Anxiety and Counseling

Anxiety is a medical and psychological condition or feeling very hyper or overwhelmed in different situations. It may have shortness of breath, increased heart rate, sweating, increased respirations, shaking, and even very rarely emotional blackouts. It may result in forms of panic, tension, and or headaches.

It may be associated with many medical problems including but not limited to thyroid disease, pregnancy, alcoholism, death, illegal drugs, depression, emotional pressures, economic or social problems, or family issues. It can and does usually seem overwhelming to the patient. Anxiety may be treated with an anti-anxiety medication for a short period of time or kept on hand for rare occasions that might or will help. Usually there is another secondary underlying cause physiological, psychological, or psychiatric problem that needs to be addressed with laboratory testing, physical evaluation, analysis, and precise medical care.

The patient is often given a diazepam-type compound for temporary relief. They get a pill, take it, and in a short period of time the problem is usually significantly relieved. However, the problem will consistently return again and again and often more frequently and require more and more medications as per the patient. The patient will continue to take these temporary band-aids more frequently and will usually keep requesting higher doses and more and more medications. They almost panic in the doctor’s office if they do not get more pills.

This is generally not a solution, and ends up with a leaky tire with thousands of band-aids sticking and falling off of it. With more leaks from the tire and finally, failure of the tire doing what it’s supposed to do. The leak itself must be addressed and hopefully fixed. Not every leak can be totally completely forever fixed. More importantly, the correct medical and psychiatric diagnosis must be made and the appropriate medication addressing the underlying problem or the correct counseling needs to be addressed. This usually results in great success. Patients eventually walk in the doctor’s office requesting hundreds of these medications taken very frequently with a large numbers of refills for a temporary fix. This is not good for the patient emotionally or physically, and definately has some long-term physical health concerns with liver and kidneys-- which can be a huge disaster.

Emotional stressors such as the loss of a long-term job, an economic disaster of losing money from theft, stock, or other reasons are just a few of the many reasons that could precipitate these symptoms. Sometimes this may simply be a sign of drugs or abuse. The abuse could be sexual, physical, emotional, or inflicted on another close member such as a child from another who needs help. This must always be carefully researched by the doctor who needs the honesty of the patient through trust in order to solve the problem. Hiding these factors just does not get to the bottom of the patient’s problem and usually results in additional catastrophes as well as the catastrophe of the patient. Help organizations through your county, shelters with medications, and yes-- even sometimes with help from the police could be necessary in certain extreme cases. Abuse can take many varied and complicated forms; many are not outstandingly obvious at first glance. Some solutions are often very surprising unless the patient really comes forth and is truthful to the doctor and staff. People often feel embarrassed, suppress the problem, and hide or lie about an underlying situation.

If, for whatever reason, you do not feel totally comfortable you need to seek a healthcare provider you are comfortable with. However, this does not mean taking on a passive-resistant attitude of seeing 100-plus doctors and not one of them is perfect. One, two, but no more than three physicians usually are reasonable and this physician needs your honesty by having your trust in order to deal with your concerns. Many of these problems are looked at as tattling on another person who may be causing this, or this person may inflict pain or punishment on family, my friends, and me. However, hiding this is not a solution.

Finally, drawing a line in the sand and with confidentially addressing the problem with your doctor is the solution. Sometimes, you may feel more comfortable with help of your clergy. However, this does not address many of the physical problems that could be underlying the issue and you do need some lab testing and a thorough physical exam to address this problem thoroughly along with follow ups. Indeed, the clergy has some training in this area but this is not their primary area of expertise. Rarely there are others well-wishers with promises of vitamins or other products that will ease all of your problems and pain---beware of these non- professionals asking you for money in a time of your weakness.

Help is there if you want it. Alcohol is definitely not a solution and needs to be totally and completely avoided. Alcohol usually only worsens the situation. If you want a male doctor, get a male doctor. If you want a female doctor, get a female doctor.

You need to seek a medical professional first to evaluate you physically then choose another one for your best psychological or psychiatric care. Choose a female or male physician--whomever you are truly comfortably with, but choose help now.

John Drew Laurusonis

Doctors Medical Center

www.doctorsmedicalctr.com