My longtime physician of nearly 18 years had retired and I had to find a new doctor. When I met with my new physician, she printed off my diagnosis list from my prior doctor and it listed Anxiety. This really took me back and I was mad quite honestly. Let me explain why I had this emotion, and no I am not behaving like Elaine on Seinfeld. If you are a Seinfeld fan you recall the episode where Elaine is upset by what she presumes has been placed about her in her medical file and tries desperately to get a hold of. It is hilarious!
In my early thirties (about 20 years ago or more) I went from a healthy individual to one day at work I felt faint, and my entire body felt like I cannot even explain. I can tell you this, I had never felt this way before, and I thought I was going to die. So let me back this up a bit; I am a Registered Nurse and spent most of my 29 years in long term care (geriatrics) and as I began to copy paperwork to send a resident to the hospital, it hit me out of nowhere, this awful feeling. I told myself my blood sugar was probably low, although I had never had blood sugar issues before. I tried to shake it off, act normal, when I thought to myself, any second, I am going to be flat out on this floor and I was scared, it felt that bad. It got worse and a nurse took my blood sugar, it didn't even read just said "lo". I could barely hold my head off the desk and then I had to get to a bathroom as fast as I could (loose stools). I took a trip to the ER via ambulance and, despite no food or glucose given to me, by the time I received any medical attention I felt better. I was exhausted but all other symptoms had gone away. They re-took my blood sugar it was normal despite nothing to bring it up. I would learn later in life that my liver had kicked in and released the sugar my body needed.
This same scenario happened to me more and more often. I went to see my doctor. He asked me a few questions about my physical symptoms and said it sounded like anxiety and offered me an anxiolytic medication. I promptly declined it. I told him this isn't anxiety, yes, I admit once the physical symptoms begin, and it is so scary how you feel, you then have anxiousness accompany this. He offered to do a glucose tolerance test. Upon completion of this he told me that I pump out insulin like nobody's business and to eat several small meals a day to keep my blood sugar up.
I became so fixated on eating often, carrying around protein bars, scared to go too long without eating this created additional stress. I also gained unwanted weight and guess what.... I didn't feel any better. Now I did have anxiety over any plans I made over what I could eat, bathroom needs, as loose bowels continued to accompany the episodes. My doctor had no other solutions but anxiety and medication for the anxiety. I had seen this as a diagnosis my entire career and the solution was always medication; never addressing the underlying cause. It is a downward spiral.
I began to read a lot about blood sugar balance and the impact stress has on our bodies. I began to learn what was going on inside my body. Have you heard of the term Allostasis? This is our tipping point. Our bodies are always trying to maintain homeostasis (balance), but when we have too much insult to our bodies, we will reach a tipping point and lose that balance, this is our allostatic load. This is what had happened to me. I had a very stressful job, my husband of 13 years had just left me and my mom, my best friend, was dying and my diet was not healthy. I had lost nearly 20 pounds during all of this stress and even though I felt I looked good, I was not supporting my body, yet another tipping point for me.
Now I see clients in my own practice that are experiencing anxiety and/or depression and have been given medications to treat these. Please know I am not saying we never need medications for these symptoms, but most of the time we do not. We have to look for your root cause and it is different for each of us. For me, I had to make a career change to decrease my stress, my diet had to change, and I eventually learned I had to heal my "gut". All disease leads back to the health of our digestive system.
I can tell you today I do not worry about my next meal, I even do intermittent fasting now with no problems, my bowels are healthy, I no longer worry about where the bathrooms are when I leave home, and I do not have any issues with low or high blood sugar. I have learned how to support my body and place it back into homeostasis (balance).
So, when I see a diagnosis of anxiety, I know this is a symptom, not a diagnosis. As a functional nutrition counselor this is what I do, I work with my clients to get to the root cause of their symptoms.
Wishing you great health!
Jocelyn Moglia, CFNC
True North Functional Nutrition
Great article!