Anxiety disappeared for one month
July 25, 2011 12:42 PM Subscribe
Anxiety cured and came back. I need help understanding.
During the month of August and half of September I have felt better than I have ever felt in my life. No depression or anxiety (both mild before) and I felt like I could relax for the first time or what seemed like the first time. The only way I could describe my condition before was like there was an inner tension which I could physically sense was present and along with that was a pattern of negative thinking etc.
Hours after taking fish oil (about 2g of over the counter) I felt strangely calm. I gained the ability to let out a full breath of air and feel a sense of “well-being” that I have never felt. I also had a distinct warm sensation in my hands which I think was simply due to not having any tension. A general warm sense of well-being and no anxiety coupled with the sense I was living “in the moment.”
I doubt seriously it was any type of placebo as I continued to experience that sense of well-being physically and was almost unable to make myself worry. I have never felt like that and I have been happy before (remember mild depression and anxiety) but nothing ever like this.
So anyhow, about a month later the effects started to taper off and soon the sensations described above couldn’t be felt. I have never really eaten right and didn’t before or during the good feelings I had. I have been on anti-depressants before with zero change. At the time I felt good, I was on 25mg of Zoloft and had been for about 5 – 6 weeks. The thing about that was I had taken Zoloft for two years and experienced no change at different dosages so I find it very difficult to imagine that had any effect. Not to mention my Zoloft use remained constant throughout and increased after the good feeling I had went away.
The fish oil was most certainly the catalyst. Hours after taking it I felt a DRASTIC difference.
That being said, what would cause it to lose this effect on me?
I had taken about 2-3g a day during that month and a half. I thought maybe it was due to some kind of tolerance so I took more of the same fish oil per day and it did nothing. I thought ok maybe it was an initial effect but my EPA and DHA levels were off now. I bought a very high quality 850mg EPA / 180mg DHA fish oil and took 3 – 5mg per day and no effect was noticed.
I haven’t tried either yet but I am really starting to think it was a curse knowing what it felt like to feel good. What are your thoughts??
During the month of August and half of September I have felt better than I have ever felt in my life. No depression or anxiety (both mild before) and I felt like I could relax for the first time or what seemed like the first time. The only way I could describe my condition before was like there was an inner tension which I could physically sense was present and along with that was a pattern of negative thinking etc.
Hours after taking fish oil (about 2g of over the counter) I felt strangely calm. I gained the ability to let out a full breath of air and feel a sense of “well-being” that I have never felt. I also had a distinct warm sensation in my hands which I think was simply due to not having any tension. A general warm sense of well-being and no anxiety coupled with the sense I was living “in the moment.”
I doubt seriously it was any type of placebo as I continued to experience that sense of well-being physically and was almost unable to make myself worry. I have never felt like that and I have been happy before (remember mild depression and anxiety) but nothing ever like this.
So anyhow, about a month later the effects started to taper off and soon the sensations described above couldn’t be felt. I have never really eaten right and didn’t before or during the good feelings I had. I have been on anti-depressants before with zero change. At the time I felt good, I was on 25mg of Zoloft and had been for about 5 – 6 weeks. The thing about that was I had taken Zoloft for two years and experienced no change at different dosages so I find it very difficult to imagine that had any effect. Not to mention my Zoloft use remained constant throughout and increased after the good feeling I had went away.
The fish oil was most certainly the catalyst. Hours after taking it I felt a DRASTIC difference.
That being said, what would cause it to lose this effect on me?
I had taken about 2-3g a day during that month and a half. I thought maybe it was due to some kind of tolerance so I took more of the same fish oil per day and it did nothing. I thought ok maybe it was an initial effect but my EPA and DHA levels were off now. I bought a very high quality 850mg EPA / 180mg DHA fish oil and took 3 – 5mg per day and no effect was noticed.
I haven’t tried either yet but I am really starting to think it was a curse knowing what it felt like to feel good. What are your thoughts??
As a person who has dealt with anxiety my whole life, I would say that it always ebbs and flows for me. There's no "cure." There are times when it is more or less troublesome, and effective treatment narrows its range--it never gets as bad as it used to. Sometimes it seems like there's a reason it came, or went, but often it just seems to be on its own schedule. Bad patches can be very discouraging; it's easy to think during a good spell that it will always be that way.
