Jenni Whitehead

Keep going with the talking therapies they do help and may take some time but don't give up. Never had anxiety before the brain bleed and it is awful think about diet also and try to eat every three hours rather than having three big meals a day, that really helped me. exercise is also brilliant. when you are at point where you are panicking get up and run! Jog dance jig about whatever! anxiety causes adrenalin flooding into brain and we experience fight or flight symptoms exercise can help to use up the extra adrenalin and calm us down. Good luck and dont give up. I am continuously having to say to myself, 'This will pass' and it does!

I got shakes and had to eat chocolate or something sweet and then it would calm down. Went to doctors and she did range of blood tests to put my mind at rest. No sign of diabetes no sign of problem with my thyroid (not sure of spelling there) She suggested it could be delayed shock which meant some kind of sense to me. Anyway I have started having porridge every morning and to eat every three hrs as opposed to having three big meals a day. Porridge is slow release and I dont know why it helps but it does. My shakes coincided with anxiety attacks which are horrible I just thought at any moment it would all happen again and go in to panic mode. Since having the porridge every morning and keeping emergency fruit in my car (More natural sugar boost) I have been a lot better and the shakes have subsided. Nuts and seeds are also good. I also bought myself a blood pressure machine and use it when I am panicking. As I am on tablets to regulate blood pressure I should know blood pressure ok but sometimes I just need reassurance. So far, and touch wood, despite shakes and panick my blood pressure has been ok, my pulse has been higher but seems to calm down once I have seen that my blood pressure ok. Hope this makes sense!

After my bleed everything smelt like poo! I am not kidding it was awful. My poor husband is a brilliant cook and tried to feed me wonderful food and all I could smell was poo. What helped was trying really hard to use my memory, remembering what food smelt like and ignoring the bad smell. The other thing that helped was forcing myself to be in kitchen when food was being prepared. I still get strange smells but not of poo, thank god! This period was dreadful, I love food! Now I find I can smell and taste but everything tastes different. I love curry but curries dont taste the same, they dont taste bad just different. Interesting I read up that about one in 6 people who have a bleed experience this effect but when I said this to Neuro people they said they had never heard of it. One year on this Saturday and my taste buds are nearly back to normal but smells are still different. I used to love perfume but nowadays all perfumes smell of rotten fruit so I dont wear it! Ah Well Still here!!!!