u/Good_Paper_6414

Now I'm sure there are several of you that came across this reddit from maybe wanting to do research or being in another forum such as surviving antidepressants clearly a lot of those sites are read only now so I feel like maybe I can share this here.

My problem is I have bouts here and there of anxiety where it peaks and my chest starts beating. I currently have hydroxyzine which does seem to help somewhat a week or two ago when I felt like I was having some type of panic, almost an attack. I took the hydroxyzine and 20 minutes later I felt better. It seemed like my heart rate went down so I won't say it's totally useless.

Basically the reason why my anxiety has increased over the last month or two is due to the fact that I had an ear problem fluid in the ear allegedly and it's been bothering my left ear. I have been doing the treatment they gave me but however I still hear some weird things in my ear. Most of it has resolved. I would assume in my inner ear looks nice and shiny now like it did before. From the pictures I've seen online that's what it's supposed to look like. Not supposed to be dull and gray or whatever.

I'm sure some of you can imagine going from a pulsing noise crackling and popping sizzling then an ocean type of noise You could see how that could be frustrating along with pressure from the ear anyways, aside from that.

What brings me here is when I struggle with my first major panic attack. This was after using some high-strength cannabis. All the sudden I just fell dizzy and it was like my eyes, wanted to close and open I almost felt like I was going to pass out after I took my last hit. Then all the sudden I seem really worried I was like dizzy and light-headed. When I got up it seemed like and I was pacing around my room. Then I started pacing around my house and my anxiety seemed to be peaking. I couldn't figure out what was going on and my chest was beating hard and no matter what I did I couldn't get out of it. It seemed like clearly I made the decision to meet up with a friend down by the local River and smoke again, which was a big mistake just as I was starting to feel calm again after 2 days of feeling off as soon as they dropped me off at my driveway I get halfway down it and I feel horrible again. Extreme like almost state of panic. I would say like my chest started beating again and I felt like I had to go to the hospital or to the local walk-in clinic so I ended up going there I think they agreed it was some type of panic and they didn't really do anything about it.

I ended up going to the hospital 4 days later after having trouble sleeping and feeling off. Doctor says yeah. Sounds like anxiety. Here's some of these hydroxyzine pills take these for a few days and it bring down what you're feeling at this point I stopped using cannabis and I was going through hell waking up in the middle of the night. Sweating freezing all these weird, horrible things that most people wouldn't want to experience.

For a few weeks I would say even three up to it was to the point where I couldn't even go into the grocery store like I couldn't drive myself there. So when somebody mentioned they were going and offered to get me out with them to go I literally would go in there and at first maybe 2 or 3 minutes would go by and it was unbearable. I felt really uneasy and anxious. It was like the anxiety was peaking and I had to get out of there quickly think I might have bought a couple items and got right out of there. I might have left empty-handed even I kind of forget. I do know that a few days later I actually managed to stay in there for 10 minutes and walk around but then I like had to get out of there You know baby steps I guess I gradually worked my way up to being in there for half an hour again actually doing some grocery shopping

So anyways after finally going to my doctor's office and talking to somebody in there they pretty much just said what are we supposed to do? That's what one of the ladies on the phone said and at that point I was confused. I'm like I don't know I feel really anxious it was like they didn't have an answer for me or had no clue how to combat what I was experiencing. Lack of knowledge on the situation or no clue how to even deal with anxiety which doesn't make sense. You would think being a doctor's office they would deal with people who have anxiety here and there. And basically my doctor was booked up so there was no way for me to get in to see him. At the time I had to wait till finally some provider could see me. That's when I spoke to the lady told her what was going on.

At that point I mention to the provider about how a relative had a bout of anxiousness and how they ended up giving her paxil and they've been taking it and they don't have no problems it seems like so I made that suggestion of what I had heard so the doctor was willing to give it to me that I saw that day so they put me on 25 mg of it.

Holy hell was that a nightmare paxil was extreme at first. I didn't know what I was getting into now. I don't know if this is a common thing that happens in this country with regular doctors? Or if they just don't know enough about what they're giving out to people I mean it can't really be that dumb or do they just not care because they're going to make money off of whatever they give you. I have no clue all's I know is that I could not handle paxil. It was really weird and horrible.