I suspect the fish oil was a placebo. Or, it had an effect that your body adjusted to--I've had this happen, too, where something helps but only temporarily. Sometimes, both with my anxiety and with a chronic pain issue I have, it seems like introducing something new shocks the system into functioning in a new way for awhile, but eventually it re-establishes an equilibrium near where it used to be. I've had, for instance, many very promising treatments for my pain seem almost miraculously effective...for a few weeks. This could be something like that.
posted by not that girl at 1:17 PM on July 25, 2011 [1 favorite]
I suspect the fish oil was a placebo. Or, it had an effect that your body adjusted to--I've had this happen, too, where something helps but only temporarily. Sometimes, both with my anxiety and with a chronic pain issue I have, it seems like introducing something new shocks the system into functioning in a new way for awhile, but eventually it re-establishes an equilibrium near where it used to be. I've had, for instance, many very promising treatments for my pain seem almost miraculously effective...for a few weeks. This could be something like that.
posted by not that girl at 1:17 PM on July 25, 2011 [1 favorite]
Maybe your levels were low, and they've now evened out. Perhaps pursue full blood work panel to check your levels of a variety of vitamins--even a small deficiency can have a dramatic effect.
posted by Riverine at 1:33 PM on July 25, 2011
posted by Riverine at 1:33 PM on July 25, 2011
Ignoring placebo for the moment, did you run out and start a new bottle of fish oil pills? Maybe the quality control is low and this batch isn't doing it for you.
posted by thatone at 1:47 PM on July 25, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by thatone at 1:47 PM on July 25, 2011 [1 favorite]
As a long time anxiety and panic sufferer, I know that no supplement has ever cured me. None of the dietary supplements I got from midwives, herbalists, or online ever did anything, though sometimes I thought they did... for awhile.
Making drastic lifestyle changes (divorce) helped immensely, and regulating my blood sugar (through diet) helped as well.
Good luck to you. I recommend panicsurvivor.com's forums. Awesome place to hang out and get help.
posted by goblinbox at 3:02 PM on July 25, 2011
Making drastic lifestyle changes (divorce) helped immensely, and regulating my blood sugar (through diet) helped as well.
Good luck to you. I recommend panicsurvivor.com's forums. Awesome place to hang out and get help.
posted by goblinbox at 3:02 PM on July 25, 2011
Did your diet change? It matters a lot what other fats you consume along with your fish oil.
The effects of the omega-3 fatty acids in fish oil are greatest when you're not eating a lot of omega-6 fatty acids. When you eat a lot of fried foods, chips, mayonnaise, and other foods that contain vegetable oils that are rich in omega-6 fatty acids, you will see much less of whatever effects that taking fish oil has on you. Vegetable oils that contain a lot of omega-6 fatty acids include corn oil, soybean oil, cottonseed oil, safflower oil, and anything listed on the label as "vegetable oil". In contrast, olive oil and canola oil are relatively neutral and are okay to eat in moderate quantities on a diet that is balanced in these two types of fats, and flaxseed oil contains mostly omega-3 fatty acids, though they do not seem to be as effective as fish oil. Butter and meat fats do not contain nearly as much omega-6 fat as vegetable oils do.
Your experience might have been due only to the placebo effect, as other have suggested, but not necessarily so. There is good research suggesting that eating a lot more omega-6 fat than omega-3 fatty acids can exacerbate depression. See, for example, Diets With High Omega-6:Omega-3 Ratios Enhance Risk for Depression, Inflammatory Disease (looks like a free sign-up is needed to see that one, sorry), or look at the abstracts for the articles returned in a PubMed search with the terms "depression" and "fatty acids", or "anxiety" and "fish oil". There's nothing woo-woo about this.
There are a couple of popular-press books that can be helpful in learning how to balance your omega-6 fatty acid consumption with your omega-3 fatty acid consumption. The book The Queen of Fats: Why Omega-3s Were Removed from the Western Diet and What We Can Do to Replace Them, by Susan Allport, explains the science interestingly and thoroughly, though it might be a little difficult for some non-scientists to follow. The book The Ultimate Omega-3 Diet: Maximize the Power of Omega-3s to Supercharge Your Health, Battle Inflammation, and Keep Your Mind Sharp, by Evelyn Tribole, is not as thorough or scientific, but it is easier to read and has helpful dietary suggestions (it is not a weight-loss book, in spite of the title). I found both books in our local public library system.
