Flonase and Getting over the Anxiety it caused.

Thank you for sharing your story. It is such a scary thing to go through and it took me a while to feel better too and as you said coffee&alcohol made things worse again. Glad you were able to heal.

I hope this helps you:

5 yrs ago I wound up in the ER. I woke up at 2 am out of a dead sleep and felt like I couldn’t breath. I thought that I was having a heart attack. I told my wife to tell the kids that I loved them and that we needed to get to the hospital. After many tests it was determined it was a massive anxiety attack. At the hospital I was asked what, if any drugs I might be taking. It was an easy question to answer because I don’t normally take anything. I was preparing at the time for surgery to correct a severely deviated septum. My ENT had prescribed Nasonex. I thought I was being asked what drugs I might be taking as part of an effort to determine the cause of my anxiety attack. It was not. Instead, they informed me the didn’t have any Nasonex at the hospital but they did have Flonase which is the same thing, just a different brand name. So they gave me some. I continued to use the nasal corticosteroids. My problems got worse. I continued to be jolted out of my sleep waking up at 2 am every night in full blown panic attack. My body began to fear going to bed at night in anticipation of the soon to come panic attack. I began to have black bowel movements. My vision became blurry, I was not getting sleep, my short term memory was failing, and I noticed I was no longer feeling emotion. My doctor wanted to prescribe anti-depressants. I refused. With no doctor being able to explain why my life and health had suddenly turned for the worst, I struggled to try and figure it out on my own. I felt as though I could not go on living this way...and that thought scared me. I asked myself what had changed in my daily routine. I was having massive anxiety attacks. I was taking nasal steroids every night before trying to get to sleep. I googled “Flonase, Nasonex, anxiety attacks” and began reading about people who were having problems like mine. It was obvious now that the problem was the nasal corticosteroid. I immediately stopped taking it. I noticed an improvement almost immediately. But the damage had been done. Like turning your car on in the driveway, pressing the gas pedal to the floor while in park and holding it there. The engine will roar but there will be damage when the pedal is finally lifted. The steroids had turned on my adrenaline and left it on for extended periods. Your body is not designed for extended periods of adrenaline. My brain was fried and my body was broken down. My memory was shot, my joints ached, I couldn’t think straight, I couldn’t sleep. I was out of work for six months and struggled greatly upon my return. As I researched more online I discovered that the anti-depressants suggested by a doctor could have made things worse...to the point of suicide. Since I wasn’t sleeping, I was exhausted constantly. So I relied on caffeine during the day. I’m not much of an alcohol drinker but upon having a single beer I noticed a relapse of the symptoms I was experiencing while using the steroids. Through more online research I discovered that any alcohol or caffeine was going to prevent me from healing. I also discovered that the trauma from the anxiety attacks can ruin your body’s ability to produce vitamin D. I had my blood tested and discovered my levels were rock bottom. I immediately began taking vitamin D and began to have a much better sense of well being. This was a huge step as I was always feeling down (the “depression” my doctor wanted to give me meds for instead of figuring out the cause). Retesting my D levels indicated they were back to normal. I stopped taking the vitamins thinking the problem was fixed and immediately I relapsed into feeling “depressed”. Turns out the effects of the anxiety attacks “permenantly” affected my body’s ability to produce vitamin D so a daily dose of 2,000 iu in the am and 2,000 iu in the pm became a daily routine and is to this day....btw ...the pain in my joints shortly went away. I discovered that the anxiety attacks had fried my neuro receptors. My brain was trying to begin healing itself but was being prevented from doing so as I was confusing it by using caffeine and occasionally alcohol to deal with my symptoms. Think of your brain as a beehive with all the bees in place perfectly resting at night. Then somebody throws a rock at the hive causing the bees to scatter creating complete chaos. If left alone in the right environment the bees eventually find there way back to the hive and it slowly returns to normal...until the next rock is thrown at it. My brain was fried...it was trying to begin healing itself. By introducing any stimulants or depressants (caffeine or alcohol) it prevented my brain from beginning to heal. Once I discovered this I immediately stopped using any caffeine or alcohol and eating anything that could be a stimulant or depressant. No chocolate, no artificial sweeteners like Aspartame. I quickly noticed I began to heal but the process was slow and often difficult. It has taken several years to fully recover. Everytime I thought I was better I would notice another improvement. The combination of vitamin D, no alcohol and no caffeine allowed my body to heal itself...where as prescription drugs would have masked the real problem and likely made things much worse. I’ve taken the time to write this in hopes that it helps someone going through a similar experience. I know the despair, I know the pain. And I have discovered there is healing.

My apologies for the repeated post

Your story sounds like mine. Having anxiety Feels Like You plunged Into the Depths of Hell at times. .

I’m in the boat. Stopped taking Flonase 7 days ago and still dealing with heart palpitations and anxiety that I’ve never felt before. Went to urgent care yesterday and got hydroxyzine which helped me to sleep a bit last night. when will this end? It’s been a tough week and I only took Flonase for only about 6 days.