Now at first I took the paxil for like 3 days. Everything seemed normal It was almost like for the first time in a few weeks I was able to get out with my family for the day and walk around and be in nature outside and I had energy till about 5:00 or 6:00 at night this went on for at least 2 days the third day comes around and at around 5:00 or 6:00 at night I felt like I was going to pass out almost like I was getting extremely sleepy or something. Felt like I had to leave where I was at get right home and crawl to my bed.

This went on a second day. I felt like at 5:00 or 6:00. I was sleepy or wanted to pass out so had to leave the department store My mother was visiting with me and was checking out some items I kind of felt bad because I said you know I need to go home. I don't feel good so we left the store early.

So I get home and this time I'm like what's going on why do I feel like I should crawl up in my bed why do I feel extremely sleepy or like I'm going to faint so I ended up taking one of my hydroxyzines this time about 30 40 minutes later all the sudden it was like I turned into a spring chicken I snapped right out of what I was feeling and I was like awake and alive again I got out of bed I ate a hamburger from the grill and I was socializing for a few more hours then around 10:00 or 11:00 at night I kind of slowed down again so it was definitely weird on the paxil.

I mean at first it didn't seem like I was anxious and I could function most of the day. Then I don't know. Maybe around a normal dinner time. I started to become anxious which made me feel like I was going to pass out or I needed to go to bed. I don't know I do know that I kept going with the paxil for several more days, but I started feeling weird things going on strange side effects if you know you know, I'm sure many of you on here who have dealt with some of these meds witnessed firsthand. Brain saps ringing burning feet tingling fingers vision issues cold feet etc the list goes on and on.

Not only that when you try to stop the medication, all these other horrible things start to happen different or worse than what you noticed when you were on the meds talking cramps in my legs. My vision on the left side getting weird It was almost like I lost vision out of one eye for a couple of days this really weird, intense, blurry staring at the sun type of vision but only in one eye then numbness in half your genitals then pain and pins and needles in your fingertips. Almost like you had severe arthritis. It was definitely scary and weird.

I actually cried second or third day of being off the medication completely because I couldn't feel half my penis and I couldn't figure out what was wrong. I felt defeated and disappointed.

Now keep in mind I was not informed in any way, shape or form any medical professional that these types of medications can cause really bad side effects like that.

Got minimal information from the provider told basically that one or two things usually happen It's not that big of a deal.

Was not once informed about how powerful the medication was that I received or any of the dangerous side effects that could present themselves was not even told anything about tapering or how to discontinue the medication if I couldn't handle it once I started feeling horrible and strange from the medication I researched and found out from online sources that you're supposed to taper off the medication, you can't just stop it completely. You got to like microdose and go down slowly as I found out several weeks later you could go down too quickly and that could be a problem too kinda makes you feel really bad for the for the people that have been dealing with these meds for 14 or 20 years because when they tried to take too much away too quick they felt horrible and they had to continue taking the medication at a higher dose to feel normal somewhat. Then you read that some of them would get so low down to a small liquid dose and it was so bad that they had to go back on the medication again on the small liquid dose that they couldn't even stop completely. I kind of feel for some of those people.

So here's my dilemma my doctor prescribe me sertraline now because I mentioned I felt slightly anxious the other day almost in a panic state my chest was beating hard so I told them about it. She mentioned about taking the hydroxyzine which is exactly what I did and it brang me down to a calmer state. Why mention anything else when I clearly have an issue going on health-wise with my ETD in my left ear which is more than likely causing me to be more anxious.

The hydroxyzine does help. It helped when I took it. I know might not be regarded as a permanent solution which I kind of get, but at this point I'm afraid that I will take the sertraline and all the sudden I'll be living a nightmare again. I'll have all these horrible weird side effects going on and I won't know what to do and you're supposed to take it for more than 6 weeks whatever the case is for it to start working properly, I don't see how a person can do that when you take a medication and after several days you start noticing different, weird, horrible things that don't seem normal.

Has anyone ever dealt with this problem? I feel like if I take the medication I'm going to be back to square one like I was with the paxil and my body's going to feel really weird and one of these dangerous side effects are going to pop up and then I will be back to where I was trying to get off the medication as quickly as possible like before square One and Will be hell and I will have some horrible withdrawal effects after only a few days of using the medication if I try to get off of it all at once like I did with the last medication.

There has to be some other way to be able to control my anxiety if it pops up.

