Are These Symptons Anxiety Or Something Else?

[pennypony]

Hi everyone

I am feeling really down and confused and I hope you guys can shed some light on this situation. :hide:

Any way my sister who is 20 years old has had no known previous mental health problems or any major events in her life, developed acute anxiety over the last weekend. Well we think it is anxiety anyway I am not sure if it is or isnt.

Little sister is uncontrollably saying; stop it, dont and shut up at first it started as mumbling but now we can hear clear words. Also she keeps jerking her shoulders, has been laughing uncontrollably and is complaining her legs and arms keep going dead, furthermore she keep blinking alot and generally twitching all over. Noise and people or any sudden movement make her jump and start feeling the symptoms again. She says she gets better when she sleeps or is alone. The symptoms are continuos through out the day. They only stop when she sleeps.

She went to hospital they did all the tests and said there was nothing physically wrong with her. They said it was acute anxiety and it was psychological. She has been referred to a psychologist and is on diazepam to control the physical symptons and let her rest.

My sister insists that she has no idea why this has happened and cannot think of any reason what may have caused it. However she has been complainig for nearly a year about pain in her legs. It started with her nodding her head and feeling her feet vibrate, then pain in the leg she could not fully describe and back pain when she picked my little kids up.

Is this anxiety? Does any one have any suggestion? I know i shouldnt type up and expect a full diagnosis, i dont. I just feel really helpless and would like to know if anyone has had such symptoms or knows of them and how best we can help and support her. She is the baby in our family and we are all gutted.

Thank you for any response.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

You say that she went to the hospital. Did she see a psychiatrist. a psychologist, or a neurologist there? If not, I would strongly suggest that a psychiatric or neurological basis for the symptoms should be explored.

There are many things it could be - and it may be none of them. Some of the things that come to mind are a form of Tourette Syndrome, a seizure disorder (partial seizure epilepsy), or early signs of a psychotic disorder such as schizophrenia or drug-induced psychosis. Knowing nothing at all about your sister and not knowing more about her specific symptoms, it's impossible to say.

And I emphasize again that it may be NONE of the above. I don't mean to alarm you. I'm merely encouraging you to rule out these possibilities.

 

[pennypony]

Thank you for your reply it is much appreciated.

When she went to hospital it was in an ambulance and she was taken to accident and emergency. She did not see any specialists, however she has now been referred to one. They did blood test on her which all came back normal. We hope to see the psychiatrist within the next two weeks.

My sister had previously been to the doctor and was told its probably nothing lets forget about it. She then went to see another doctor at the surgery who prescribed her vitamin B before she had even finished speaking. Finally the third time we called them as she was behaving strangely crying and laughing continuously they said they could not so we called the ambulance.

My sister seem alright now with regards to the crying and laughing but has the other uncontrollable and continuos physical symptoms as described above.

She is really scared, and said that when everything was crazy just before the ambulance came she really thought she was going "mad".

I am just trying to gather as much information as possible before she sees the psychiatrist, so she can feel she has regained some sort of control and power back when she does go to see her psychiatrist.

thanks once again

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Do you know of any mental health issues in your extended family? Do you know of any history of epilepsy or seizures? What do you know of her alcohol-drug use? Is she taking any medications currently that you know about?

If it is stress-related, are you aware of anything in her life that would be creating extraordinary stress?

 

[pennypony]

My sister who I will call sister A, this is the one I am trying to help at the moment doesnt drink, smoke or take drugs.

We are a family of 5 sisters.

I have an older sister who has been diagnose with OCD.

Another older sister who has been told she was depressed and put on anti depressants, however she continues to say she has no problems. (she does)

I myself have suffered for years now with bouts of depression/anxiety symptoms.

Finally my other younger sister, sister Z who has been unemployed for 3 years now, never goes out, has no friends, is convinced she is not depressed she just likes it at home.

My mother I would say has OCD but she has never been diagnosed.

My Dad was extremely violent in the past. He is now an old pensioner but we are all still very fearful of him. I know thats a bit sad, we cant help it. He is still very domineering and I know sister A hates this alot.

In recent years my dad has come to rely on sister A more and more I was teasing her about how she was now his favourite not sister Z. My dad always prefered sister Z because she was the pretty one in the family and would treat sister A and sister Z completely differently. Sister A has been much more succesful academically and socialy and has gained a certain respect from my dad. So my dad started to treat her with a bit of respect, however over the past year Sister A has droped out of Uni, left her job and has been sitting at home for the past 3 months doing nothing.

I know that sister A felt alot of anger towards our Dad but could not do anything about it. I dont know if this is why she is now the way she is.

I dont know of any siezures or epilepsy in the family.

I hope that post was not too confusing

The more I think of my sister the more I remember about her unusual behaviour.

For instance since she has been little up until the present day if some one touched her she had to touch them back in order to show she hit them last.

She hates the word "love" it makes her cringe.

She hates it when people are in love she thinks its stupid.

She hates people touching her.

She was a tomboy growing up so we thought nothing of her behaviour.

She takes no pride in her appearance she lets my mom pick out all her clothes, my mum has really bad taste in clothes. My sister will go out in ripped clothes and think nothing of it.

(Typing all this is actually therapeutic, I feel better in myself already)

 

[David Baxter PhD]

So we have this:

Sister A is 20, has shown some ecentricities in her behavior for most of her life, and has recently dropped out of university and sits at home doing nothing.

There is a family history of anxiety disorders, OCD, and depression.

I think it is imperative that you have a psychiatric evaluation for your sister. She may well be showing symptoms of an emerging psychotic disorder. Please remember this is NOT a diagnosis but a possibility that should in my opinion be investigated.