I’ve mentioned before that I have panic attacks and anxiety, but I haven’t talked about what that means, or what it has to do with food. I’ve struggled with anxiety issues since high school. After a car accident in 1991, I started having what, at the time, felt like the worst possible attacks of anxiety in the world. Turns out I didn’t know anything – in 2002, after my son’s harrowing birth, I began having true panic attacks. If the early attacks could be compared to a bad bruise, the attacks I began having after I had Miles were like getting woken up in the middle of the night by a guy beating you with a bat. I wish I were kidding.
They hit several times a day and night. My first therapist I said, after our initial hour, “I’ve never seen a case of panic disorder this bad. I’m amazed you were even able to get to my office.”
“Wow,” I said bitterly. “I’m finally excelling at something!”
Bitterness turned to despair when the next therapist told me the same thing. Eventually I was diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and Panic Disorder (talk about excelling!). Overall I saw a half dozen shrinks/counselors, all with frustrating results. I was put on many different SSRI’s and other meds, and none worked. They all made the anxiety worse, even after weeks of tweaking the dosage and trying different combinations. I tried non-drug therapies, too; cognitive behavioral therapy, EMDR, herbs, homeopathy, a chiropractor, meditation, relaxation exercises, massage, acupuncture, and exercise. Nothing helped longer than a couple of days.
This went on for over two excruciating years. There is so much more to that whole experience than what I’ve written, but I’m trying to keep things short.
In the winter of 2004, my lactose intolerance went from being an inconsistent problem to a daily struggle. After every meal with milk or cheese (so, nearly every meal) I was in the bathroom suffering with cramps and diarrhea. I decided to see if giving my system a rest from all dairy would help the intolerance. On the third day of this experiment, I vividly remember Greg standing in our kitchen, turning to me with a puzzled look and saying, “Is it just me, or have you not had a panic attack in a few days?”
I was stunned by the question. I froze for a minute, thinking back, unable to comprehend that I’d just gone 48 hours without an attack. How was this possible? It must be a fluke. They’d hit again. They always did.
A few days later I still wasn’t experiencing out-of-the-ordinary anxiety levels, and we began to look around for what had changed. The only thing we could think of was the dairy embargo. It’s hard to express how shocked we were. My attacks were brutal, often going on for 90 minutes or longer (whenever I hear that panic attacks last “ten to fifteen minutes” I want to hit something). I’d been in the local ER so many times the nurses knew me by sight. After all that, the doctors, the drugs, the therapies; to suddenly have them cease was just……miraculous.
I bounced into my doctor’s office after a few weeks of this. She wasn’t impressed.
“It’s the power of the mind. The dairy has nothing to do with it, you just thought that they would stop, so they did.”
“But I didn’t think they would stop,” I countered. “I didn’t stop eating dairy for anxiety, I stopped eating dairy for the ridiculous amounts of time I was spending in the bathroom. Why on earth would I stop eating dairy products to cope with panic attacks? What does milk have to do with anxiety? I’m as befuddled as anyone else. And what about all those other things I believed would work when I tried them? Drugs, herbs, acupuncture, therapy? Why didn’t those have an effect when I ‘believed’ they would?”
She had no response. This same conversation has been repeated over a dozen times, with different health care providers.
Cause or trigger? While I believe that removing dairy caused my attacks to cease, I don’t believe dairy was or is the sole cause of my anxiety problems. I think it’s a major trigger. We found evidence for this over the following year, when twice I began experiencing attacks. In both cases, we discovered I was inadvertently eating dairy. Margarine I’d been eating a couple tablespoons a day of, that we’d been told was vegan, turned out to contain milk solids. In the second case, the soy cheese I was putting on my weekly pizza listed “milk proteins” among its ingredients. Soy cheese that has dairy in it? It hadn’t even occurred to me to look. At any rate, once I stopped eating the offending food, I was fine again.
This remission lasted a blissful year and a half.
Did it end? Unfortunately, yes, with a vengeance. Dairy is a major trigger, but so, I was to find out, is stress. I began to have three large, entangled issues in my life (two interpersonal, one educational), that went on for a year, all of which caused immense amounts of excruciating stress. I cannot italicize that enough. All three were marked by the same feature of being trapped, unable to escape, and not able or allowed to make things better, and eventually I cracked, and began having crippling attacks on a regular basis, finally crumbling into a spell of severe agoraphobia. My doctor called it a nervous breakdown. I called it my own private hell.
Eventually, gratefully, all of the issues finally ended, and I’ve been on the path to recovery for the last eight months or so. The biggest problem I’ve had, oddly enough, is staying off the dairy products that I’d started eating again after the stress started. It’s hard, as an emotional eater used to handling her feelings with food, to eat just a little bit of dairy when my immediate reaction to it is paradoxically calm (the anxiety effect can take an hour or longer to happen). While dairy contains opioids, which explains some of that, you also have to take into account the power of a comfort food, which cheese and milk historically had been for me. Despite knowing they weren’t good for me, it was extremely hard not to eat them.