I've gotten myself to the point where I can just about go into a restaurant and sit down and I don't feel super anxious anymore. I can actually go into a supermarket and get what I need and get out of there. I might not be 100% there in certain situations at like a restaurant but nothing like after the first cannabis panic attack I ever experienced.

I feel like once again with a different doctor though with my actual PCP she just told basically nothing about the medication she gave me she minimalized the medication when most know, it can be powerful.

I feel like with most of these powerful SSRI drugs most all of them say two or three things as far as side effects and they sound very minimal but what they don't tell you are the severe side effects that can be dangerous they don't tell you anything about withdrawal effects which can be severe and dangerous.

What kind of frustrates me about the situation is my doctor will probably be upset with me because I'm not doing what they're asking me even though I feel like you throw a medication at somebody and don't explain to them what could happen or what to look out for or how to discontinue it if you can't handle it.

Now I know that a lot of people go ghost after they start feeling better and their symptoms start to go away. Well I figure I'll try asking this anyways .

does anyone notice after improvement when everything is healing and recovering that the ear will start to make kind of like an ocean noise and have a light ringing that is constant most of the day?

In my case this happened after I had the helicopter whooshing washing machine pulsing heartbeat sounding noise that went away and the electronic sound went away like when you put your finger over your ear

This problem kind of annoys me because it still hasn't went away like my hearing still feels a tiny bit blocked and I have this kind of constant ringing ocean noise.

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So what I did was I put in an aftermarket radio so I could have Android auto and maps. I got a 2018 Toyota Avalon. I believe it's an eight speaker system. The guy I bought it from upgraded the speakers so he put new speakers in it.

Now when I hooked up the door speaker amp and I ran it to door speakers and I had everything on full pass It seemed like I could hear high level noise coming out of the rear and the door speakers at that point along with Bass. Now I've hooked up the subwoofer amp and I've set the door speaker amp for low pass filtering on both channels I flipped the switch on the filter to low pass. Now it seems like I can only hear sound out of the rear doors and the front dash Even though I could have sworn I heard highs coming out of the front doors in the rear deck before. Maybe I am mistaken?

I hooked up a DSP. Someone said once you do that you should be able to run all your speakers and your subs off the amps with no problem.

Stereo only has one set of rcas coming out of it. Then it has a subwoofer port which is one plug. I didn't use that. I ran the wire, the white and red RCA coming from the radio to the input of the DSp then I ran two sets of rcas originally because all I had was a door speaker amp. Now I've got the subwoofer amp. I ran a set of rcas going to the amp now for the subwoofer so that's three sets.

I don't think that should be a problem.

Baby, I'm getting adequate enough highs but because the subwoofer amp is turned up louder than the door speaker amp. I'm not hearing the door speakers as much as I'm hearing the woofer or whatever the case is. Maybe I'm not hearing as much highs because of the woofer drowning everything out. I could possibly turn up the door speaker amp a little bit more. Now that no base is going through, it shouldn't have to worry about the woofer part of the speaker making a popping noise every so often because it shouldn't be reaching it's mechanical excursion limits if I'm not putting bass through them anymore.

So I've been taking hydroxyzine as an as-needed situation. It kind of helps to calm me down when I'm panicking. So far I think it kind of does help me when I'm anxious. However, now I'm being told should probably take something else because I had mentioned that my anxiety peaked a couple times in the last month and my chest started beating at 140 beats per minute. I was able to take the hydroxyzine and calm down but now a regular physician's assistant wants to offer me sertraline.

The problem is I feel like some of my recent anxiety is being caused by an inner ear issue that I've been dealing with trying to clear up fluid in the ear allegedly so I'm thinking that is making my anxiety flare up more than it normally would.

Now I'm not sure why my anxiety peaked I know that about 5 years ago I was using some cannabis and all the sudden I felt dizzy. My vision got blurry. I started pacing around. I felt like I was having a heart attack this is after smoking some potent cannabis.

I felt horrible for several days so then I made the decision to stop using cannabis.

Now I know some people will say that it helps them with their issues. Sometimes that's true. At first I didn't have a problem with it all these years. 20 years of using the stuff then all the sudden one day I felt strange. So now I don't use it anymore.

So what happened was during that time I was taking the hydroxyzine from the hospital. I ended up getting some from my doctor after that ran out it seemed like that was helping I went to my doctor's office and I met with a different provider while my other one was tied up and I told her what was going on. I said I was using some cannabis and I felt weird and she kind of agreed. It sounded like a panic attack. The doctor at the hospital that I spoke with one time he kind of said that like you don't know if all cannabis is going to do the same thing to you. He said you could try a different kind and maybe it won't do anything to you or maybe it will.

