Everyone's anxiety is not the same. So it's not the same anxiety that someone else has. Someone may say, "Hey, I have anxiety ," but this isn't the same anxiety that someone else lives with, or someone else.
Everyone's anxiety is different in one way or another. Someone could even have panic attacks where it is a panic attack and this person blocks, they can't talk and or stiffen up completely. Another person has a panic attack, they can talk, and they can talk incessantly and just keep talking, talking, talking. For another person, it means numbness in their arms and/or legs, but they can communicate. Or they freeze completely, they lie on the floor, they roll around, it's like they're choking.
And another person's panic attack can be literal, it just comes on very quickly and then disappears very quickly. Someone else's may last for an hour, then stop again.
Everyone is different, and the subtleties are different. There are many differences. And nobody's panic attack is the same, nobody's anxiety is the same, nobody's nervousness is the same, nobody is the same.
Yet we use the term Anxiety. So we're like, well, I'm scared. A lot of people say they have anxiety, but if they felt what it felt like with someone else with crippling anxiety, the person with crippling anxiety felt what they were feeling, they'd say, "Hey, you're not scared.
I don't really know what it is, but that's not fear, because my Anxiety is paralyzing and I can't function, and I can't breathe, and I can't get air in.” That's the difference there.
It's different for everyone. Anyway, we use the word because of a mysterious problem that arises that can't really be described any other way. So let's get into a little bit of what's behind Anxiety.
The vagus nerve, the 10th cranial nerve. That's a big part of what's behind Anxiety. The vagus nerve, comes out of your brain stem, goes through the neck. From here arise small nerve endings that go to different parts/organs of the body, such as: the heart of the digestive tract.
But what happens is that, and people don't know how it works, your nerve is inflamed, so you have inflammation of the nerves somewhere. So inflammation of the vagus nerve somewhere in the body. Many people have inflammation of the vagus nerve at the brain stem. That can cause a different kind of panic or anxiety or a kind of nervousness.
Someone else may have inflammation in a lower part of the vagus nerve, somewhere in the gut, somewhere around the gut. Someone else may have inflammation on the vagus nerve around the heart.
So it's also about where that inflammation is located, which determines the different variations of fear that someone has. Some people have fear where it's paralyzing, where the seizures come, they grab, they go numb all over their bodies.
Their legs go numb, their hands go numb. They can't breathe. They think they are going to die. Well, that's Anxiety that originates way up in the brainstem.
Further up there, in front of someone else who has an inflammation of the vagus nerve somewhere down by the stomach, they get very nervous, they have butterflies in their stomach, like something where they feel their anxiety attack is turning their stomach all over.
And they have this feeling that they can't breathe properly because their stomach is all tense and tight. They have that kind of inflammation lower.
So it all depends on where the inflamation is. So one more thing about the vagus nerve, if the vagus nerve is blocked, because of the inflammation, signals going down don't communicate well with other parts of the body, such as organs.
Then there is also a tightness in the chest. Chest tightness is big deal with Anxiety. Feeling like you can't breathe and can't get air in, or feeling like you're having a hard time connecting to your breath, or your chest feels tight, or your chest feels tight. A lot of people have that variety of fear out there. The tightness in the chest means that the inflammation they're dealing with in the vagus nerve is on both an upper and a lower portion. It is a common inflammation of the vagus nerve, which sends signals to the lungs that make it feel like a tightness in the chest. It is a low-grade inflammation caused by the neurotoxins left behind by a virus.
The viral aspect is an important point in this matter! Many people dealing with viruses, be it herpes simplex one, cytomegalovirus virus, Epstein-Barr or shingles, most times Epstein-Barr is the biggest culprit!
The neurotoxins that Epstein-Barr leaves behind are waste products that the virus leaves behind and these neurotoxins omen on the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve then begins to swell. When the vagus nerve begins to swell, it is hypersensitive. This hypersensitivity you feel while breathing, and that feeling starts to interfere with someone who can breathe easily, or they get that chest tightness because that vagus nerve is inflamed. And when the vagus nerve is swollen, signals are also disrupted and they cannot reach the destinations they want to reach in a timely manner, which can also happen. There is a delay, this can also cause complaints on the cognitive functions and combine different reactions with their emotions and with the fear.
The Anxiety can give you a diagnosis of PTSD and then you get the emotions with the Anxiety, because the Anxiety itself is so emotionally stimulating and exhausting that it's this constant vicious cycle of panic attacks or adrenaline rushes with the panic attacks.
But when our vagus nerve becomes sensitive because it is inflamed, we can feel things more and we become hypersensitive. As many people have the feeling that their skin feels very strange, or it moves and they want to move or run because of this to get this feeling under control.
You may have heard of someone who says, "Well, what I do to deal with my anxiety is I walk on my treadmill, I jog or run! Then I can get rid of my anxiety! Some can do this, they've learned to deal with it, but again think you're kidding him.
When I'm anxious, I can't run. I can't run five miles. I can't do anything. But there are also people who, in addition to the fears, are also sick, have a chronic illness, they have chronic symptoms and conditions and have been living with pain and suffering for a long time, they can't just go out and go for a jog to take some of the anxiety away. They deal with chronic fatigue. They deal with other symptoms and problems, or body pain, joint pain. It's not something they can do easily. This is completely different from someone who has a little bit of fear and can just walk away.
And then you get that person who is chronically ill with a lot of anxiety for all these other reasons, and they can't go on doing that. There are so many differences.
But people will say, "I have fear." Another person, like, "Hey, I have anxiety," but they're completely different kinds of anxiety. A lot of that is when the vagus nerve is inflamed, it depends on where it's inflamed, where it swells, what can give someone fear in the stomach, it can give fear in the back.
That's also something else. Or it feels like you have fear in your back, here where your kidneys are and you feel it. It can make you feel like you have fear in the chest, in the throat, right where the fear hits the person, and immediately feel like you're choking, and they feel like they can't really get their words out, and they feel pressure on their throat, a tightness in their throat, or something like that. And then you get people where it's in their head, where the fear is activated where they feel it in the brain. They feel the tickling in the brain. They feel sensations in the brain and it feels like their brain is freezing or they may have severe nightmares.
And that's a anxiety , that's the vagus nerve that also reacts from very high.
With this article I want to make it clear that many people don't understand it when they come into contact with someone with anxiety and I want to show that it can be a serieus problem. On the other hand, I want to indicate that it is treatable and that antidepressants such as citalopram, sertraline, paroxetine or clomipramine won't get to the root of the problem, which is inflammation of the vagus nerve. Medication lower the edges and helps it to make it more bearable so you can still can go to work and play with your kids, but deep down you know that's not the solution. There is a real solution and that is cleaning up the body, detoxifying, tackling pathogens, repairing. More vegetables and more fruits, supplements. And yes, recovery is possible, also in combination with the medication, but you will notice that you will become less and less dependent on the medication.
I hope I have been able to provide some more insight into this condition and if you are someone who suffers from anxiety and panic attacks or you know someone who suffers of it, please forward this to him or call, app, email for explanation.
Regards Aschwin
Orthomolecular therapist
Lyme recovery therapist