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Has any one felt that eating anything eases some of the anxiety symptoms? Or being hungry triggers anxiety?

Hello All! So, I will start out by saying that I saw the doctor for this last month. Lost the blood work paperwork and the Rx I had been prescribed is just getting filled (took a while). But, this is intermittent and really still freaking me out. Two things are going on: 1) When I eat, food seems to go down slow. And now, I find myself obsessing about it. Every bite, every swallow, I think "Please go down normal". 2) Every couple of weeks, my stomach on the left side gets irritated on and off. Now, I do think some of that might be constipation, but not 100% sure. My doctor (bless her heart), tried to assure me and did not think I needed an endoscopy even. She wanted to try the meds and thinks that will clear up the issue. Has anyone else had that feeling with the food and started obsessing over it? I guess I am thinking that I am now psyching myself out over it and making it worse.

My name’s Holly and I have been dealing with anxiety for 11 years now. Basically the only uncomfortable sensation that I experience is nausea, which has developed into a fear of throwing up/vomiting. This fear is obviously a result of me throwing up during certain panic attacks or at least my specific “version” of a panic attack. I've found most people have panic attacks where they cannot breathe, think there going to die, have a heart attack ect. I don't get that, I know I won't die or suffocate, I know anxiety too well, its just the intense nausea that overwhelms me and I cannot control. I have only ever experienced extreme nausea which has in some cases resulted in me throwing up. Over the 11 years it has only gotten to that bad of a state on a small number of occasions, probably under 20. It is usualy just bad gagging and dry heaving, which is as bad as vomitting for me. I might aswell always be vomitting! With me personally, it doesn’t need to get to the stage where I physically throw up in order for anxiety to have an effect on me, and for me to therefore fear it in the future. Don’t get me wrong, I have also experienced sensations such as an accelerated heartbeat, sweating, shaking, and tingling, but I do not fear them like I do with throwing up around people. When I was first going through anxiety the nausea was especially bad, like two straight weeks of not being able to keep anything down. As a result, I developed a bit of a phobia in relation to food which I still have to this day, but it has now extended to just being around people, which is a lot more concerning. I’m much more anxious around people in comparison to just being alone, because of the social embarrassment that throwing up might cause and therefore fear what people might think of me. I’m becoming more of a recluse/prefer to do things on my own and don’t really enjoy being around people. With me it’s the social embarrassment and the fear of what people might think that is far greater and outweighs the act itself. I don’t fear throwing up specifically, which is why it’s never really an issue when I’m on my own. If I lose my concentration for just a second or am not in the right mindset, then things can get out of control very quickly. My first anxiety/panic episodes was when I was about 14/15, where when I was eating at a family friends house and my on/off boyfriend at the time turned up to see someone who was in the house at that time. I remember seeing him and having an overwhelming feeling of panic and nausea, I pushed my plate away , started sweating and ran to throw up, like completely out of the blue, i had never felt this or had any issue with food/nausea before this. After that first episode, this happened a few more times with food and him, but I didn't even know what anxiety was back then, so just thought I had food poisoning or something. Cut a long story short, it slowly got worse over the next few years and seemed to developed into mainly involving food/eating. I constantly felt nausea, anxiety, weird about eating, food making me feel sick and then that turnt into social issues, which is what is ruining my life today. I now feel unable to to eat with people, get anxious if I have to, cant always eat, want to run away and eat Alone ect. In the early stages, i got so anxious about food that I stopped eating really, i ate bananas and toast and stopped leaving my house much. Yet I want to eat so badly, I hate losing weight, not eating really gets me down. After the intial first years, I managed to go off to uni still, although it was very tough, but I got through it, managed to hide most of my issues from people and graduated ect. But the eating thing is still major for me, i can only eat around few close people and literally have a small panic attack if I'm ever put in a situation where I have tho eat with anyone else, I just cannot do it, I immediately start gagging and dry heaving. Which also means no cannot eat out at all, restaurants terrify me. Eating is the worst area for me, but is by no means the only area. I now struggle with most social situations, any that involve people really, but specially where I feel I may be trapped in a sense in say a conversation with someone, bump into someone I know and have to conversate, meetings, especially one to one, hospital appointments, travelling, nights/days out, anyany social really. Yet I can go about my day alone, in and out of shops etc as I need to fairly normally, but if I have to go with someone, its causes complete nausea and anxiety. Its so annoying and frustrating, as I am actually a naturally outgoing confident and wild kinda fearless person, until this. Its soo against my real character! It seems any situation where I feel 'trapped' and unable to just leave/hide if I need to, gets me going. It can be as simple as a conversation with someone, to being in a lift/plane ect. But like I said, the sensation is always nausea, where when its bad I'm gagging and dry heaving and in extreme cases I vomit. But the nausea is killing me and making me hide away and I hate it! Its so embarrassing! Although I remember the first times I had this sort of feeling when I was 14/15, I still can't work out why that actually happened or what the trigger really was. I had a pretty bad childhood, was always down and unstable at home, mum, wasn't around like she should have been and my dad was and still is a bad alcoholic, yet I have a great relationship with him x so I guess the trauma of my childhood could have had an impact? Yet I don't really feel that way, it doesn't bother me in an anxious way, I was still always confident and well balanced thru all of that and dont consider that to have caused such strange issues today, but who knows. I would just realy like to chat to others about this. I have seen a few psychologists in my time but nothing ever seems to work. Does anyone else go through this? With the intense nausea? Anyone got any tips to help? Id like to try some decent anti nausea tablets for the times when i really need it, any suggestions on some? Would be great to chat to peope :-) Many Thanks, Holly