So that was reassuring but still I managed to cut it out. Mostly I tried to pick it up a few times and it seemed like I didn't need much and I felt somewhat anxious.

One time I tried some of these diamonds I took a hit and I felt really weird and I drove home from my friend's house which was 10 minutes away and I somehow made it home and I snapped out of it enough to not have a panic attack but I was pretty close at that point but somehow I was able to overcome the sensation enough which I thought was interesting because smoking the diamonds are stronger than smoking a joint I would assume but I guess the point is it still made me anxious so I decided I should probably relax from it. So now I don't hardly touch anything. If I'm drinking a couple of beers or an alcohol drink, maybe I'll take a puff or two and nothing happens. It seems like I'm okay but I don't think I could pick it up on the regular on a normal day. You just start taking Puffs off of a joint because I think I would panic.

After 20 plus years I somehow managed to overcome that habit It wasn't easy waking up sweating then feeling cold with the chills and wet from the sweating.

Anyways I won't sidetrack I guess too much but I figured I'd share that with some of you because that's part of the story gives a little background as to what I could be dealing with. And I'm sure some of you in here have dealt with something like that before too and didn't know how to approach it. I'm still learning myself.

So now what's going on here is I had the whole ear issue an vertigo it's been 6 weeks I'd say and the issue hasn't fully resolved itself I still have some type of ocean noise going on and partially blocked hearing mostly in the left ear so that probably isn't helping my anxiety any.

So basically after I had my first panic attack when I was using cannabis then I went to the hospital and then the doctor's office and all that good stuff. The lady suggested well since you told me a relative tried paxil and they did pretty well then maybe we could try you on some of that so I said what the hell what could it hurt? So they started me off with 25 mg I took it for 7 to 10 days and boy let me tell you it was intense lot of weird stuff going on I couldn't do it longer than that.

It seemed like for 3 days of taking the medication I felt great Kind of most of the day high energy I felt like I could get stuff done and I had no panic or worry then all the sudden around the 4th or the 5th day. I noticed around 5:00 or 6:00 at night. I felt like no matter what I was doing I was going to pass out like I was getting tired in some way and I needed to go home. So if I was in a store I would have to like leave and go home to my bed It was really weird happened at the same time pretty much everyday. It was on the third day of this that I realized that if I took a hydroxyzine about 30 minutes later I would snap out of whatever it was that was going on. I would feel like awake and alive all the sudden again. Then I could get out of bed around 7:00 at night and I could go to bed by 12 or 1 am I understand that this might sound weird to some people. I thought it was odd too. When I took the antihistamine all the sudden I was alive again it seemed like. But of course that's when I started noticing a bunch of weird side effects and things going on with the medication which we won't get into unless someone really wants to know what it's like for some people taking paxil I could reply with some of the side effects I ended up discontinuing it couldn't handle it for more than 7 to 10 days and getting off of it was hell. I made sure that I did my best to not just jump right off of it after I read up on it, I took a half a pill one day then I pretty much just stopped it now I know that it is suggested that you don't do that with certain types of meds and it can be dangerous. I kind of read into that, but I felt so weird and horrible that I felt like I had to get away from it as fast as possible. I've heard it could be worse if I'd taken the medication for a longer duration. I thought tapering from a full dose to a half a dose made sense but I might have been wrong.

So now with my current situation my primary care PA is offering me a different medication to try and I've tried to explain to them that I did not do well with the paxil medication but I don't think they really listen to me. They just explained to me a bunch of nonsense about how sertraline isn't paxil It's different even though when I was in in a group called surviving antidepressants something to that effect. I saw a post from somebody where they put paxil/ sertraline as the headline of the topic so it always sounded to me like they were the same drug basically. However, this doctor is implying that it does something different and it's a little easier to manage.

Basically what she told me was this sertraline the most it Will do Is cause stomach pain, nausea or diarrhea now that's what's scaring me and making me more anxious because I know that they haven't discussed the full consequences benefits of the drug with me which kind of upsets me at the same time they just threw something out there and said well why don't you try this.

