I Need Some Help With This One Y'all

[conniebky]

Since I've been gluten-free, except for my two slip ups, I've been feeling so much better. I've felt like going out, etc.

This morning I went to the Peddlers Mall, saw some people I know (impossible not to in a small town), I LOVE going to vintage shops, Goodwill, thrift stores...anyway, after two aisles, I broke out into a sweat, panicked, sweating like my entire shirt was soaked, I mean THAT bad.

I had three of my Grandbabies with me and they were being Angels. I felt like everyone in there was going to start screaming at me....or the roof was going to fall in. We hightailed it home, I took a valium, after about two hours, I decided to go to the grocery to get all the stuff I'm going to cook this weekend for next week.

I flipped out in there, too! I was going to take a picture cuz my 7 year old, she got one of those little carts and in it was tomatoes, a pineapple, a salad, strawberries, cucumbers...that was her treats that she picked out. Seriously. No chips, no cookies, that's what she likes. And, yes, I have taught all of them that and yes I am proud about that.

Then I felt like the floor was, like, moving up towards me. My Grandbaby asked me a question and I said the "F" word to her Then I said honey, we got to get out of her, Nonnie don't feel so good. Well we went through that stupid u scan thing and it kept getting stuck and I kept getting more freaked out and then I yelled at the person who was supposed to be watching the u scan, but she was texting and I wanted to get out of there, so ....then it stopped again cuz my Grandbaby took a bag off the scale thing and put in the cart, so the girl came over and tried to explain to me about that, I said, "she's is TRYING to help me, please woman, Shut the F up".

She looked at me trying to decide about that and I said, "please, I have to get out of here" so then we looked at each other and she goes, "you are really really red in the face"

Know what? We put the groceries in the car, got the air going, and I was fine, right back to myself.

What's your alls opinion of this? My daughter says cuz I've been sick and haven't gone out by myself anywhere since February and I'm not used to it. This was not a gluten thing, this was a total freak out for no apparent reason. I wasn't dizzy, my heart wasn't beating fast, I was only sweating really bad and had like this animal instinct to get OUT ........

what do you all think?

[looking4help]

I don't have an explanation for you but I can say that I totally GET what you are saying happened. This has happened to me a bit as well.

It's like the world is spinning, the heater is turned on full blast and someone is pouring the sweat all over me b/c I have never sweated like that b4 in my life! I can't breathe, my head pounds, my ears feel like they are going to explode off my head and then things really go black and narrow.

I too have to either get right in front of the A/C in my car or one day I just stripped off my shorts and literally fell in the pool b/c that was where I was standing. Thank goodness we have a privacy fence.

I know what you are feeling. I have been taking things really, really a lot slower. My body has been so sick for so long it's like I just can't do it. I keep being told I need to give it time.

I just want you to know you aren't alone. I hope someone has some suggestions for us. ((((hugs))) for you!

[kareng]

I agree with Sis. You were panicking. Tomorrow, go to a grocery without the kids. Go up and down 4 aisles and buy 2-4 items. Even if you don't need anything, get a bag of frozen green beans and a container of salt or sugar. You can do that, right? You've done that a thousand times.

Here's what I was told to do when you are skiing and you get scared. Sing a silly song. In the store, maybe don't sing out loud. Pick something silly, the theme to Sesame Street, one of those country songs you like about getting revenge on a cheating spouse, ....and sing it in your head.

The other trick is to just get out of the car and rush right in. Hurry up and down your 4 aisles and grab your marshmallows and bag of carrots. Stuff you don't have to stop and read the ingredients. Don't give yourself time to panic.

Also, some of us around here wear light sun glasses in the grocery. The fluorescent lights can trigger migraines and bother a lot of women. Anyone comments, which is unlikely, just say allergies are making your eyes extra sensitive.

You can do this but the key is to get back on that horse soon, soon, soon! I have set the goal this time, you can add to it or keep it the same for a few tries.

Good luck! You can do it!

[kimann79]

I have OCD and have suffered from panic and anxiety attacks. That's what it sounds like to me.

I agree with the previous poster. Sensitize yourself to going to the grocery store and buying a couple things. Keep doing that until you are able to do a whole trip and than bring a grandchild along. I've learned with my anxiety that you have to keep exposing yourself to those triggers. Little bit by little bit until you are able to handle it without having a panic attack.

