Went to the ER last night

[Duder1no]

Listen to Frankie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyl5DlrsU90

 

[nanette1985]

Find a doctor who knows how to treat musicians. Ask around. If you have enough connections to find that many gigs, you know enough people that you can find a good MD. Most docs haven't a clue about the musical lifestyle, the particular pressures & situations you have to deal with, and just assume you are exactly the same as some bored housewife or cubicle rat with a totally different lifestyle. Also, there is the medical perception of musicians as unhealthy drug misusers.

Non-musicians don't realize how physical the professional musician is. The movements necessary to play your instruments, and the work involved in schlepping equipment around on an erratic schedule, and so on. A good doc/trainer can help with finding things like repetitive stress (carpal tunnel) and muscle weakness/imbalances that bring you down. Best to find them early. Physical stress attacks are often mistaken for "mental" stress attacks.

There are lots of ways to reduce stress while working those hours - none of us would have survived in the biz if we didn't know how to deal with that. First, what do you love about what you do? I get a lot higher from a night of playing bass guitar with a heavy rhythm section than I do from meds - and that keeps me sane. I'm also a Juilliard-trained pianist and the high I get from a Brahms trio that goes well with an audience, or accompanying a tenor who for a change is nailing his high C's is better than most sex.

Music is one of the most powerful anti-stress things in the universe (for most people). Take a look at yourself and tweak what you're doing so that you're getting close to the most pleasure possible. Listen to your gut which is telling you that something is not right. There are some composers/gigs that I NEED to avoid, say no to (hard!) because I know they trigger some bad vibes.

The most stress often comes from the "business" side of things, dealing with billing and scheduling and taxes and logistics and so on. Are you letting that get to you? Xanax won't help that as much as talking to your manager, accountant, whatever will. Talk to folks about how to run things more smoothly. Keep working on making your business as seamless as possible.

When I have people conflicts i just take them out in my music. Usually makes the music better. Some musicians can't do this, but if you can, it lowers the stress level by a lot.

Drugs and alcohol: learning how to come down after the high of a performance is as important as learning how to be good enough to achieve that high. I won't tell you to get plastered & shitfaced, but I do know I'd never have survived my serious performing years otherwise. Experiment.

Drugs, both medical and "other", work differently in different people. Get your drugs from someone you trust who has experience - that goes for MD's as well as that guy that hangs around the studio with a backpack. And before you start, know what to do/where to go when it doesn't go right. That goes for Xanax as much as it does for meth or anything else.

There are a lot of relaxation techniques you can have fun with and hopefully find something helpful. I find tantric yoga to be fantastic for centering myself before a performance, for example - but I find that meditation makes me nuts. Cognitive therapy is a useful thing to know about, NLP has some fun brain games, brain waves & biofeedback are worth exploring, and so on. For me, a good argument about pythagorean tuning is more useful than any talk therapy. There is no one answer.

Just a few things to think about, ignore if you'd rather. Best to you.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Find a doctor who knows how to treat musicians. Ask around. If you have enough connections to find that many gigs, you know enough people that you can find a good MD. Most docs haven't a clue about the musical lifestyle, the particular pressures & situations you have to deal with, and just assume you are exactly the same as some bored housewife or cubicle rat with a totally different lifestyle. Also, there is the medical perception of musicians as unhealthy drug misusers.

Non-musicians don't realize how physical the professional musician is. The movements necessary to play your instruments, and the work involved in schlepping equipment around on an erratic schedule, and so on. A good doc/trainer can help with finding things like repetitive stress (carpal tunnel) and muscle weakness/imbalances that bring you down. Best to find them early. Physical stress attacks are often mistaken for "mental" stress attacks.

There are lots of ways to reduce stress while working those hours - none of us would have survived in the biz if we didn't know how to deal with that. First, what do you love about what you do? I get a lot higher from a night of playing bass guitar with a heavy rhythm section than I do from meds - and that keeps me sane. I'm also a Juilliard-trained pianist and the high I get from a Brahms trio that goes well with an audience, or accompanying a tenor who for a change is nailing his high C's is better than most sex.

Music is one of the most powerful anti-stress things in the universe (for most people). Take a look at yourself and tweak what you're doing so that you're getting close to the most pleasure possible. Listen to your gut which is telling you that something is not right. There are some composers/gigs that I NEED to avoid, say no to (hard!) because I know they trigger some bad vibes.