What kind of annoys me is the fact that the first doctor lady allowed me to take paxil didn't discuss anything with me about it. Didn't mention that it could cause horrible side effects or screw people up for the rest of their life. Possibly did not even inform me that it was a powerful type of serotonin medication. Wasn't told that you could possibly get serotonin syndrome or anything of the sort. Wasn't told about any of those weird side effects that I experienced and I feel like the same thing is going on now. They're willing to just stick a med-on to me, but they have not informed me of the possibility of bad reactions.

I feel like I'm going to have the same type of problems that I had with the previous medication. Maybe worse maybe not so bad but It's the same type of medication basically It's a powerful SSRI and I didn't do well with it and I'm not being prescribed it by a mental health doctor, which is another thing that scares me I'm not depressed everyday. Once in awhile I might feel depressed. Probably because I'm having a health crisis. I'm having an issue and it's making me anxious and upset and feeling defeated. So does that mean you just throw a medication around at a person and say here you go just take this.

Has anybody on here ever had a similar experience? Was there anything that you were able to do to overcome these obstacles? Was there any way that you were able to overcome your anxiety and keep it manageable after experiencing it from maybe long-term cannabis use that somehow developed.

I've heard of different things from different research of reading up where a person's body could start to change as they get older and they could end up becoming more anxious somehow. Or maybe cannabis didn't make you anxious before, but now that you're older, your chemistry has changed to where it makes you feel anxious instead of sedated and calming maybe the fact that I was using cannabis along with tobacco rolling cannabis in tobacco leaves. Maybe that caused more anxiety because I was adding a stimulant in the mix plus I was also drinking three or four cups of coffee a day from places.

Maybe all of this together didn't help I feel like I'm starting to slip back into a repetitive hole I tried to exercise once in awhile plus there is this factor where I live in an environment that has at least 6 months of cold weather I live in the Northeast part of the country so we have a lot of people with lack of vitamin d and it becomes so cold that during the winter you don't really want to get outside and exercise.

Now this post is getting dragged out but bear with me though folks, I am struggling.

I would also like to add that during the several weeks of kind of panicking like when I got off the cannabis the first couple of weeks I noticed that like when I tried to go into a supermarket to get myself some food to do some shopping I had a friend bring me and I felt like I couldn't be in the store for more than 5 minutes or I started getting worried and my vision was blurry and foggy. It was like I had a state of brain fog and I would have to go back to the car after paying for my items as quick as possible then eventually over time I was able to be in the store for say 15 minutes and then I would try to get out of there.

As of the last few years I find myself being able to go into a store and walk around for a half an hour if I need to or 40 minutes if need be. Looking for items and I don't really have to rush out of the store based on the ear problem, the whole fluid vertigo thing I find that in the last few weeks I kind of felt like I couldn't stay in the store as long because of being annoyed by not being able to hear anything out of the left ear and walking around not understanding what people were fully saying now that should make sense based on the condition I'm dealing with.

The other thing, which is the final thing that I will mention to everyone is that I noticed there is times in the past 5 years where I would go camping and try to go out to eat at a restaurant during the adventure or just out to eat in general. Maybe to the local steakhouse or maybe some Chinese food and it's like I feel like sometimes I am really overly nervous and worried and it's like I have to leave. I want to go out to the car and leave its like I can't stay in the restaurant because I feel nervous can't even finish the meal the problem is I don't recall if like I were to take a hydroxyzine before I get to the place then go in maybe I would feel better and snap out of it but I can't really remember if that helped really frustrating when you're trying to have a good time and you can't even enjoy a meal like you used to.

I do remember one time I went to visit a relative and I got up and we were supposed to like go to the store and get some groceries and make some breakfast sandwiches. And at that point I felt like I was really anxious and I had to leave and drive 3 hours home. I ended up taking one of the hydroxyzines and then I started to head down the road and it seemed like once I got on the highway I kind of felt normal again less anxious.

So there it is some of my story a big effing book If anybody here can help me decipher what I could possibly do try and help me overcome some of these issues would be greatly appreciated.

I got a 150cc scooter a few years ago and it seems like to the first year I was noticing I was going like 55 on the speedometer. Now it seems to like do 45 not really much more only thing I really did was play with the idle knob. Seemed like after a while of driving the thing you'd go to start it up and it would be idling really low and want to die out clearly cold-blooded if it's cold out I get all that but I'd have to turn the knob up a little bit. To get it to run good so now when it's warm out it starts up and idles at around $2,500 and then it idles down to around the grand or 800 which is just enough to keep it going and it rides pretty well and takes off pretty good. Can't complain about the acceleration. It does run good.

