Anxiety
One Agora Integrative Health Clinic in Bloomington, MN

Anxiety Disorders

Anxiety impacts 6.8 million adults in the U.S., and less than half seek and receive treatment. Women are twice as likely to be affected as men.

Most individuals experience anxiety disorders as persistent or recurrent episodes of worry, nervousness, dread or fear. Sometimes anxiety is experienced in response to a particular threat, and other times it is generalized anxiety with no apparent cause - but the level of anxiety is generally out of proportion to the circumstances faced.

Anxiety symptoms can be controlled, and in some cases the condition can be completely resolved with lifestyle changes, medication and new treatments that can have powerful results on physiologic brain function and conditions like anxiety.

Symptoms of Anxiety

If you have anxiety, you may struggle with any of these symptoms or a combination of them:

• Feelings of panic, dread or fear
• Overwhelming state of worry
• Trembling
• Fatigue (from being in a state of high alert constantly)
• Difficulty sleeping even when exhausted
• Problems concentrating
• Restlessness
• Rapid breathing
• Increased heart rate
• Sweating
• Jumpiness or general tendency to overreact to stimuli
• Irritability and anger
• Tension headaches and muscle pain from tension
• Stomach aches and other unexplained pains
• Increasing avoidance of anxiety-provoking situations, including growing social isolation

People who suffer from moderate to severe anxiety experience symptoms that may significantly impair their emotional, social, professional and economic quality of life. The impact of anxiety can be lifechanging. It sometimes even leads to suicidal impulses.

Diagnosis and Testing

Anxiety is generally considered to be a mental health issue, and in some cases, it does result from brain chemistry issues or life experiences like trauma in childhood or as an adult. However, anxiety can also be a side effect of a medical condition or even result from a medication administered for an illness or disease. For instance, steroids can cause anxiety in some people. It can also be a common reaction connected to substance abuse.

There is no standard cause or medical testing to uncover the roots of your anxiety disorder. There are, however, a myriad of conditions that have anxiety as a side effect, and we can test for those conditions.

Some of the common conditions that may cause anxiety include:

• Certain heart conditions
• Thyroid dysfunction
• Diabetes
• Medical conditions that involve pain
• Breathing difficulties, common in respiratory conditions like asthma and COPD
• Alcohol and drug withdrawal

Teasing out the complex symptoms and causes of anxiety is always straightforward, but there are important steps to take and questions to ask in solving each individual puzzle. For instance, do you have blood relatives who also suffer with anxiety? Have you always suffered with anxiety, or was there a sudden onset?

We will help you do the detective work and test for all relevant conditions and target each cause with the appropriate treatments until your anxiety symptoms have been fully resolved. We are committed to remaining in the battle with you for the duration.

Treatment Options

Treatment for anxiety can range from medication and supplementation, to medical nutrition protocols and lifestyle management, as well as emerging treatment protocols that have been developed for anxiety and other conditions that may be the root causes of your anxiety.

Our goal in functional medicine is to achieve your optimal mental and physical function - with anxiety resolved - using a customized variety of the following treatment tools:

• Neurofeedback - A non-invasive form of biofeedback, neurofeedback hones your brain's innate ability to self-regulate. Neuroplasticity is the brain's lifelong ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections to overcome dysfunction. We teach you how to use it to reverse your negative, debilitating thought patterns - with neurofeedback therapy.
• IASIS Microcurrent Neurofeedback - Everyday stressors and trauma from your present or past can affect your nervous system and often result in common conditions such as anxiety or depression. We utilize Microcurrent Neurofeedback to help you get out of fight or flight mode and decrease the stress response in the brain.
• Hypopressives Low Pressure Fitness - A gentle postural training system that uses myofascial stretching, along with respiratory re-education for core improvement. It is a maintenance program that once learned can be done daily at home in just 20 minutes and can have a profound impact on anxiety levels.
• Thyroid Hormone Therapy - Thyroid disorders often produce anxiety and depression as symptoms of the thyroid hormone imbalance. Properly balancing your thyroid hormones with bioidentical hormone therapy or other thyroid-balancing protocols may effectively resolve your anxiety issues if this is the underlying cause.
• Stress Management - The link between stress and anxiety is well documented. Finding the stress reduction method that works for you is key to overcoming your anxiety flare-ups. While stress does not cause anxiety, it can trigger and worsen your anxiety symptoms.

In addition, the right exercise program, along with a medical nutrition plan for anxiety support, and lifestyle modification specific to your symptoms and co-existing diagnoses, can all be powerful tools in overcoming anxiety.

One nutrition-related example is food allergies, which are renowned for causing unexplained physical and mental symptoms. In our office, we use specific lab testing (unlike conventional allergy testing) to pinpoint which foods you need to eliminate. So many health conditions are immediately resolved when specific food sensitivities are addressed.

Many conventionally trained physicians, psychologists and psychiatrists will warn you that anxiety is a chronic mental health condition that you'll need to manage for the rest of your life - and that there is no cure. However, we have seen our patients resolve anxiety issues completely because we seek to understand each patient's life experiences, and we test and target all root causes that are causing each patient's unique brain function and related conditions. Never doubt that there is hope for overcoming anxiety.

Request Your Appointment Today!

Gather your anxiety symptom checklist, together with your treatment questions or requests - and we'll put together a customized plan to treat the root causes of your anxiety until your symptoms are resolved! Call One Agora Integrative Health Clinic at (952) 234-5898 or contact us online today.

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