Anxiety Article
A Follow-Up by Dr. Randy Martin, OMD, PdD, LAc, QME
I received a number of emails from both professionals and patients, who are on my email list, giving me feedback on my article on Anxiety. They had some good points, which I would like to share with you. I am going to briefly condense and summarize the feedback below.
The feedback fell into three categories:
1. Some people’s anxiety might stem not from situational problems going on currently, but the anxiety may stem from deeper problems from childhood. Other people may have experienced a stressful situation that keeps getting re-triggered.
These people are suffering from a type of post traumatic stress disorder, which keeps getting triggered by current events in their life. If you have anxiety that is the result of re-triggered post traumatic stress disorder, you may need to also be recieving treatment that is deeper acting, and addressing the core of the earlier trauma.
There are many resources available for deeper acting treatments. If you think you have anxiety that is being re-triggered from an earlier traumatic incident or family experience, and you want to try and get rid of that trauma from your life, please schedule a time to see me and we can work out an individualized treatment plan for you that addresses the deeper trauma.
2. Other feedback that I got was that we must be careful when we take natural medications. Although in general they are safe, in certain situations, natural medications can negatively interact with your prescription medications. It’s always best to check in with your Medical Doctor before starting on new herbs, vitamins or amino acids, just to be sure there will be no negative interactions with your other medications.
I also like to warn my patients that when taking any natural supplements, please be certain to either check with me to be sure it is a good one for you and your particular problem. In most cases, natural products, including herbs, vitamins and amino acids are perfectly safe. But it never hurts to just check in to be sure. Side effects have been known to occur in some people.
Also I like my patients to alternate their products, never staying on the same product more than a few months. This is because the body can acclimate to that product and it will stop working. In other cases, the product may start to cause some toxicity in your system or unexpected side effects if you keep taking it for long periods of time.
3. Finally, I received a number of comments from psychotherapists, reminding me that for many people, having counseling or in depth psychotherapy helps quite a bit when working with your anxiety. Of course, like anything else, the type of therapy is very important. Some types of therapy are not very helpful, while other types can be a savior! There are many types of counseling and therapy, and I can discuss this on a one on one basis, helping to match you with the right type, if you are interested in a referral to a counselor or therapist.