Weather Increases the Impact of Anxiety Symptoms

Have you ever heard the saying, "The rain in Spain is mainly on the plain?" There's a saying I came up with using that, and it goes like this, "The rain brings the pain and fogs up the brain." Weather has such a huge impact on how I feel on a daily basis, and rainy weather is the worst. Heat and humidity make me swell and ache, cold makes me stiff, but rain brings it all and then some.

My way of combating painsomnia is to take a melatonin at night to help me fall asleep. Typically, it works very well and most nights I only wake up a time or two. But some nights, like last night, you wouldn't even know I took it. I wasn't in pain, nothing more than normal anyway, I just couldn't shut my brain off. That's where anxiety comes in to play, which leads me to what I wanted to talk about today.

The rainy weather has my body in havoc, aching everywhere no matter how I sit, stand or lay. It's tolerable, though, so I'm trying to ignore it. The rain also affects mental health in a variety of ways, for me it's anxiety and occasionally depression. According to the National Institute of Health (NIH), there are several types of anxiety disorders ranging from generalized anxiety to panic disorders and phobias. I, personally, have generalized anxiety disorder, which can cause the following symptoms (NIH):

• Feeling restless, wound-up, or on-edge
• Being easily fatigued
• Having difficulty concentrating; mind going blank
• Being irritable
• Having muscle tension
• Difficulty controlling feelings of worry
• Having sleep problems, such as difficulty falling or staying asleep, restlessness, or unsatisfying sleep

The biggest problem with any of these symptoms is that they cause a vicious cycle. Being easily fatigued leads to increased irritability and an inability to control thoughts and emotions. Feeling restless or on edge can lead to sleeping problems, which in turn causes additional fatigue. Fatigue alone can impair cognitive function, which leads to irritability as well. Everything feeds off of everything else. Rarely do I experience one symptom alone, typically it's all of them. My life stresses, weather and other things determine the level at which these symptoms present.

Last night, when I should have been asleep, I was completely restless, couldn't fall asleep, couldn't focus on my mindfulness to ground me and my brain wouldn't stop. I often have trouble not thinking about Jaxson and/or Jeffrey when I fall asleep. Lately, Jeffrey has been amazing and I haven't worried too much about him. But Jaxson has a lot coming up, and I can't stop the thoughts sometimes.

If you don't know me, I haven't yet talked much about Jaxson here. He has his own blog called Jaxson's Ride, where you can catch updates on his health. Jaxson has Kabuki syndrome, a rare genetic disorder affecting just 1:32,000 births worldwide. He did not inherit Kabuki, it was a de novo (or "new") mutation, as is common with the syndrome. For more information on that, please visit All Things Kabuki, the only patient centered non-profit. For updates on Jaxson himself, please visit his blog or his Facebook page.

A quick blurb about what's coming up, just to fill you in. In November, Jaxson will have his tonsils and adenoids removed in preparation for a velopharyngeal dysfunction (VPD) repair. The November surgery will be surgery number 13 and who knows how many procedures. Jaxson is 6. The VPD repair will hopefully be pushed to next summer, provided that his mechanical heart valve doesn't need replaced in that time as well.

That is just a smidge of what Jaxson goes through, so please read up on Kabuki if you are unfamiliar! You can see why it keeps me up at night. Jaxson takes Coumadin, and has to be admitted to the hospital 3 days before his procedure to be put on a Heparin drip. Then surgery, then recovery and praying for no complications. Jaxson also started all-day Kindergarten this year. So there's a ton going on there, and some nights, it just runs through my head. Over and over and over and over.

Yes, some of that is what doctors would call "normal" anxiety because of the situation. But when you already have an anxiety disorder, sometimes it just takes over.

The good news is that even though I only got a few hours of sleep last night, I don't feel terrible. I might need a nap later, but I've been up and taking care of kids with only a little crankiness. I just hope that, even though it's supposed to rain all day today and tomorrow, my pain stays at the level I feel now. It's tolerable achiness without a lot of stiffness. During weather like this, I'll take it!

"Life is not the way it's supposed to be, it is the way it is. It's how you cope with it that makes the difference." -Unknown