I'm so glad I read this! I have felt so awful since starting flon ase. It makes my heart skip a beat and makes me short of breath. It was really scaring me and I didn't know why. I just stopped taking the flon ase yesterday. Hope the symptoms go away soon they are awful.

Oh yeah I've been off the charts with anxiety and panic attacks lately. First off I was prescribed Amoxicillin by my dentist for a week which started me off with bad anxiety and a really rough couple of weeks. I felt better for a couple days then my doctor prescribed Mr Flonase and now everything has come back full force. I've been a mess with felling very jittery, anxious and have the palpitations. I'm hoping it all goes away soon!

I'm so grateful to have found this board. I have a history of anxiety and panic attacks so I am very familiar with how they feel, and I manage them with moderate success. I was told by my doctor to use Flonase for seasonal allergies. Not even 12 hours after the first dose I woke up at night with a high heart rate, trembling, light-headedness, general weakness and could not go back to sleep. I was only using one spray per nostril. I saw my doctor later that day and she said there was no way it could be the medicaiton, it was just my anxiety acting up. I continued to take it for one more day with 1 spray per nostril, then the next day with the full dose of 2 sprays. The night after 2 sprays I did not sleep at all because I was so wired. I felt anxious but I had absolutely no control over it even though I have practiced bringing myself down from anxiety and panic for many years. My legs shook uncontrollably, my heart rate stayed up the whole night, my vision occasionally went white and the area just beneath my chest felt tight and painful without letting up. I did not take Flonase the next 2 days because of how awful I felt after complete insomnia. I ended up sleeping the next night, and even better the following night. Then, because I had not attributed my symptoms to Flonase, I started it up again with 2 sprays per nostril. The following night I again suffered from complete insomnia and that is when I figured it out and stopped the medicaion. I am on my 5th day without Flonase after having taken it for 5 days total and while the worst of the side effects seem to be gone I am still waking up with panic attacks and experiencing insomnia. For all the anxiety I have struggled with in my life I have never had nocturnal panic attacks before. I am hoping they will go away as I give my body and mind more time to recover from this experience. I will never touch this medication or anything related to it ever again unless my life depends on it!

How long did it take you to get over this? I took it for 10 days and this is week 4 and I am still waking up in panic.

Are you feeling any better? I took it for 10 days and I have been off of it for 4 weeks and still having panic at night. Taking xanax to sleep and lexapro to help with the symptoms.

Unfortunately I am still experiencing insomnia. I don't wake up in a panic at least because I have used behavior therapy to help with the acute panic attacks. I just fell into an awful pattern of sleeping only every other night. In my case there may be other factors - I am going back on a very low dose of an antidepressant that I was on for years for my anxiety to see if it helps normalize my sleep patterns again. I don't know if I can blame the Flonase 100% since I have not had it for a couple of weeks now but it sure did aggrivate things! Try convincing yourself that nothing is wrong and you don't need to feel the fear anymore when you start to experience it. It won't stop right away but little by little it can help. Easier said than done, but it is possible that the Flonase is out of your system but your brain has fallen into a pattern where it feels necessary to panic anyway. If that is the case it is not your fault at all, that is what we are wired to do for our survival.

Yes I think you are right. If I take a small dose of xanax I can sleep for 3-4 hours but then panic when I wake up because of the previous insomnia. I had this in the past with nasal spray and it messed me up for a long time. I hope this time it resolves itself quicker. I am sure I will have to go on the antidepressants too at this point. It has been over a month. I can't believe a nasal spray can do this to you. I took veramyst for years and flonase sensimist is the same prescription and it caused this.

Fluticasone is in the steroid family. Steroids, like prednisone, can cause anxiety and manic feelings. If you have no previous history of anxiety I would imagine this should resolve on its own.

I used Flonase and my anxiety resulted in panic attack. Heart started racing and I am currently in hospital checking my heart. I used it for 3weeks straight and for 2 weeks have had the worst anxiety of my life.. no more flonase I'll deal with myallergies. I stopped taking it 2 daysand still feel coolness in veins and.weirdchest butterfly feeling.

I have been taking Flonase regularly for about 2 months, and the last month I have noticed increased general anxiety, low level, nothing major and just figured it's stress related. Over the last 2 weeks or so I have noticed shortness of breath, as if my diaphragm did not want to work anymore. I felt tightness in my upper torso, my back was stiff, and I felt as if I was, for lack of any other way to put it, having a cardiac episode. I felt some discomfort in the left shoulder, and just a general sense of unease and internal jitters. I am also on thyroid meds and thought perhaps I was over-medicated. Then I found this site and other google search results, and BAM, figured it must be Flonase. I switched to Claritin yesterday and stopped Flonase entirely, and already 24 hours later, I have no experienced shortness of breath or that tight feeling or weird generalized anxiety. I will get a cardiac work-up to be sure, and monitor my anxiety levels, but I have a feeling this is the culprit. This feels like a big relief already. I hope it holds.