Is Hypnosis Helpful In Curing Stress And Anxiety Leading To Depression?

Posted on Sat, 25 Jan 2014

Question: My daughter XXXXXXX is 24 years old and has experienced stress and anxiety around her personal want to excel. She has had fibromyalgia type symptoms starting in her mid teens when she was a standout athlete, so she decided to put her biggest efforts into her academic studies. She has always put herself under pressure to be the best she can be and even though she is on holiday right now she has just had another awful anxiety attack where her heart races and adrenalin pumps. She is worried that her system is too acidic and that her teeth are becoming affected. She became gluten free some years ago and that improved the muscle aches at least by more than 50%. She has supplements to top up nutrients and she is on an organic diet that is low in acid forming foods. I realise that these things are emotionally based too. She married 6 months ago her boyfriend of 4 years and he is patient and caring and they are a good match. She has always been very sensitive, was born by emergency caesarean (and I wonder if this had anything to do with her emotional make up). The boy she married is her one and only love and they are great friends, so all is good with them. She has tried the tapping technique, but felt it made her more anxious. I wonder if hypnosis would be useful, or some other technique.... She is a Christian girl and feels that prayer should help. As a mother I am at my wits end to know what we can do to help her. The anxiety leads to depression, loss of appetite and insomnia. She does not want pharmaceutical medication. Can you make suggestions? We have mostly explored the physical side of this problem. Kind regards XXXX

Answered by Dr. Srikanth Reddy (57 minutes later)

Brief Answer: Panic disorder Detailed Answer: Hello, Thanks for choosing health care magic for posting your query. I have gone through your question in detail and I can understand what you are going through. The condition that you are having is basically panic attacks. This is a disorder of anxiety and occurs cause of imbalance of certain neurotransmitters in the brain. especially serotonin, nor adrenaline, and dopamine to some extent. Medicines are the best options to take care of these symptoms. Paroxetine is the the most popular medicine and my drug of choice. I generally prescribe my patients 12.5 mg per day at night which takes care of anxiety symptoms. Also certain medicines like propranolol and clonazepam can be give as required when there is a panic episode or expected situation where panic attack can appear. Also there is an option of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). This therapy is taken by either a psychologist or a psychiatrist in which the therapist identifies impaired cognitions (Thoughts) and try to correct them. They are 15-20 min weekly session and there should be around 8-10 sessions to help you with your illness. As health care magic is an online forum, legally we are not supposed to prescribe medications without physically examining you. Such regulation are primarily meant for the safety of the patients as well as the Doctor. Further any prescription given in E-mail will not be honored by the pharmacy in your country. Sincere apologies for the same. Hope I am able to answer your concerns. If you have any further query, I would be glad to help you. If not, you may close the discussion and if possible you may rate the answer for me, so that I get a good feedback. In future if you wish to contact me directly, you can use the below mentioned link: bit.ly/dr-srikanth-reddy Wish you good health, Kind regards Dr. Srikanth Reddy M.D.

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar

Follow up: Dr. Srikanth Reddy (2 days later)

Hello Dr XXXXXXX Thank you for your reply to my daughter's situation. Is there anything she can do herself to physically lower her heart rate when she goes into a panic situation. I have read about carotid massage somewhere but don't know any technique. As my daughter would like to hold using pharmaceutical medications and get to the cause of her issues and address them, I wonder if you would recommend any other therapy besides cognitive behaviour therapy like hypnotherapy for example? If we find that 'therapy' doesn't help then my daughter feels medication is a last resort. Any other thoughts would be gratefully accepted. Thank you. Kind regards XXXX YYYY@YYYY

Answered by Dr. Srikanth Reddy (10 hours later)

Brief Answer: Details Detailed Answer: Hello Breathing in the bag can help. She is supposed to exhale and breathin from a plastic bag. Carotid massage helps but do it on only one side at one time. Keeping a palm over the carotid area and gently massaging the area with the palm for 2-3 min will help. Brief Dynamic Psychotherapy may help and you can try it ones. However CBT and medicines are a better way to treat anxiety disorder. Regards Dr. Srikanth Reddy

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar