This is a true life story of Amy (not her real name) and how her supposedly healthy and prescribed diet became the cause of her nightmares and Panic Attacks.
My life roller-coastered from young and successful to overweight and suicidal. More than 17 years ago I was young and beautiful with a prospering career and a bright future in London. I was going places and living life to the fullest. Nothing could get me down until the sudden onset of inexplicable panic attacks which swung my well planned life and career on a downwards spiral to destruction. My panic attack sent me from one doctor to another and never did they consider that the panic attacks and weight gain could possibly be related.

During my early 20’s when the panic attacks started, they were only occasional, but they would strike completely unannounced and out of the blue. Whether I was at the theater, watching a move, shopping or just having fun with my friends, I would suddenly be overwhelmed with terror and fear and desperately rushing outside for fresh air or just to be away from whatever could be causing the attack. These attacks would be so random that I lived in constant fear and tension of the next strike. During a flight in 1983 when another attack hit me, I stopped flying completely.

More visits to the doctor explained my condition as psychiatric and I was advised to take medication which I refused. My weight gain problem was treated with a diet high in carbohydrates which only worsened the problem. The Cambridge Diet had me drinking three sugary milkshakes every day and caused nothing but dizziness and the fast beating of my heart. I was told that I’m not drinking enough water but whatever I tried, the frequency of the attacks only increases. Some of the weight was lost, but after taking part in two hours of sport every day for 18 months, my weight remained the same. For 17 years I was constantly dieting and still my weight increased by 100 pounds.

During these 17 years I was treated by no less than 12 medical experts, but the panic attacks remained and became even more frequent until I had them every single day. I started to feel depressed, emotionally unstable and anxious all the time. I had no control over the attacks and was constantly fighting off feelings of nervousness, irritability, exhaustion and depression. In spite of how I felt, I tried hard to balance social life, work normally and hiding the fact that I was constantly at the doctor trying to find out what was wrong with me. Each time I would be offered medication for a psychological problem and each time I decline. From physicians to psychiatrists, I would be probed about my childhood, my life and my emotional state and then be offered more medication.

By 1998 things got so bad that I started believing my landlady whom I was staying with during a holiday, was trying to poison me. After each and every meal my heart would palpitate, I’d feel nauseous and sick and irritated. I was afraid to be anywhere but home as my panic attacks became almost constant, happening anytime during the day or night. I tried a couple of herbal remedies like Rescue Remedy and Aconite and although these temporarily calmed the attacks, they would just return with a vengeance an hour or so later. I was told by my doctor that these were only sugar pills and not really working, insisting that I needed drugs.

My life had become a nightmare. By 2002 I was in a constant state of anxiety and panic attacks every hour of every day and every night. I was living with mood swings, loss of concentration, exhaustion, terror, memory loss and blurred vision. At night I’d wake up shaking uncontrollably in a cold sweat, frightened and scared. I kept a bottle of sweet wine next to my bed which I would then take a sip of and wait for the terror and anxiety to abate. My craving for sweets was explained by my doctor as a need for comfort foods and that my problem was psychological. Twice I had to call an ambulance during the night. The first time I thought I was having a heart attack and after a thorough checkup I was told that there is nothing wrong with me. On the second occasion I rushed myself to my doctor and she explained that my migraine, blurred vision and heart palpitations where “just a panic attack”.

I found it very hard to keep my anxiety and illness a secret from my co-workers but that also seemed impossible to do. In April 2000 I was dismissed and 2 months later I starting thinking of ending my life. This one was just not worth living. I eventually gave in to medication and was prescribed Paroxetine by a locum doctor after a two minute consultation. One tablet later and I became agitated and then slept for a few hours, feeling like a zombie when I finally awoke. It seemed then that I could not live without to drugs, but also not with them. It was then that I called the Samaritans. Two previous therapists could not cure me and I had no reason to believe they could either. Still she convinced me to go see her.

Five minutes into my consultation with this kinesiologist, she diagnosed me as hypoglycemic and that my pancreas was not functioning properly. She explained that I was producing too much insulin each time I had sugar, flour, rice and caffeine products and that this overproduction was driving my blood glucose levels down too fast, causing adrenaline to surge, followed by panic attacks. She told me my brain is unable to store glucose and that it is the first organ that malfunctions when too much insulin is produced. My trembling was due to the drop in blood glucose and heart palpitations, mood swings and everything else associated with my panic attacks.
Because I had a serious Candida yeast infections, my pancreas was malfunctioning. The yeast infections was caused by antibiotics which were killing all the good bacteria in my body. These antibiotics I had taken only four months before.

The kinesiologist treated my Candida with a proper diet for a couple of weeks and then put me on a hypoglycemic diet. I was allowed NO sugar. At this stage I was desperate to try anything, even this diet which I though could not possibly cure my anxiety.

I started searching the internet for support groups and hypoglycemic diets. After reading the articles and all the symptoms related to my condition I became furious at all the doctors who have known about my symptoms, yet treated me for everything but hypoglycemia. I started to research and read everything I could find about my condition. I learned then that the Aconite pills I took were not just sugar pills, but were made of sucrose which helped my condition. The sweet wine I drank during my night terrors, helped not because of the relaxing effect of the alcohol, but because of the sugar it contained. I learned also that my body craved sugar not for comfort eating but to raise the glucose in my blood. By raising the glucose with sweet foods I’d immediately start to feel better but then the sugar stimulates the pancreas to overproduce insulin. The insulin in turn lowers the glucose in my blood, thus lower sugar again and the result would be a panic attack. Again I would reach for a sugary snack only to restart the glucose and the same cycle would continue. I have literally been on a sugary rollercoaster all my life.

I started to eliminate certain things from my diet like caffeine, sugar, white flour, bread and rice and within a couple of days, my panic attacks disappeared. Within weeks all other symptoms disappeared and I felt better than I did in more than 17 years. I was even happier to realize that my problem was never mental and that I never needed those psychological examinations and visits.

I was guided by my kinesiologist that my body has been through terrible stress over the last 17 years and that my internal organs need to rest and heal. I learned that my weight problem was due to the fact that my body could not metabolize the carbohydrates I was told to eat by my doctors and that during all those years, it was stored as fat. The advice given to me by my doctors to eat food containing sugar had only worsened my condition. This was also why the Cambridge diet made me feel as sick as it was high in sugar contained no proteins or anything of nutritional value and was only damaging my pancreas. I then realized the link between panic attacks and weight problems and tried to read up about it as much as I could find.

My doctor would never acknowledge that my condition existed. She only told me that she was glad I am feeling better and could give no conclusive answer to why my symptoms disappeared when I stopped eating sugar. All my mood swings, sensitivity, tiredness and depression disappeared as long as I stick to my new healthy diet.
I have recently visited all those lovely places I could which for years I could not visit or enjoy and not one panic attack gripped me. I can mingle with people, take long flights to anywhere and sit in small crowded places with not so much as a single bit of anxiety or fear. It is finally all over.

Unfortunately my medical records state that I suffer from a psychiatric illness and although this was posing problems for me to find a new job, my doctors would not amend or make changes to my report. At 42, with 26 years of work experience, I was unemployed, but I would not back down. I had started my own company and am now very happily self-employed.

I am still struggling with loosing weight. Damage to my pancreas, metabolism and insulin mechanism, aided by years of yo-yo diets has left my system too weak to aid in weight loss. I am currently eating a low carbohydrates diet and although the weight is still a problem, my blood glucose levels are normal, stabilized and I am feeling on top of the world.