Medication Induced RIA - Navoko introduction

[Navoko]

Heyo everyone, I'm Nav, 20 years old from Belgium.

I came to this formum because i have CPTSD and a form of RIA, but i've never heard of anyone else with my variation of it.

For the last 20 years (i stopped 2 weeks ago) i've taken bronchodilators such as ventolin and a whole range of different short acting variants. As well as my fair share of extended duration ones.

Due to my mental health and allergies i took 30+ doses of medications per day for most of my life.
The most impactful of which was either Montelukast or Ventolin depending on who you ask.

I had a very rough childhood and slept for less than 2 hours a night as an infant which undoubtedly had a play in my mental state now.

I also have a very severe form of RIA where if i even take a deep breath once i immediately have a multi-day panick attack with heart palpitations and tremors.

I've had this condition my entire life and its never gotten worse or gotten better. Its just part of who i am.

I faintly remember being able to feel happiness for the last time around 5 years old but since i barely remember how that felt i genuinely dont mind it.
I can still experience emotions, i just cant feel them. As in, i know when i'm happy because i'll be more cognitive and awake, but i wont *feel* any different.

Anyways, i'd love to meet you all online and get to know this community. As well as find more people that have my condition. Thanks for letting me join this wonderful forum and hopefully we'll chat one day ^^.

[NarcKiddo]

Welcome, Nav. I've had many happy visits to Belgium.

I have respiratory issues myself but I don't know what RIA is and AI has not been helpful. It sounds very difficult not being able to take a deep breath, but it sounds like you have learned to manage the condition. You say that you stopped taking bronchodilators two weeks ago - I hope that was under medical advice and that you have some medication to hand if the cessation does not go according to plan.

I'm very sorry to hear you had such a rough childhood and hope things are safer and happier for you now.

[Navoko]

Hi NarcKiddo,

I've been told RIA stands for Relaxation Induced Anxiety.

It basically means i cannot ever relax or i trigger my traumas with severe panic attacks as an effect.

I did not really stop taking bronchodilators but merely swapped to ones without any acute working substances in them when my doctor told me i could.
I still have my emergency inhaler with me for whenever i'd really need them. but i try to avoid those as much as possible.

Last time i took them my heart bpm was more than double my usual.

I'm really looking forward to finding out if i'm the only one with this condition or if there's anyone else like me.

[Kizzie]

I had not heard of RIA either Navoko which really surprizes me as so many of us are hypervigilant. I can't think of any member ever talking about this before but if you are going to find someone it will be here I suspect. That said, are there any F2F or online groups for people with RIA do you know? It seems like there are groups for everything these days so maybe do a search?

I just want to add a word of caution about the fact that some of what you read here may be triggering for you because we are a group who talks about complex relational trauma (abuse and neglect). Most people add a trigger warning at the beginning of any post they think might be triggering but that's not always the case. I just would hate for you to feel worse by being here.

[NarcKiddo]

That's really interesting, Nav, while being most unpleasant for you. I can identify with some elements of RIA but only insofar as my discovery that trying traditional forms of meditation does not work for me. They do not send me into a panic state but I do not find them helpful and do find them uncomfortable. A quick AI search on RIA showed me suggestions about relaxing by means of movement, and that resonated very much. I can do some very effective emotional processing if I am engaging in low intensity repetitive movement such as lap swimming or treadmill walking and find that very helpful.

It's unfortunate that many bronchodilators have a side effect of increased heart rate and I can see why you are reluctant to use them.

Are you at least able to sleep for a reasonable length of time now? I can well see how so little childhood sleep would have fed into this situation.

[Navoko]

!!Trigger Warning: Abuse!!

Hi Kizzie,

I never really got abused by any of my family members luckily. They all love me very much.
That being said i got groomed online from ages 8 to 17 by various sick people.

I always had my family to fall back to which is probably one of the only reasons I'm still here today.

I also took 10mg montelukast from ages 5 to 19 which gave me chronic cyclical depression with an episode at least every 6 months.

I know relaxing is the only way out of my state. but unfortunately its gotten to the point where any physical or mental relaxation triggers a very intense reaction.

So even taking the bike for a spin, or walking to the store can be triggering. If i dont counterbalance the heating of my muscles which inadvertently cause me to relax, then that can lead to panick attacks.

Distractions work, but they only delay my reaction, they dont take it away.

For example, my mom used to massage my neck specifically targeting my vagus nerve. But each time exactly 2.5 days later i would have a really intense panic attack out of nowhere. And it stopped happening when she stopped giving massages.

I also took relatively high doses of apripriprazol, dexamphetamine and risperdal which turned me into a zombie for the better part of a decade.

Another thing worth mentioning is because my traumas got so bad, i had trouble remembering stuff. So i eventually i figured if i just trigger a bad panic attack and think about the thing i want to remember for long enough during it. i would automatically remember the memory every time i reminded myself of that specific panic attack.

Because of that i'm convinced i have hundreds if not a few thousand low intensity traumas i use to recall useful information i wanted to remember sometime.

My life hasn't been easy, but i don't think even the easiest life would feel much different than how i experienced mine. We're all humans after all.

Hope to speak to you all soon ^^

[Blueberry]

Hi Nav,

I've never heard of Relaxation Induced Anxiety before, and it's never been suggested by any doctors or therapists as something I might have. But it does sound somewhat familiar. I used to do a lot of hatha yoga and once in the relaxation pose, savasana, I had a brief panic attack. I snapped out of savasana, sat up etc and the panic went away. I tried yoga nidra once, since the course I was in went straight into it at the end of the hatha yoga. Memories started coming up, so I snapped out of it there too and never went back into it again, even if on offer at the end of hatha yoga, as a 'must-do'. If the instructor objected, I used to just say 'trauma' and that was it. But compared to what you experience, that's pretty minor and something I can just avoid. Since all that, I have been in savasana, but I make sure I don't go in deeply. I seem to be able to control that. I'm not saying that anybody else ought to be able to. I seem to manage, that's all.

Sometimes breathing in a way that is meant to calm the body or nervous system will raise my anxiety, especially if I'm meant to lie down or sit still and not move. If I'm allowed to move my legs or whatever other part of me has an impulse to move, I'm less likely to feel anxiety or go into a panic attack. But again, this is something I can simply avoid doing. For various reasons, I don't take much medication and what I do take doesn't seem to set it off.

I wish you the best with this! Maybe somebody on the forum will turn out to have something more similar to what you describe than what NarcKiddo or I have mentioned.

I can do some very effective emotional processing if I am engaging in low intensity repetitive movement such as lap swimming or treadmill walking and find that very helpful.

Similar for me, except it's cycling that helps, somewhat anyway. Low-grade emotional processing, not the really tough stuff.