[conniebky]

Wow that is bizzare! I thought at one point that I'd feel better if I could put on my sunglasses. There's a Wally World (wal mart) by us that I went in three years ago at Christmas and I've never been back.

It's big, warehouse, all high lighting, I can't take that place. If someone asks me why I have on sunglasses I'll tell them cuz I have pink eye - wanna see it? LOL! There was an old movie called Oh, God with John Denver and oh, who was that old man - George Burns, he played God. So, he appears to John Denver and JOhn Denver's too scared to talk to him, so "God" tells him, just do something normal, it'll take your mind off how big this is. So John Denver starts shaving and it helps.

I was trying to think about that when I started freaking, but that didn't work, so I'll just sing, "you ain't woman enough to take my man"....great advise and I will use it.

YEsterday I went to the Liquor Barn to get my gluten-free beer - Oh, and they had one that was FOURTEEN DOLLARS for six and it said, "guaranteed no more than 6 gluten PPM." the heck with YOU! That means it's gluten! Stupid! Anyway, they were giving out cheese and cracker samples and they would NOT leave me alone about having a sample. I go "I have allergies" he goes, "not to this you wont! It's great!" Seriously?

Anyway, I will do this tomorrow, good idea about buying things I don't have to read. Like, at the Peddlers Mall, that's ALL browsing, and I want to get back to where I can enjoy it.

[K8ling]

I have felt like this before too, it was hard for me to go out once I had my baby because I was so afraid something would happen to me and then what would happen to my baby?? I had panic attacks until I was diagnosed. Now I have a medic alert which I can take off and toss at people, and I can usually tell if I am having a bad stomach day in which case I just don't go out. It's gotten tons better. It took time for me to be ok going places with my little boy, but I ma much better now.

The sensitizing is a GREAT idea, I used to panic just going in for a few things and now I can go on a whole grocery shopping trip with my toddler, no problem, I do it 2x a month lol. It'll get better, it'll just take time.

[ravenwoodglass]

As someone who has been fighting serious agoraphobis now for a year and a half I have to agree with the little baby steps at first. That's how I have come along the best. Another thing you may want to consider is asking your doctor if it is okay to take a half a valium before you do something that has brought these attacks on. That's called propholactic (sp) use and is how I have been able to go back to college and now most days I can either go without it or only take a quarter tab before I leave for class.

I take alprazolam and when I first started this fight back into the world my doctor told me to take half a one with me (in the script bottle of course) and when the attack would start to put it under my tongue. It would then go very quickly into the bloodstream and directly to the brain. Please ask your doctor if the valium would work the same way before you try it and be aware it will taste awful.

Also have you made sure the valium your taking is gluten free? Here one dentist kept giving me the generic form, or tryed to anyway, and it wasn't gluten-free. Only the name brand was but it was very expensive. That's why my shrink uses the alprazolam for me, in that case the name brand, Xanax is not gluten free but the generic is. If you have gluten issues the Valium may help with the symptoms when you take it but if it is a form that is not gluten free it will keep the process going.

[Skylark]

Connie, luv, I think you're getting really bad hot flashes. You can get soaked with sweat, red in the face, anxious, dizzy, uneasy. If you were out in the heat, this might have triggered a couple. That's why you felt better back in the car with the A/C blasting.

[kwylee]

Perhaps it is a hot flash, but I've run hot all my life. Always hotter than everybody else; so much so that for years I feared going through menopause figuring I'd probably spontaneously combust!!!! - but that came and went and I have yet to have a true hot flash as described by all of my contemporary friends.

Here's the weird thing about grocery stores, big box or high ceiling stores. Since I started symptoms of vertigo and dizziness years back, I feel strange in those places. I'll get up in the morning, feel fine, then walk into the grocery and somewhere along the way, will begin feeling "something isn't right". Sometimes I've been pretty dizzy during those times, like when I was going through gluten/casein withdrawal, but now that's 97% passed, I still detect it, some times worse than others. And some stores are consistently worse than others.

And I'm not alone. My sister in law is not gluten sensitive that I know of but swears that she gets dizzy in our Wal Mart "by the time she gets to the pork and beans", so for her, it's the same place in the store. My husband reports feeling crappy and bizarre in those places as well.

