Anxiety keeping me up at night

Anonymous

Anxiety keeping me up at night

mitziandbubba

Hello everyone,

I am having a lot of trouble managing my anxiety. This was happening even before my diagnosis, but now I wake up in the night panicked over if the cancer will return, will I end up with lymphedema because I am weight training, will I be able to move on etc. I wake up my husband most nights with this panic. The nights I can sleep solidly without waking it doesn't happen, but since Tamoxifen I drink so much water I always wake up.

My therapist says I don't need any meds for the anxiety, he wants me to face it and handle it without. I don't want to take anything but I wonder, when this will end. Thank you does anyone experience anything similar?

jessie123

I agree -- the anxiety is much worse since treatment. I may even be feeling some depression which I've never had before. I think this might be normal for the first year after treatment. I've been thinking about asking for an anti anxiety drug or antidepressant, but decided against it for this first year. I need to give my brain time to heal from this PTSD type experience. I'm alone and that kind of makes things worse for me. I don't want to depend on a drug to be normal --- although, I'm like you --- I've always had anxiety when faced with certain things -- I guess we were born that way. It's very inconvenient.

Peregrinelady

Please keep in mind that Tamoxifen can cause anxiety and depression. I ended up getting a prescription for Ativan and while I did not use it very often, just knowing that I had it kept me calmer.

LoveLau

If you are in remission does repeating" I dont have cancer over and over help or hurt. Does it make you believe you dont have it or intensify the worry. Anyone try it.?

mitziandbubba

@LoveLau - the funny thing is, cancer coming back is not the cause of anxiety although I can't pinpoint the cause exactly. I have anxiety over lymphedema, my small weight gain, my pain since surgery and radiation, my husband wanting to have sex all the time but me not wanting to, my work, my messy house. My chance of recurrence according to the Oncotype test was less than 3% - and that is for the average person. I am very active and my doctor say that brings the odds down even more. To me, it is not logical to worry about a less than 3 percent chance of something. I also consider myself to be cancer free vs in remission. So I don't think that's it.

@jessie - I agree, time is going to help. I actually asked for a drug of some kind but I was told that I can handle it on my own because I have to face the feelings. I am in therapy and it helps but not with the sleeping. Although I did sleep for the last two nights no problem.

@Perigrine - I did not know Tamoxifen can cause anxiety. I have very little side effects from Tamoxifen and I am determined to stick with it. But if the anxiety does not lessen I will ask the doctor again.

My rad onc did say that the sleep thing might be due to radiation fatigue. I had a weird sleep pattern during and just after radiation. I woke up at night all the time b/c I took naps during the day.

sweetp6217

mitziandbubba: I too have anxiety and depression and I've just started taking buproprion xl (wellbutrin xl). After 2 weeks of 1 each morning it will increase to 2. Also, I'm working, but am having a difficult time keeping up with expectations. I also relax before bed and just when I'm about to fall asleep, I wake back up in a start and remember what occurred or what didn't occur during the day. So I get up and do something boring and try again to sleep. Sometimes it's no good. I may not get to sleep until 3 or 4 in the morning, only to have to get up a little after 7 when the my day begins. I try to shoot for 10:30 PM and it really feels like it's going to happen, then it doesn't. This med better work, at least I hope it will. I won't be able to work full time at this current rate if this keeps up! I hope that your support is working for you.

Yogatyme

I have had some sleep issues in the past but currently not, fingers crossed. I have heard that those weighted blankets help w insomnia and frequent waking in the night. I have asked for one for Christmas. Has anyone tried one?