Just seem like maybe it was going 10 mph faster. Not that that really makes much of a difference did seem to think that these things went like 60 but maybe not.

I did try to take the car off one time and make sure it was still clean inside there which it clearly was and there was nothing going on in there I haven't added no upgrades or anything or done no performance mods

Course when I remove the wire from my other vehicle, the end of the wire now was fluffed up a bit. Now I know you can use a ferrule but before before I just had the wire stuck into the end of the distribution block and I tightened down the Allen screw and it held. Now it seems like it doesn't want to hold when I stick it in able to get most of the wire in but it doesn't want to clamp down on the wire good

Just some context, I picked up a moped for 80 bucks. Tommy wasn't worth $80. The gas tank was dirty. Had some rust in it. The carburetor was soaking in gas but it was old so I went and replaced it with a brand new carburetor cleaned out the gas tank somewhat put a filter on it. Put a new shut off valve. Was told the moped had spark however I don't seem to have spark.

Oh I read somewhere on a guy that commonly worked on these types of bikes where he said something about it's common that the ground is a problem. So I took the black and the blue wire and I sliced them down the side a little bit. Took a piece of speaker wire wrapped it around the two. Then I connected it to the coil. Put a brand new spark plug in. Still nothing and the kill switch button looks broken but it looks like it's pushed all the way to the on position. I checked it. I moved it off and then moved it on and the bike should run. However I'm getting no spark.

What's the next step here? Getting a coil for 15 bucks and just trying it out is there something else?

Has anyone noticed this? Like I guess the problem is my left ear. I have ETD right so I noticed my left ear cracks a bunch. When I stick my finger slightly in the hole and I move it around. It will crack a bunch and make like an electronica sound the right ear doesn't do that is that common with ETD?

I'm not really sure what to do at this point. I've had anxiety for a little while now and it's not always intense but because I've mentioned it several times now, my doctor wants to offer me this med instead of hydroxyzine. I normally use that and it helps me snap out of the function I'm in. But now my doctor is suggesting the sertraline. The only problem with that is I'm living in fear about touching the bottle.

I'm literally sitting here as a grown man. Crying myself to sleep. Trying to go to bed and I just cannot stop thinking about what's going to happen to me that and the fact that I have an ear issue going on from ETD allegedly fluid in the ear now it's like things are peaking. Most of the anxiety I've been feeling in the past couple of weeks has been due to the ear problems. I don't usually have anxiety that is super high point of panic.

Now I'm not sure what to do because I have times where my anxiety turns into a panic and my chest starts beating hard and I don't like the feeling that way and I'd like to get rid of it or resolve the problem. The only thing is now I'm afraid of the medication that is being offered to me.

Should I be taking a gene test first to make sure that my body can handle this type of medication effectively? Should I be doing that before I start it just to make sure that I can tolerate it?

The main problem that scares me from wanting to try the medication is the fact that they gave me paxil before and it was horrible. I had all these horrible side effects the first week on the paxil I kind of felt great. I was alive. It seemed like I could be outside and doing things till 5:00 or 6:00 at night and I didn't have a problem then all the sudden all these side effects started kicking in just a few at first. Next thing you know, I feel like I'm going to pass out at 4 or 5 in the afternoon I would literally have to stop what I'm doing and feel like I got to head home because I'm going to pass out then I get home and what I found is that if I took a hydroxyzine I would like snap out of the weird foggy sleepy blackout situation and I would be like alive and awake again for several hours then I'd go to bed.

I'm really at a loss here because now they want to stick me on another med that is in the same category as the one that I already tried that seemed to have horrible effects when I stopped it. It was hell I had a bunch of serious effects. It seemed like I tried to take half of a dose the day before I stopped it and I still had a bunch of horrible side effects for several days if not a week so that's what scares me

Yeah so just a little context a little background I was smoking weed for a long time since I was younger and it seemed like I was always a tiny bit anxious. Maybe maybe like if you would have tap me on the shoulder I would jump little things like that.

One day I was smoking some pretty strong variety purple runts I believe it was called and I felt dizzy all the sudden It was like my eyes closed and opened. I got up and my chest felt like it was beating a mile a minute and I started pacing around tried all these different things. I went outside and everything drank milk smelled black pepper took a shower and nothing seemed to work I just couldn't get out of it.