I agree those places are setting off some type of panic/anxiety response, but could it be more than gluten particles? Florescent(sp?) lighting? Subliminal suggestions coming over a loud speaker? High electro-magnetic fields? Weird frequency? I don't mean to sound like a nut case, but I was in a Wal Mart a couple years ago and witnessed a glass tumbler explode on the shelf before me, all by itself. I ran and got an employee and explained that I hadn't touched it, and she told me that she knew because she had seen it happen or heard others speak of it on numerous occasions. The shelf was sitting right next to one of those large columns and I wondered if massive electrical conduit was run through those pilasters, but my husband suspected it had more to do with unheard sound frequency.

Gluten (and for me, casein) affects my nervous system. It seems logical to think that my system would be really sensitive inside AND out.

[gabby]

I have sort of similar problems with big stores that have lights waaaaay up high.....and don't have lots of natural light. Never really figured it out, but I read somewhere that fluorescent lighting coupled with bad air circulation can affect sensitive people in all sorts of weird ways. One thing that was recommended was to wear brown tinted sunglasses indoors. The brown tint is supposed to block a certain part of the light spectrum (I think it is the blue spectrum) which helps to filter out the crazy flicker from various types of lighting. I tried it myself and it helps a lot. My problem is that I feel incredibly tired and lose all my energy. When I wear my brown tinted sunglasses, I don't feel tired.

Another thing that makes me feel awful and makes me have to leave a place immediately are these triggers: oranges, fertilizers in plastic bags at garden centers, any kind of weed killer or bug killer in the gardening section of the store, the perfume department, and anywhere where they are cutting up cardboard boxes.

Hope you get to the bottom of your triggers.

[BethM55]

I have sort of similar problems with big stores that have lights waaaaay up high.....and don't have lots of natural light. Never really figured it out, but I read somewhere that fluorescent lighting coupled with bad air circulation can affect sensitive people in all sorts of weird ways. One thing that was recommended was to wear brown tinted sunglasses indoors. The brown tint is supposed to block a certain part of the light spectrum (I think it is the blue spectrum) which helps to filter out the crazy flicker from various types of lighting. I tried it myself and it helps a lot. My problem is that I feel incredibly tired and lose all my energy. When I wear my brown tinted sunglasses, I don't feel tired.

Another thing that makes me feel awful and makes me have to leave a place immediately are these triggers: oranges, fertilizers in plastic bags at garden centers, any kind of weed killer or bug killer in the gardening section of the store, the perfume department, and anywhere where they are cutting up cardboard boxes.

Hope you get to the bottom of your triggers.

Interesting! Maybe that's why I've always preferred amber lenses in my sunglasses. I, too, feel odd, stressed, sometimes dizzy, in big stores with fluorescent lighting and lots of noise. I'll try wearing my sunglasses in those sorts of stores, see if it helps. I have reading lenses in my sunglasses, so that's my excuse, if anyone asks!

[mushroom]

I have reading lenses in my sunglasses, so that's my excuse, if anyone asks!

Me too. I quite often wear sunglasses in there (unless I have to actually read something, in which case it's usually to dark to see with them ) But I usually wear them in those huge malls where there are three floors and you look down from the top and see all the lines of people walking around like ants in a trail, and I get the heebies. Only good for about an hour in one of those places . But in the supermarket, it must be looking at all that gluten because I nearly always get diarrhea, the only time I do nowadays

[sandsurfgirl]

I had horrible gluten induced panic attacks. When I went gluten free they nearly went away, but not completely.

I get dizzy, short of breath, my throat is tight, feel like I can't swallow, feel like the room is spinning and I might pass out.

My first grocery store trip after diagnosis I had a major anxiety attack and I left my entire cart of groceries in the aisle and ran out to my car crying hysterically. I barely made it the few blocks home because I thought I would pass out and have an accident. I cried like a crazy woman for about half an hour.

It didn't take long to get used to the lifestyle and shopping is fine now.

One thing that helps is to focus on blowing OUT not sucking air in. You feel like you are short of breath but in reality you are over breathing or hyperventilating. Take a small breath in and then slowly blow it all out until you have no air left in your lungs. Squeeze your stomach in so you force all the air out. After a few of these breaths the tightness in your chest will open up and you'll feel better.

Also recognizing that it's a panic attack and doing self talk in your head helps a lot.