On November 8th, I made a deal with myself to stop eating dairy and chocolate (another anxiety trigger food) for three months. I want to see if I can produce another remission like the last one, or if I can just lower my anxiety enough to feel good driving long distances again. While I haven’t eaten chunks of cheese or glasses of milk in years, I’m used to eating salad dressings and sauces that contain dairy, and over the summer I got used to eating a few slices of cheese pizza (with copious amounts of Lactaid) every couple of weeks. All that has stopped. It took about four days to feel “clean”, and then another week to stop craving caesar salad like mad, but I’m finally feeling okay. My anxiety levels are very low, and I’ve been noticing a big difference when I’m out and about; a general lessening of the anxious fragility I’m so used to carrying around with me.
This is also, if I can stick to it, a major step along the road to veganism. Beef and pork are gone, and now dairy. Next up? Chicken and fish. Stay tuned.
Hey, I’ve followed your blog for a while but haven’t commented. I just read the story of Miles’ birth, and wow, that was scary. It seems to me it would be perfectly normal to have panic attacks and anxiety after going through such a hellish experience. I am glad you’re both okay! I’m also glad your anxiety has gotten so much better after giving up dairy; that’s awesome! And you don’t have to give up Caesar salad entirely! I know that there are recipes for dairy-free versions in several vegan cookbooks; for example, I think that La Dolce Vegan by Sarah Kramer has one. :) Good luck on the rest of your journey to veganism; I’ll be sure to keep reading!
-Anabel
Hey! Nice to meet you! Yeah, I saw a link in my stats once that you’d put me on your page, so I went to see. I liked your blog too, and added it to my list. :)
And thank you! Yeah, it was a rough time, but Miles is doing so great now. He’s still hard-of-hearing obviously, but other than that he’s in great physical and mental shape.
I actually have La Dolce Vegan, I’ll go look! I saw that Veganomicon also has a recipe, I just need to get some capers for that one. I’ll post the results. As usual.
Hi Hollie,
I definitely agree with you that certain food can trigger anxiety and panic attacks though wish I’d known that at the time I was suffering most.
Eating chocolate and drinking coffee, even decaff, gives me the flutters badly and has worsened since the onset of menopause which is a notorious time for anxiety and all the symptoms to appear, often for the first time.
Never thought about cheese being a trigger, I’ll watch that one thank you.
In general am over them now though since being very ill last year have been on edge and that’s when I’ve started noticing certain foods making me nervous again.
It’s not fun, if you ever want to chat just mail me or contact me via my site, or just tweet me @nicolaquinn.
Take care and thanks for a great article, hope it helps many, will certainly spread the word.
Nicola
Hello!
Yeah, chocolate is really bad for me with the “flutters”, that’s exactly the word I use too. My heart will feel like it’s beating “wrong”, just out of sync somehow. I’m definitely not looking forward to menopause, but maybe if I get myself all nice and healthy (stop eating all the sugar, in other words), I’ll have an easier time of it.
Yeah, watch for dairy yourself, see if it makes any difference. I’d certainly be curious to know if there’s another body out there that acts like mine! And thanks a ton for visiting! I really appreciate the offer to talk, that’s so sweet of you. I’m sure I’ll blathering about anxiety more here, too. :)
I wouldn’t be suprised at a dairy connection — after all, there are kids who have anxiety issues with their autism, and those go away (with some) when they go dairy (and/or gluten) free.
REALLY? I didn’t know this! Geez, that’s interesting.
Hi,
Dealing with some similar things. Here’s an article to check out: http://www.womentowomen.com/depressionanxietyandmood/anxiety.aspx
Scroll about halfway down for the part about food, quote:
“In some people, food allergies and food sensitivities trigger anxiety symptoms, much like dust triggers an asthma attack. Your nutrition heavily influences your mood. And the gut is a source of serotonin, the major hormone of mood. Your digestive system is intricately tied into your hormonal balance, your brain chemistry, and your moods.
Dr. Abraham Hoffer, a pioneer in the connection between nutrition and mental disorders, discovered in 1960 the link between a niacin deficiency and the improper conversion of adrenaline in the brain that leads to psychosis. If administered early in a diagnosis, Dr. Hoffer found that over 90% of his mentally ill patients were effectively treated with nutrition therapy. There are many similar links between nutrition and neurotransmitters.”
Might be worth googling! Good luck!
