Anxiety due to illness

Hey there @Fluffycat welcome to the forums, so glad you've found us. I'm so sorry that you have to manage a chronic illness without support, that is absolutely awful. And having an invisible disability (not sure if you identify it that way, it's okay if you don't!) means that it is just THAT much harder to get support!

You are definitely not alone in your experiences. I think we've a number of members who can relate to what you're going through! I hope you're able to connect with a few of them! And there's a few other threads where folks have spoken about chronic illness, could be worth a look - Dealing with Chronic Illness ; Chronic Pain/Illness and Mental Health ; Living with Chronic pain

You can also pop over the the SANE Cattery if you'd like to share some pics of your kitty!!

Hope you find what you're looking for here 💜

Hi @Fluffycat there are a number of people on the forums with chronic diseases.

Autonomic dysfunction is not an easy one to deal with because of the randomness of symptoms. Which probably contributes to your anxiety.

I try to just think about things within my control, like having a good diet and doing exercise (I realise exercise can impact on autonomic dysfunction- depending on it’s severity).

I hope you find support on the forums- I have found them to be very supportive.

Thanks for replying.

sounds like you’re going through tough times too.

It’s hard to cope when most people would be at emergency with symptoms like this, but it’s just your every day life now. It’s very isolating too.

im permanently afraid …

Who looks after you autonomic dysfunction - specialist, GP etc @Fluffycat

Have you tried speaking to them about your worries?

The other thing you can do is to ask GP for a Mental Health Care Plan to see a psychologist. Some psychologist specialise in people with chronic diseases.

Also I just did a quick Google search and there appear to be a few support groups for autonomic dysfunction in Australia

A forum tip is to put an @ and this will bring up a list of names that have interacted with you and then you can chose the person you with to reply to and they will be alerted to your reply.

Hi @Till23

I see a neurologist maybe twice a year. Haven’t found a decent gp, tend to get put in the too hard basket.

I have just started seeing a psychologist but it doesn’t help when I go through a sudden flare up and end up terrified. It’s a few weeks to my next appointment

Well done with tagging @Fluffycat

How long have you known about the AD?

So are saying the anxiety only occurs when you have a symptom from AD or do you worry about having the next symptom - when it will be, how bad will it be type of worry?

Hi @Till23

I’ve had it for 10 years now. Took a lot of doctors visits and hospital stays to get diagnosed, I have a lot of trauma from it tbh.

im an anxious person in general, but health related stuff I cannot cope with.

• The symptoms are random, I can be ok for a few weeks, then have a couple of bad nights of sleep or work stress or medication change and it triggers symptoms. Stuff like pain, weakness, hypoglycaemia, light headedness, nausea, tremors, skipped heart beats, chest pain etc. It was actually misdiagnosed as anxiety and stress until I found a neurologist who did autonomic testing. I also had a trigger for it all - an iron infusion - I was ok before that.

Have you only recently become anxious with it @Fluffycat or has that been the case from the beginning,

Yes AD is hard to diagnose unfortunately, and has many different triggers, and a whole range of symptoms. I have a couple of friends with POTS (Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome), which is a bit similar.

Have a search for the support groups. I think it helps to talk or text with someone who has the same disease. I searched up support groups for my immune disease, most were overseas because it's quite rare, but one was in Australia and I learnt things, people sometimes posted about Doctors etc who were good with it, it was quite helpful.