(I've been trying to consume a 1:1 or 1:2 ratio of omega-3 fatty acids relative to omega-6 fatty acids, myself, not because of depression of anxiety, but because it reduces my pain from an inflammatory condition.)
posted by artistic verisimilitude at 3:04 PM on July 25, 2011 [2 favorites]
The effects of the omega-3 fatty acids in fish oil are greatest when you're not eating a lot of omega-6 fatty acids. When you eat a lot of fried foods, chips, mayonnaise, and other foods that contain vegetable oils that are rich in omega-6 fatty acids, you will see much less of whatever effects that taking fish oil has on you. Vegetable oils that contain a lot of omega-6 fatty acids include corn oil, soybean oil, cottonseed oil, safflower oil, and anything listed on the label as "vegetable oil". In contrast, olive oil and canola oil are relatively neutral and are okay to eat in moderate quantities on a diet that is balanced in these two types of fats, and flaxseed oil contains mostly omega-3 fatty acids, though they do not seem to be as effective as fish oil. Butter and meat fats do not contain nearly as much omega-6 fat as vegetable oils do.
Your experience might have been due only to the placebo effect, as other have suggested, but not necessarily so. There is good research suggesting that eating a lot more omega-6 fat than omega-3 fatty acids can exacerbate depression. See, for example, Diets With High Omega-6:Omega-3 Ratios Enhance Risk for Depression, Inflammatory Disease (looks like a free sign-up is needed to see that one, sorry), or look at the abstracts for the articles returned in a PubMed search with the terms "depression" and "fatty acids", or "anxiety" and "fish oil". There's nothing woo-woo about this.
There are a couple of popular-press books that can be helpful in learning how to balance your omega-6 fatty acid consumption with your omega-3 fatty acid consumption. The book The Queen of Fats: Why Omega-3s Were Removed from the Western Diet and What We Can Do to Replace Them, by Susan Allport, explains the science interestingly and thoroughly, though it might be a little difficult for some non-scientists to follow. The book The Ultimate Omega-3 Diet: Maximize the Power of Omega-3s to Supercharge Your Health, Battle Inflammation, and Keep Your Mind Sharp, by Evelyn Tribole, is not as thorough or scientific, but it is easier to read and has helpful dietary suggestions (it is not a weight-loss book, in spite of the title). I found both books in our local public library system.
(I've been trying to consume a 1:1 or 1:2 ratio of omega-3 fatty acids relative to omega-6 fatty acids, myself, not because of depression of anxiety, but because it reduces my pain from an inflammatory condition.)
posted by artistic verisimilitude at 3:04 PM on July 25, 2011 [2 favorites]
I've had the same thing with Vitamin D, Calcium and Magnesium supplements. Then it just went away..
posted by Raichle at 3:19 PM on July 25, 2011
posted by Raichle at 3:19 PM on July 25, 2011
I've found that I've been calmer and less anxious since starting to eat low-carb. It's a pretty drastic difference (I would freak out on a regularly predictable schedule about money, if my friends were real friends or just tolerating me, etc.), and I never considered myself a terribly anxious person.
Seconding that it matters what other fats you eat - I eat high-fat, low-carb, medium-protein (unlike Atkins) and get mine mostly through olive oil, butter, cheese, and meat. It's pretty amazing how big a role diet plays in mood.
posted by bookdragoness at 5:20 PM on July 25, 2011
Seconding that it matters what other fats you eat - I eat high-fat, low-carb, medium-protein (unlike Atkins) and get mine mostly through olive oil, butter, cheese, and meat. It's pretty amazing how big a role diet plays in mood.
posted by bookdragoness at 5:20 PM on July 25, 2011
Well, with anxiety there's really no cure except strength and endurance of the brain. What helps clear my head from anxiety is remembering that it's my life and I don't give a shit what you have to say about it or my feelings. Diet is part of maintaining a wonderful system but not the only thing. The root of anxiety runs deeper psychologically.
posted by InterestedInKnowing at 9:48 PM on July 25, 2011
posted by InterestedInKnowing at 9:48 PM on July 25, 2011
I recommend cognitive therapy. Although I don't have any links to share on studies, I think if you search studies done on CBT, anxiety, and depression, you'll find that it's extremely effective.
There is a pretty brilliant workbook by Steven Hayes that might interest you.
I also recommend looking up Dr. Claire Weekes who has books and audio recordings that are quite useful. You can find "Pass through Panic" on iTunes which talks about both anxiety and depression... her logic will astound you.
Best of luck!
posted by seriousmoonlight at 3:25 AM on July 26, 2011
There is a pretty brilliant workbook by Steven Hayes that might interest you.
I also recommend looking up Dr. Claire Weekes who has books and audio recordings that are quite useful. You can find "Pass through Panic" on iTunes which talks about both anxiety and depression... her logic will astound you.
Best of luck!
posted by seriousmoonlight at 3:25 AM on July 26, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by hermitosis at 1:02 PM on July 25, 2011 [4 favorites]