Dairy makes me panic too! I actually have anxiety and anger issues which no doctor of drug has ever relieved with any significance. A few months ago I gave up dairy because I hear it might help my skin and suddenly I was calm and not angry for the first time…ever, even in my mother’s memory. I’m not sure why diet is not part of every doctors bag-o-cures, I almost feel it should be one of the first things they look at. Good luck with getting your panic attacks back into remission.
That’s amazing! I agree with you – why don’t more doctors take dietary connections like this more seriously? It isn’t like what we put in our body does nothing; we’re inundated daily with the dangers of what happens if we don’t eat the right things (most of it warning of obesity, but much of it about heart disease and diabetes). Why does it have to be so outrageous that dairy might be causing people serious problems, both physically and/or emotionally?
Thanks, and good luck with your journey, too!
Hi- just came upon this blog- I stopped dairy when i realized it was the cause of my many years of night terrors,anxiety, seep apnea and acne-aso my sons’ tics ,acne and anxiety. The medical world is backwards- i want to know the exact mechanisms, and how opioids, casein, actose are invoved- if u find out please emai me.
Wow, this is the best ever. I have been saying that doctors should look at nutrition and health from the inside out first. I get frustrated with the band-aid approach. If something is off in my system, there needs to be a reason why. I am sure there are some genetic predispositions but I think diet is the biggest factor in wellness. Chocolate and decaf coffee trigger me as well but I ever even thought about dairy. I am definitely going to check this out as I am having major complications right now. I myself have depression with anxiety and rage fits. (not cool at all). I have also suffered chronic panic attacks so I feel you there. And just so you know, and don’t feel alone, I too have anxiety attacks lasting for much more than 10-20 minute. I have had anxiety from the time I woke to the time I went to sleep for 3 months! Thank you so much for sharing your story
Thanks guys! :)
It is good to know I’m not alone, and it’s also nice to see that searching for “dairy and panic attacks” gives this post! Yay! Hopefully more people who are looking for a connection will find this post and realize they aren’t alone.
hi,im in tears reading your entry as i was at the end of my tether feeling that the rages of temper and anxiety were going t o make me lose my two young toddlers every day seems a constant struggle to keep upbeat and giggly for the children and in the next minute,going hell for leather at someone not driving quick enough or not indicating,im going to talk to my doctor asap about diary free living as im at the end of my road with it,i dont know how you managed for so many years,aswell as your sons birth,THANK YOU for giving light at the end of a very traumatic tunnel finally i see a help coming my way.kate x
My goodness! I’m so glad you’re getting help, that sounds awful! Yeah, losing the dairy has really helped a lot, and so has lowering my sugar intake (dairy is another form of sugar, too). I hope that this helps you, and that you’re able to find some relief! *hugs*
The dairy-anxiety connection could be very simple in fact. And you hit the nail on the head when you refer to dairy/lactose as another ‘sugar’. It is another refined sugar – albeit far less refined and so less harmful than white sugar – since it is pasteurized, but also one usually takes it in relatively large amounts. The combination of any stimulant, say coffee, and refined sugars is a burden on the adrenals. I hope to post more on this soon.
I hope you do! I’d love to learn more about it.
I totally agree with this, panic attacks from dairy. After all aren’t there horomones in the milk as well because it is from a cow. I recently cut out milk as well, because I was suffering from anxiety attacks as well. With the same results, the anxiety stopped!! It makes sense, women don’t need extra horomones. But I do eat some dairy still, but I notice it’s way worse with milk, it’s a matter of being very aware of what we put in our bodies, we must listen to that, all of us react differently. We don’t really know what goes on in these farms. We all have different horomone levels as well.
I’ve wondered about the hormones, a lot. Especially with all the obesity we have, and the way hormones can be linked to that.
iv been having panic attacks since i drank coffee 3 weeks ago, its been hell for me since then, everyday I wake up with anxiety attacks, im taking xanor, during that period i had been eating cheese sandwiches everyday for 1 month, and today, right after eating a cheese sandwich, i got an anxiety attack, cheese definitely is a trigger.
hi,
I just started having anxiety attacks three weeks ago, for the first time, ever. After a trip in ambulance to the ER room and spending the night there, the doctor finally saw me. My heart has an irregular beat – I had been diagnosed by a cardiologist the week before – but she said that what I had just undergone – heart pounding, loss of feeling in limbs and shortness of breath/hyperventilation, was anxiety. She said to stay away from caffeine, alcohol, chocolate, and – hard cheese. I asked her about the cheese part and she said that hard cheese has something in it that contributes to anxiety. Hope this helps.
Hi Hollie,
It is fantastic to find your Blog; I have sufffered from anxiety and depression for over twenty years now, Mostly coping fairly well with mild (ish) medication. Not once in all that time has any Doctor mentioned a link with Dairy products and when as I was starting to realise myself, that if I avoided these products the panic attacks were fewer and less severe, I asked about the possibility of a link I was all but ignored. Avoiding Dairy may not be the total answer but it is definately a big help.
