Tag: Hot Flashes

Long Term Anxiety Characterized as Generalized Anxiety

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is characterized by long-term anxiety, excessive worry, and tension, even though there appears to be no reason to feel this way. This disorder affects about 6.8 million American adults (and twice as many women as men). The disorder usually develops gradually. It can start at any age but the highest-risk years are between childhood and middle age, a rather large time span. Evidence shows that genes play a modest role in GAD.
Those who suffer from GAD will go through the day feeling worried and aprehensive. They often anticipate disaster in even minor situations and are usually overly concerned about various issues such as health, money, family problems, or difficulties at work. It may even be hard getting started in the morning because of the thought of what lies ahead of them for the day.

If you find you have been over-worrying about many every-day problems for at least 6 months, you may be diagnosed with GAD. Although you may realize that your concerns are exaggerated, the problem still persists. Not being able to relaxe, startling easily, having difficulty concentrating are all symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder. Other problems include having trouble falling asleep or staying asleep. Physical symptoms that often accompany the anxiety include fatigue, headaches, muscle tension, muscle aches, difficulty swallowing, trembling, twitching, irritability, sweating, nausea, lightheadedness, having to go to the bathroom frequently, feeling out of breath, and hot flashes.

The level of severity of your GAD can vary greatly. If you are diagnozed with a mild case, you can function socially for the most part and hold down a job with little difficulty. If your GAD is severe, you can find it difficult even to complete what may seem like the simplest activities.

GAD is usually treated with medications and/or psychotherapy. You may benefit most from a combination of the two. It may take some trial and error to discover exactly what treatments work best for you.

Medications include antidepressants like fluoxetine (Prozac), paroxetine (Paxil), escitalopram (Lexapro), sertaline (Zoloft), venlafaxine (Effexor) and imipramine (Tofranil); Buspirone (BuSpar); and Benzodiazepines like clonazepam (Klonopin), lorazepam (Ativan), diazepam (Valium), chlordiazepoxide (Librium) and alprazolam (Xanax). Benzodiazepines are for the most part only used for relieving acute anxiety on a short-term basis (for example, when you are having an attack). However, they have a tendency to be addictive and some pretty serious side effects like drowsiness, reduced muscle coordination and impaired balance and memory.

Psychotherapy, often referred to as talk therapy and psychological counseling, deals with trying to work out the underlying life stresses and concerns that may cause your GAD. Once these have been identified, it is possible to and make behavior changes that can reduce your anxiety. One of the most recognized types of psychotherapy is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Basically, short-term cognitive behavioral therapy aims to teach you specific skills that you can then use to identify negative thoughts and behaviors and substitute them with positive ones.

The above information about generalized anxiety disorder does not substitute medical advice given by a health professional.

The Symptoms Caused by Anxiety Stress

Psychiatrists and those in the medical field believe that anxiety is a manifestation of three things. These are mood, thinking and behavior. These may not have that much effect at first but this can get worse if left untreated.

This can happen to anyone regardless of gender, age or culture. These can make a person experience a nervous breakdown, become mentally ill or in some cases suicidal.

There are over 27 million people or 15% of the entire population of the United States that experience stress at different times of the day. The best indication that these symptoms are really getting to the person is when this affects the output at work and the relationship with other people.

Doctors have not yet fully determined what causes anyone to experience stress. The only thing that these specialists are sure of are the symptoms since these are quite visible.

One example of anxiety stress is when someone experiences a panic attack. The usual symptoms associated with this are both physical and psychological. The person may have palpitations, sweat a lot, have difficulty breathing, nausea, chills and hot flashes.

The attack may happen for 15 minutes and could last longer. The person should know that this may happen once a year which is a good sign that the patient may not have mental disorder.

People who have post traumatic stress disorder have different symptoms not normally seen by those who are overworked. This is because the individual may have witnessed or experienced something violent which will make the patient not sleep well, have nightmares, sweat or absent mindedly visualize a different world where one is presently in.

Someone who feels trapped or has a phobia will not be able to speak or act well, think properly or just go mad. There are many things that can trigger this to happen such as being entrapped in a closed space, looking down from a tall building or just seeing a certain creature which one really despises.

Having good relations or being able to interact well with others is a good thing to establish a network. Unfortunately, not everyone can do that especially if the individual has a social phobia.

The symptoms of anyone who has this will rather stay home and not go out or even talk in front of a large audience. The parents or friends will notice this if the person always back out or gives an excuse so that someone else will do it instead.

The symptoms of anyone who experiences anxiety stress is very broad. This is because there are many classifications and this will take time for the doctor to single it out before this is discovered and worked out.

