bdiddy5522

And I still don't physically feel well. I was just wondering if anyone can shed some light on what I am dealing with. I am in AA, have a sponsor, and am working the steps. I have not had a sip of alcohol in 2 months. I still am dizzy, light-headed, weak, constantly aware of my heartbeat, and it actually feels like my heart is skipping beats. My head is still fuzzy and it is hard to have a complete thought.

I thought when I first started recovery that once I got the alcohol out of my system, I would start feeling better. Well the symptoms that I am dealing with now are the same when I was drinking and what made me drink to alleviate them in the first place. At least then I could get some relief from the symptoms by drinking. Now I am just left with not feeling well and getting NO relief. Makes me wonder what the point is sometimes.

I am not going to drink. My wife would kill me! lol. I understand it takes time, but maybe SOME relief would help encourage me?

Horselover

Well you "should" be feeling a bit better I would imagine in 2 months. Have you been to the doctor for a check up? If you haven't it might be a good idea. Are you taking vitamins? Hope you start feeling better soon and congratulations on being sober 2 months.

bdiddy5522

Thanks horselover. I did go see my doctor a couple weeks ago. I went in because I had a cold that just wouln't go away. I also told him that I was dizzy, etc. The only thing he could come up with is maybe it is a drop in blood pressure. It is a touch on the low side all the time. He said since in the past couple years I have had every heart test imaginable, MRI of my head, etc. that he is confident in saying that he doesn't feel anything serious is wrong. I do have anxiety issues, but find one alcoholic that doesn't lol. He did not do blood work this past time, but he has within the last year and everything was normal. Granted I was still drinking at the time. Might be a good idea to go in again and get a thorough check up.

Stereosteveo

Grats on 2 months B!

Are you trying to say you think sometimes drinking was improving your health? You just might be an alcoholic with that kind of thinking. I sure can relate!!

I mean damn bro, at least being sober you have a chance of allowing your health go the other way? We didn't become full blown alcoholics in 2 months I don't think. I would keep doing the 3 things you mentioned above. Meeting/Sponsor/Steps..

Glad to see your going back to the doctor. You know we can suffer from physical insanity too right? Like not doing anything different physically, but expecting to feel better physically? For me the baby-step method works wonders. Like walking one time around the block equates to 10 miles when compared to not walking around the block at all....

I can't wait to hear how well you are doing in your next update. Remember, when the spiritual maladay is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically. Usually in that order. But that doesn't means you can't get a heads up on the physical part in the meantime.

ANEWAUGUST

Congrats Brent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:day6

CarolD has posted a link describing PAWS, which you could be experiencing. I am about to run, so, I can't look up that link right now..do a search for it on this boards, and read up...see if any of that might be what you are experiencing.

This alkie drank for a loooonnngggg time...and it takes awhile for our bodies to work on all cylinders again.

bdiddy5522

Thanks Stereo. No, I for sure am not saying that alcohol was improving my health. I know for sure that it wasn't. What I am saying is that at least it gave me a break from not feeling well. Make sense? I thought that alcohol was causing my symptoms, but now I am not so sure. Granted two months is not very long, and certainly wouldn't expect to feel all better this quickly. But I would like to think maybe a little better would be appropriate? Keep in mind I am only 29, so I am still relatively young. I have not been a chronic user for years in which I would maybe expect to have done serious damage.

Thanks ANEW. Always good to hear from my August friends. I did some research on PAWS and I can certainly relate to many of the symptoms. I hope that is what I am dealing with and in time I will feel great again. )

Dee74

my ubiquitous paws link:
Post-Acute Withdrawal Syndrome (PAWS) — Why we don’t get better immediately) Digital Dharma

congrats on 2 months B
maybe see a Dr if this persists...noone gets sober to feel bad

D

CarolD

Here is the link I have and it's also posted in the
"Quitting" sticky in our Alcoholism Forum

Post Acute Withdrawl - Relapse Prevention Specialists - TLC The Living Center

I felt back in balance physically and mentally at the
end of 2 months I followed an eating plan for
hypoglycemia + the supplements recommended in the
book "Under The Influence"

I was also a long time drinker and was 52 when I quit.
I mention those facts to show that Yes!
even older alcoholics can find a healthy future.

Glad to know you will soon be getting a check up.

Well done on your recovery time.

Dee74

two links to choose from B - that's service

Thanks Carol
D

barb dwyer

bdiddy-

your post sounds a good bit like my own story.

I urge you to ask your doctor to do a 'full panel' blood test -
I went almost two YEARS feeling just terrible
body pain, dizzy, shortness of breath, pasty skin,
no energy, chest pains, palptations...
all increasing as my sobriety lengthened...

until, FINALLY my doctor ran a 'full panel' blood test.

And you know WHY she finally did it?
I'd taken her a list of
'conjestive heart failure' symptoms.
Out of 30 symptoms
I had 28.
She said you don't die of conjestive heart failure.
I said (in a way that most of the building heard me)
"I'm pretty effin sure when your effin heart stops you effin die.
That sounds fatal as all hell to me"
(I could hear the nurses station laughing down the hall.

She only ran that test to prove me WRONG.

She called me back within three hours.
Asking if I could come pick up the medication,
OR DID I WANT HER TO BRING IT TO MY HOUSE.
THey found my thyroid had stopped working and my TSH was over 100.
tHAT'S considered fatal.
(TSH= thyroid stimulating hormone)

Please don't let this drag out.

