disorder. As a person who suffers from GAD, I cannot say that my worry level was any more than usual. It was the physical symptoms that were making my life hell.

Panic attacks are different than nervousness or general anxiety. They are different to the extent that although they involve intense anxiety or fear or discomfort, they are intense and often come on suddenly ...