People who have one of these problems shouldn’t worry since those in the medical field have many treatments available. Some doctors may try to let the individual confront that fear to make it go away. If the situation is more towards a certain task, a pill can be prescribed to make the patient calm after a few minutes.

The use of drugs is short term. This is the reason that exercise, proper diet and rest are highly recommended in patients. Since the anxiety in each patient is different, doctors advise that the person undergo a physical and mental evaluation first before any type of treatment be administered.

Positive and Negative Effects of Estrogen

Compared to other hormones, there are many large and dependable researches of estrogen and its possible effects on the body that have been performed. These researches have presented that estrogen offers many significant benefits. Because of this, many women are recommended to take estrogen to reduce menopause symptoms.

While many women are benefited by estrogen during or after menopause, some are found at greater risk for particular diseases if they take it. As researches give more information about estrogen, it may help pinpoint the reasons should those persons take it or not.

To most women, the helpful effects of estrogen are far more important than the harmful effects it can give. Estrogen helps reduce hot flashes and lessen the threat for osteoporosis. Other researches show that estrogen also lessens the risk of cardiovascular diseases like heart disease.

However, there are also researches, which presents that estrogen has no beneficial effects for heart problems. Others suggest that estrogen can protect a woman from having Alzheimers disease, but this is not yet confirmed. Recent clinical tests of estrogen in postmenopausal women with symptoms of Alzheimers disease have not presented any effects.

Other beneficial effects of estrogen are:

Reduce night sweats
Reduces the risk of colon cancer
Improves pelvic musculature
Avoid loss of collagen in the skin

However, besides its promises, estrogen has also increased the number of severe concerns because there are dangerous effects that could possibly happen with some women. For instance, some women take an estrogen with another hormone called progestin. Estrogen may also increase a risk of blood clotting, which can damage the proper circulation in the arteries.

Significant proof suggests that long-term use of estrogen can slowly increase the risk of breast cancer. In addition, researches have also shown that there is a greater risk of breast cancer among women who use both the estrogen and the progestin.

Other possible negative effects of estrogen include:

Vaginal bleeding or spotting
Abdominal pains
Poor sleeping habit
Skin rashes
Depression
Head aches, migraine headaches
Causes endometrial cancer

Therefore, with both of these positive and negative effects presented, the decision in taking estrogen will not be all yes. It depends on the woman if she wants to use it still despite of all the negative effects it could have.

Always remember, even if many years will pass, researchers will continue to find out information about the advantages and disadvantages of estrogen. When these new findings come out, more women and their physicians might reconsider their decisions about taking estrogen.

No Health Benefits for Estrogen Pill

In the year 2003, the National Institute of Health was encouraged to stop their estrogen study because of the increase on the number of patients affected by strokes. This part of the anti estrogen news explains that there are really no health benefits in taking estrogen pills and that the health threats undoubtedly frustrate any menopause benefit of estrogen.

There were two top newspapers, which presented articles about this study. The articles were based on an incomplete report given by the NIH. The report was in a preface that it did not presented concrete information about the estrogen study. The report suggested that there is a great stroke risk in taking estrogen-only pills.

On the other hand, a complete report was served which included the results of the conducted study which talked about the drawbacks of estrogen on the proper performance of the mind. For that matter, clinical practitioners were alarmed and advised their patients who use estrogen pills to protect their health. The users were even recommended to use a natural, bio-identical estrogen.

A large number of women stopped taking estrogen pills after they have heard the initial report of the National Institute of Health that showed the serious danger of the estrogen pills. However, there are still some women, which are continuously using the pill. Why is it?

Most women still use estrogen pills perhaps:

Have not heard anything about the life-threatening danger it could give.

These women have no idea of what is happening around them. Perhaps, she did not even know that such report exists.

Simply do not care at all.

This may be the same as the first situation. Otherwise, a woman already knows about the health risk of the estrogen but is still not bothered about it. What they want is to get rid of the menopause symptoms immediately even if it will give her in return unbearable diseases.

Do not know that there are also effective but safe ways to remove hot flashes and other menopause symptoms without the need to use the estrogen pills.

This is a common situation. As mentioned on the second, women always wanted to have an immediate relief of what they feel may it give hundred of benefits or thousand of drawbacks.

Most women are concerned about the released studies of the NIH. Some may have stopped using the pill, but are expected to experience the return of the menopause symptoms. While others, continue using it because they do not know how to adjust from using an estrogen pill to the natural therapy or simply do not know about other safe treatments.