hapa

I had anxiety induced insomnia after treatment as well. I could get to sleep ok, but I'd wake up every night around 1am and couldn't fall back to sleep. I wasn't even thinking about cancer anymore, but my mind would just churn on sometimes the stupidest things: a song that was stuck in my head, where I should go to buy new shirts, a conversation I had that day, etc. I was a zombie during the day because I was always tired, and I couldn't concentrate and definitely couldn't learn or remember things. I went to two different therapists that told me I would just have to wait for the anxiety to subside, that it takes time after treatment. But I found a third who worked with me. We spent 3 sessions "processing" everything that had happened before she determined that I had processed just fine and that wasn't working. So for the next few sessions she helped me with coping mechanisms: meditation, mindfullness, CBT-I. I had heard of all of these but was apparently not doing them very well. She also told me to not beat myself up over things because that just made the anxiety worse, which I rationally knew but also needed some help implementing. I graduated therapy after 7 or 8 sessions total, am sleeping much better now though I do slip up sometimes and have to get back on the wagon with the mindfulness and CBT-I. I can say that most of my insomnia these days when I have it has a specific cause - a new project at work that isn't going well, or god forbid a scan/check up with my MO or RO. Gone are the days when I wake up in the middle of the night and think about pointless crap instead of sleeping. My concentration and work performance have improved significantly as well, and I pulled As in the two classes I took this past semester.

It sounds like you have more cancer-related anxiety than general anxiety though, and maybe you would benefit from processing your experience with a therapist? As for the lymphedema, it is unlikely that you will get it based on the treatment in your profile, and lifting makes it less likely not more IIRC from studies I read. Have you talked to your MO about your recurrence risk? I realize it's never going to be zero, but I would guess, based also on your profile, that your risk of dying of the cancer is pretty low and that a regimen of exercise and good nutrition would decrease your risk of death from other causes enough to offset the risk of the cancer coming back.

You're not very far out of treatment and I think this kind of anxiety is perfectly normal at this stage, so rest assured that you will eventually get tired of thinking about it, even if nothing seems to work right now.

mitziandbubba

Thank you everyone for your replies. Since I posted this in October I actually am sleeping really well. The problem now seems to be that I am always tired, but I am just getting over a BAD virus that lasted a month, so it could be that. And that my husband snores and that wakes me up at least once a night. I ordered some sleeping headphones to drown him out. That has been going on for years and when he loses weight, no snoring. Unfortunately he gained a ton during my cancer journey.

I use the Calm app to help me sleep and it really works! Hapa, your post makes me feel really hopeful and it sounds like you are improving so much. I am actually seeing a therapist that does EMDR and I had my first session where I did talk about an episode during the cancer journey and I do feel differently about it now. My very worst day was my first meeting with the oncologist - her office staff is terrible and when we met with her (my husband came to all my appointments) she basically turned her back on me and talked to my husband. My prognosis was not at all good in the beginning (long story) so to hear someone say "we can shut her ovaries down" like I wasn't even in the room...but EMDR helped me reframe the experience and see that there was mostly positive in it actually. My oncologist pursued my case tirelessly b/c things didn't add up and this is how we got to the good prognosis I have.

I had the oncotype test and according to that, I have a less than 3 percent chance of recurrence and as my onc pointed out, this is for the average person. I'm a fitness junkie so the exercise part is already there. She actually said that exercise could have slowed down the growth of my cancer too, there was some study done. So to worry over less than 3 percent? It seems pointless. But every so often, it is there. Last night I was reading all the recurrence threads until I told myself to STOP. I have a friend who was Stage 3 colon cancer and I swear she worries less than I do.

I am seeing a LANA certified physical therapist (my elbow has been bugging me and also the mobility stuff post radiation) and I can tell she thinks I am worrying too much about lymphedema. That has started to lessen too since I have been seeing her. My breast is swollen though and I think it concerns her - she has me doing massage and also wearing a Spanx type tank to push the fluid over to the other side. But right now she says I don't have lymphedema. My surgeon said my breast could swell up to a year after surgery and also radiation will change it. I honestly don't even look like I had radiation, my skin did very well.

I have been very fortunate and I know it.That does not seem to matter some days.

mitziandbubba

I'd also like to try the weighted blankets!

Yogatyme

Mitzi- my sister & 2 friends swear by the weighted blankets. Can’t wait for Santa to bring mine!