Two months,
you're not gonna be an olympic ready athlete
zoomion up and dow the stairs like Bojangles...
but your body ... sounds like it's talking to you.
And tellin you that something's not right.

So please -
make another appointment
show them this if you need to
and get yourself some peace of mind, if nothing else.

Many of us drank to alleviate other symptoms
but our alcoholism had progressed to the point
we thought it was just the drinking.

There is no 'home remedey' for thyroid crisis.
It *has* to be treated chemically, either by live hormone
or by synthetic.

ps- I made her bring it to me... heehee.

bdiddy5522

Thanks Dee and Carol. I read/scanned both of them. They both seem to touch on the mental side of things, but not much on the physical side. Either way, they are both very good sources of information. One of the many reasons I love this forum.

Just to point out, I am taking some very good supplements from GNC. They come in one month supplies and they are supposed to be very good. It is a total of 9 pills that come in packets. Take one pack a day. I also take Omega 3's after reading all of the countless research that has been done on them talking about how great they are for you. I do get out and exercise pretty much every day. It is winter here and we have gotten lots of snow, so I get out and shovel, etc.

So I am doing what I think would be productive things. Vitamins, exercise, AA, etc. Just can't seem to get to feeling better.

thirtybubba

Hi there.

Congrats on the two months, sorry to hear about all the physical stuff...

Take care of yourself,
TB, another Augusttie just popping in

Anna

Hi,

Good for you for having two months sober!

I'm glad that you talked to your dr and he is aware of your concerns. I had trouble with anxiety issues before I began drinking, and not surprising they were still there when I stopped drinking. If anxiety is causing any of your physical problems, maybe you might want to try meditating to calm yourself. I hope you feel better.

serenityqueen

First of all, CONGRATULATIONS ON TWO MONTHS! That's one hell of an accomplishment!

For starters, I would make another appt with your doctor, tell him you want a full panel of blood work done. You have a right to ask for that. If everything comes back ok, then maybe you should consider that you have a true anxiety disorder. I agree that all of us have some level of anxiety, hell, babies have anxiety! lol But some people have true, anxiety disorders. There's no shame in that whatsoever. I am not a doctor (though I self medicated for years like I was. lol) but the symptoms you're describing are the exact same that my Mom had when she was having an anxiety attack. She swore up and down that it just couldn't be anxiety, was admitted to the hospital and had every test known to man ran. Anxiety. I've had anxiety attacks in the past and swore that there was something else wrong.

You could also have blood sugar issues, there's so many different things it could be. Do you drink a lot of caffeine? Maybe it's possible that the alcohol overroad the effects of caffeine and now, w/out alcohol, the caffeine is kicking your butt. I could sit and make a thousand guesses, but please, just get to the doctor again. If he doesn't look into things more for you, find another doctor. That is your right!

Like others have shared, it took us a long time to get to the point we were at the day we quit using, so it's going to take time to get back to feeling good again.

Again, Congratulations on Two Months!

God Bless,
Judy

Stealthealer

It's no secret that a disproportionate number of alcoholics have other associated mental illness- major depression, bipolar, anxiety disorders, mood disorders- so it's no surprise that some in recovery can go months, even years feeling "symptomatic from alcohol abstinence." There's a line of thought out there that alcoholics become what they are because they are self-medicating. Quite often it turns out that symptoms during recovery are not alcohol-related at all, but actually the unmasking of another, previously undiagnosed mental illness which had been suppressed by booze all these years and is just now being allowed to come to the surface in sobriety.

Just an angle I thought should be considered.

Congrats, bdiddy.

Maverick86

there is a saying in A.A. A hard drinker puts the drink down and all of a sudden everything in his life gets better. however, when an alcoholic puts the drink down it seems as if everything in his life gets worse!!! Congrats, you are a REAL alcoholic...(though i'm sure you already know that beings that yer in the program and have gotten a sponsor lol) In my opinion there are two keys to getting better and freeing yourself from the symptoms you explained: those keys are time/patience and the 12 steps. plug yourself in to the idea that there IS a plan and that everything is going the exact way it's supposed to go. learn to laugh at yourself. i am experiencing every single thing that you mentioned, but today i no longer allow it to dominate my mood. once i'm aware of it i just start cracking up at how screwed up i've become!!! lol it's all good, it WILL get better. it took many years of doing the WRONG thing to get to this uncomfortable spot in our lives. in the same token it will take much time of us doing the RIGHT things in order to reverse the process. it is reversing already, i assure you. it's just that we are sooo gosh darn hard on ourselves and it doesn't help that we have expectations GALORE of where we should be at emotionally, physically and spiritually. love where you are at now, love the path that you are currently on rather than dwelling on the path you wish you were on. it gets better, one moment at a time. it just takes many moments that's all.....

NoAlcoholToday

Could be low blood sugar level or anxiety due to abstinence. Whatever the case, when you start having palpitations, you should see your doctor to have them checked

Great job on 2 months!!!

Clearhead

I can totally relate to those symptoms and it was definitely anxiety for me. I saw the doctor and was put on anxiety meds. All the physical problems went away after that. Feeling your heartbeat all the time is the worst! I had all those test done on me too. Even took a stress test on the treadmill. Just as you found out, everything was fine and it was just anxiety.