Tuesday, April 14, 2009

A trip to the Doctors.

Breanne has been suffering from Panic attacks for about 6 months now. Problem is they have been coming with increasing frequency and intensity. She doesn't know why she gets them. There seems to be no specific trigger that causes them. With my panic disorder I know what my triggers are, small spaces, the feeling of being trapped even if the space is not so small. Public speaking Gulp! Anything that is unfamilar can set me off. That is one of the reasons I am such a planner. Anywho back to Breanne. Yesterday she got a major attack at school and was not able to talk herself out of it. There are some things that we can do to help curb the attack. Counting your pulse outload. Deep breathing with positive talk like "I am OK", "This is just a panic attack I am breathing and will not die" Junk like that. But for her nothing was working. She has been seeing a counselor to learn coping skills and get to the root of the problem and we had an appointment scheduled with her regular doctor for Thursday to get her on some medication to help. Well obviously we could no longer wait until Thursday so I left work early and we got a walk in appointment to the doc. The Doc wants to do an EKG and draw blood to rule out any physical issues. This Freaks Breanne out! No Blood for Breanne! She has to have advanced notice and preperation time for this kind of thing. The EKG is done and it has an abnormality making the blood testing all the more inmportant. But NO WAY JOSE is Breanne having any blood drawn today. So Zoloft and Xanex prescriptions are written and we get to go home with a warning that if she has ANY chest pain we are to get her to the ER. Now that is comforting! So after we are home and the hysteria has passed Breanne and I discuss how important it is to get her back in to have the blood work done. So she has agreed to go in for it this Wednesday. She then chewed her first 1/2 tablet of Zoloft and within a few hours was passed out on the couch! I covered her with a blankie and let her and Brutus snooze on the couch. She had a rough day!

1 comment:

Tammy said...

Oh, do keep us updated as to how she is doing on the meds.

I remember one thing that my counselor had told me a few years back, to do during an attack....name 5 things you see, and 5 things you hear. That worked pretty well for me, as it kept me focused.

Hope she gets to the doc for the bloodwork!