So what was at that point where I decided I probably shouldn't use cannabis anymore? I couldn't use it in high doses like I used to. I couldn't smoke dabs or anything. I pretty much figured all that.

When I went to the emergency room after feeling anxious for the second day I had spoken to a doctor and they said well you may or you may not feel the same way again if you smoke a different kind so he kind of basically said when I told him like maybe it was the variety somehow I couldn't believe it was happening to me and I used it for a long time and I was afraid I wasn't going to be able to smoke again and that I was going to have trouble quitting.

And I think the guy was partially right I have tried it a few times since then and sometimes my anxiety spikes right up and other times depending on what kind it is, I would assume maybe that has something to do with it. After all, I don't feel real anxious after using it or if I'm having a few alcohol drinks and I use a little of it I don't feel panicky.

So anyways I've decided to quit so it's been several years and I hardly use any of it at all which sometimes it makes me want to cry at night because I smoked for a lot of years and never had a problem and a lot of people find it acceptable and I'm used to seeing everybody embrace it for different conditions. However, it does nothing but make me anxious these days it seems like.

So after quitting several years ago It wasn't easy. I woke up sweating and then freezing and then I cried a little a couple times thinking why me I had several days of chest beating and not able to sleep good. Then it seemed like I felt like the only time I felt good was when I was sleeping I had to sleep in a different bed a few times. I couldn't sleep in my own room I went to the hospital at least twice and the local clinic. What I ended up with at the hospital was hydroxyzine now when I got that I was happy at first because I'm like okay. I have something here to try now. At first it did something but I was so anxious that I needed to take that frequently everyday. Then after a couple of weeks it seemed like the heightened anxiety died down a little bit but I still wasn't 100%. So I went and I saw a doctor from my practice I told her what was going on and then I had mentioned that a relative had taken some paxil I guess and it seemed to help them. So the lady says okay we can try that and sends me off with some.

Well let me tell you that was the most worst horrible experience I ever felt taking that paxil. I took it for about 4 days. 5 days in a row. Then I started to feel like okay normal. I thought I could get out of the house. I could stay up till around 5:00 at night and it just felt great to be outside. I didn't feel tired or worried. It was like I felt happy. Yeah. Well all that was short-lived after about the 6th or the 7th day of being on that stuff I noticed that around 5:00 I felt like I was going to pass out so I would be in a store and around 5:00 p.m. I would feel horrible and I'd want to get home. One thing I noticed during the incident was I could take a hydroxyzine and about an hour later I would wake up and snap out of it I'd get back out of bed then I would lay down around midnight or 1:00 in the morning and I thought it was kind of odd that as soon as I took the hydroxyzine around an hour later I snapped right out of it perked right up I decided to take it for a few more days. Then I noticed that like I was still having the problem. 4:00 or 5:00 in the afternoon would come around and I felt like I was going to pass out so at that point I had to use a hydroxyzine cuz I noticed it made me kind of snap out of being tired and perk me right back up It was like I was back alive and had energy again and I could stay up till later on at night and then go to bed. I started to get sick of this feeling. I noticed after a little over a week of taking the paxil that I started to have these weird side effects, pins and needles in my fingers, numbness and tingling in my feet had ringing in the ears. Cramps in my leg. Hands were sore started to have shooting pains Lost sensation in half my genitals.

At that point I couldn't do it anymore and I made the decision to stop using the medication after about a week and a half. The only problem with that was all the sudden. I had a bunch of horrible side effects still now it was like I was withdrawing I would feel dizzy. I'd have some ringing. The cramps were more intense I had vision problems. It was like the vision went out on my left eye and went black. I was seeing spots so I thought I was going blind at that point then all the sudden a few days later it stopped. Then I noticed that I had feeling in my genitals again after a few more days. I was glad that was over with because I was kind of panicking from that. Clearly I didn't taper off the medication the right way which I was not informed that you shouldn't just stop the medication but I felt so horrible that I had to. This was before I could even fully kick in according to what everyone says or what some doctors claim. I did decrease the dose once or twice and then try to completely stop it but I felt horrible and I had symptoms and things that lingered for months it seemed like.