Hi Hollie!
I so wish I had found your blog long before now :|
I too have linked dairy products and anxiety – long story short:
Started having “panic attacks” 3yrs ago, got meds and got worse so came off the meds. Therapist linked the anxiety partially to my iron deficiency that my doc wouldn’t treat as I wasn’t anaemic – docs wouldn’t accept this as a plausible reason despite the fact that my therapist teaches nurses in the highest ranking medical school in the country and could make reference to reports on the anxiety/ low iron issue. (Perhaps you had low iron after giving birth and this may have also been a contributing factor?)
With the aid of my therapist I boosted my iron intake and began a food diary which began to indicate that I had ingested dairy around the same time as I had an “attack”. Like you, my docs sneer when you suggest the link between dairy and anxiety.
Been dairy-free for a couple of months now and am slowly getting back to being the old me :)
I have registered on a few Vegan forums and get hints/ tips on dairy free/ substitution products available near me.
I’m only sorry that it took 3yrs to find out what was wrong with me/ cost me a bloody fortune in therapists etc. These days I’m concentrating on combatting “avoidance” as I have come to relate certain places to my “panic attacks” when really the place had nothing to do with it at all! I found CBT a bit of a waste of time and a waste of a LOT of money :(
Keep up the dairy-free lifestyle, it’s soooooooooo worth it to be “panic attack” free!!!
BTW – I recently had McDonalds chips and had a horrible “panic attack” – there is dairy in those chips can you believe!!!!!!
Best wishes x
Great testimony,
In my experience, corn syrup has been a problem for anxiety and panic attacks. I have tried taking dairy out and I remember it helped. I need to try again.
Hey, I’ve had massive panic attacks, too (10-15 minutes, I wish, &c.), and neurofeedback stops them. Both when one is starting and in general, just stops em cold.
It’s covered by insurance, harmless, no side effects, actually pretty cool and fun. Try it!
Oh, and yeah, some herbs have the opposite effect on “us” – St. John’s Wort, ex. For most people with normal stress levels, it cheers them up and whatever. For those like us with panic issues, it can increase stress and cause attacks.
Oh, jeez, I just saw Anne’s suggestion about low iron. I had that, too, and my hormones were messed up, so I had both racing heart and tons and tons of palpitations; often multiples per minute. If that won’t cause a panic attack, I don’t know what will. Perhaps you could see your acupuncturist again, but not for stress but hormone balancing. S/he’ll fix you right up! Did me :)
PS screw the drs. They don’t know squat and the meds….God…I wish I had the memory I used to, for one thing. They just made a stultified, sexually malfunctioning, somnolent, hallucinating (!), confused, mood-disordered mess of me. Thankfully that stuff was temporary.
OH! Cut out simple carbs. Brown rice, whole wheat. Might not be an immediate trigger, but people who tend to have panic attacks tend to eat lots of simple carbs.
I was diagnosed five years ago with chronic anxiety disorder – which is mainly a doctor’s way of saying: I don’t understand what brings on this anxiety. I tought it was something in my home, because I had it at night – waking up with pounding heart, a ‘band’ around the head, a feeling of burning skin, and having bad dreams. I also spent tons of money on psychotherapy, all kinds of healers and clairvoyants. I got connvinced that my home was haunted! and prepared to sell it. For years, I slept at opther people’s homes, like a tramp or a beggar! Now I know the fear is in me, and needs to be ‘discharged’ but there are certainly triggers: chocolate in my case, and perhaps diary as well. And sugar. I am living in the Middle East, there is a lot of tension around, spates of terrorist attacks, so that has contributed to a state of stress. But food is definitely a big trigger. I also am being treated now with NSA (network spinal analysis) which helps to relax me. and I have found a counselor who makes me laugh a lot, and in that way release my fears and deppressive thoughts.
Thanks for sharing you experience. It’s outrageous that nutrition isn’t the first factor considered by doctors when dealing with irrational emotion and things like complexion and arrhythmia.
I became vegan at age sixteen for moral reasons and immediately felt healthier. Ever since then I’ve experimented with foods’ effects on emotionality. About two years ago I realized that every time I ate cane sugar/glucose I became very angry, and I know that anger and anxiety are closely related. I’m also gluten-free because I get diarrhea, severe neck tension, and headaches from gluten, probably since gluten turns to sugar once digested . . . I’ve had chronic anxiety since at least toddler-hood which has surely resulted from poor diet. I was also an “irritable baby syndrome” baby and think that it probably had something to do with my baby food. My family and friends think I’m ridiculous for choosing strange diets, which makes it difficult to eat only what is healthy for me emotionally. I wonder how your family and/or social life have affected your your dietary decisions?