So to get to the point of the post and the question at hand I recently been having a problem with my ear. Apparently my left ear has some fluid in it which caused me to be dizzy and off balance One day I had vertigo from the problem allegedly so anyways, during the past 5 weeks of dealing with this still I've had maybe two slight attacks. Two slight panic attacks where my beats per minute were up to 140 I ended up feeling like I had to go into my car and head to the hospital and I kind of just sat there and like thought about it in my car I ended up going back inside my house and taking a hydroxyzine. Then it seemed like after 15 minutes I started to snap out of it and calm down definitely seemed a little scary.

So anyways, now because of these couple of incidents my doctor was suggesting that I maybe take something else for the anxiety to help me manage it even though I already got the hydroxyzine and it seems to help if I take it to calm me down a little bit. But now they want to like give me some type of medication that I would have to take everyday. They want to give me sertraline now. It's got me worried and panicking in my head because of the last medication that I had when they gave me that paxil It did a bunch of these horrible things. So now I'm kind of concerned about what this sertraline will do because it's kind of like the same type of medication which is almost what I explained to My doctor but she was still insisting on giving me something and saying that it different I feel like it's the same type of medication with a different name and I'm scared or worried about having some severe type of side effects then when I try to stop it I'll have a bunch of other problems now a bunch of crazy symptoms from trying to stop the meds she was suggesting that I should be taking this at night before bed.

I think most of my recent anxiety is due to my ear problems and I've been doing my best to manage it on my own why does everything have to be so frustrating?

I notice when I wake up mostly in the morning I hear like a sizzling sound in my nose and in my throat. Once I wake up it goes away from what it seems like it also seems like I'm clearing my throat or trying to clear my throat every so often throughout the day.

Could this be the cause of my ETD?

My dad's old he's dying of cancer he picked up a vehicle from a local used car dealership it's probably worth 10 grand he's making payments on it he saved money for several years to make a down payment to be able to have a vehicle to get to an appointments and stuff.

Now he's worried about them trying to cut his medical benefits or his food stamp amount because they're asking different tricky questions and they weren't the same questions that were asked last year.

They asked him about his vehicle what kind it was and how much it was worth they didn't ask him where it came from or how much he owed on the vehicle still which doesn't seem to make sense now they want to know how much he owes and to who or something like that.

He put a couple Grand down on the vehicle to originally buy it now he's like concerned with what they can do.

As far as I know you're allowed to have one vehicle and if you have a second vehicle and it's worth under $2,000 you don't have a problem I don't know why they're asking a bunch of questions that are different.

It's like they're making it more difficult for someone to receive benefits that they rightfully deserve the guy's not rich he doesn't have $1,000 hanging around now they want to know where your car came from should not be obvious it came from a dealer.

I tried to tell him it's not really a big deal but he's thinking the worst

Last night it seemed like I was having a bit of anxiety all the sudden at around 12:00 in the morning maybe 12:30 is like my heart rate was starting to rise I was at 73 or 74 beats for a minute then almost sudden I felt weird and my heart was beating at 140 beats per minute kind of a scary thing wasn't sure if I had to go to the hospital or not I ended up taking a hydroxyzine which is what they gave me to help with my anxiety a couple years back.

So I ended up taking one of those in around 20 minutes later I went and I took a shower I came back in for my vehicle tried to talk myself out of going to the hospital then I think I kind of snapped out of it then I tried to go to bed.

What's the worst feeling I'll tell you it wasn't sure if I was having a heart attack or not then I'm sitting there trying to check my blood pressure and I got a wrist cuff and it's not really doing anything or whatever it's saying doesn't make sense so then I'm panicking a little bit more.

I just wish this problem would go away I was able to get a referral to an ENT so I'm going to look into that I don't know what they're going to say or when they're going to be able to see me but they probably won't happen right away

I only ask this because this problem seem to start around the 5th of the month I was driving down the street and I was dizzy and lightheaded well I wouldn't say light-headed but it felt like I was on a roller coaster ride obviously some of you have read the post I made originally so yeah I got out of my car I was like feeling like I was going to stumble to the ground.

So from what they're saying it's ETD however since at least the 7th of the month I've had like some muffled kind of blocked hearing and it's been ringing and pulsing since the day or two after that.

Should I be asking to see a specialist or should I be continuing with the treatment and waiting it out should I be continuing with the nasal spray and cetirizine like they said and give it more time or should I be looking into the ENT right away I mean it doesn't seem like the hearing has gotten any worse but it hasn't gotten any better if that makes sense