The most stress often comes from the "business" side of things, dealing with billing and scheduling and taxes and logistics and so on. Are you letting that get to you? Xanax won't help that as much as talking to your manager, accountant, whatever will. Talk to folks about how to run things more smoothly. Keep working on making your business as seamless as possible.

When I have people conflicts i just take them out in my music. Usually makes the music better. Some musicians can't do this, but if you can, it lowers the stress level by a lot.

Drugs and alcohol: learning how to come down after the high of a performance is as important as learning how to be good enough to achieve that high. I won't tell you to get plastered & shitfaced, but I do know I'd never have survived my serious performing years otherwise. Experiment.

Drugs, both medical and "other", work differently in different people. Get your drugs from someone you trust who has experience - that goes for MD's as well as that guy that hangs around the studio with a backpack. And before you start, know what to do/where to go when it doesn't go right. That goes for Xanax as much as it does for meth or anything else.

There are a lot of relaxation techniques you can have fun with and hopefully find something helpful. I find tantric yoga to be fantastic for centering myself before a performance, for example - but I find that meditation makes me nuts. Cognitive therapy is a useful thing to know about, NLP has some fun brain games, brain waves & biofeedback are worth exploring, and so on. For me, a good argument about pythagorean tuning is more useful than any talk therapy. There is no one answer.

Just a few things to think about, ignore if you'd rather. Best to you.

Good advice. I personally think this sounds more like the OP is just overworking himself. I get the impression the OP has a lot of good people around him and is in generally a good situation mostly, he's just overdoing it. I could be wrong though, and maybe he's taking on all the extra jobs out of necessity or to push himself more and burdening himself with more stress. While the latter is good, as with everything, moderation is the key.

That is a great thing to try if the situations are causing stress, use it to fuel yourself, and in turn, alleviate the stress.

I don't know that I'd quite recommend drugs, but maybe some alcohol, marijuana, or some other fairly low risk ones that can help mellow out after intense sessions might be worth considering.

Yeah, I think some relaxation exercises could help a lot. Just take a few moments to take a proper breather and collect your wits a bit and calm yourself.

I would also agree that, I wouldn't just dismiss it as stress. Certainly, don't think a couple of days off will solve the problem or that Xanax should be anything but a temporary aid. This was enough to send you to the ER, so I'd get a second and possibly third look at it. You should also look at how you can balance your life better.

One last thing to also keep in mind is diet. Work like that will often leave you going hungry or eating poorly, which can severely complicate things for you, so maybe figure out something so that you're keeping that in check as well.

With stuff like this, the stress can easily cascade things out of hand, and then it all just snowballs into real physical ailments that could be very serious (life-threatening).

 

[Mo0o]

ah i gotcha. yea i mean i literally had never EVER had one of these before until the night my father died, and I was sleeping at his house. all night i felt it. felt it sleeping for a few nights in a row and it went away and i thought absolutely nothing of it.

then randomly like 4-5 months later i felt it again and it woke me from my sleep, scaring the shit out of me. then the next night when i was sleeping i would tihnk abuot it and got another one but not nearly as strong, and i kind of figured out how to control it.

when i went to the doc one time i actualy mentioned it and he talked to me about it (my doctor knew my dad fairly well too) so he thinks it is strictly just me dealing w/grieving and stuff. i actually went there for an ekg which came back fine as well so I know everything there is okay.

well thanks for the replies and sorry to kind of derail this thread!

CBT is good because it's very practical/goal-oriented. A good therapist can identify issues you are struggling with and help you develop exercises to work through episodes of anxiety without having to resort to medications. It's not interested in having you lie on a couch and talk about your childhood or how everything is somehow related to someone's penis.

 

[duragezic]

what is so bad about xanax?

since my dad died i have had random anxiety attacks when i'm sleeping or trying to fall asleep and was prescribed xanax to combat this. it is nothing i use regularly, but if i ever feel the anxiety when i'm sleeping or trying to sleep i will pop a pill and it goes away. this happens like once every 2-3 months if that. there really is no schedule for it happening.

Well that's generally what it's prescribed for. But I don't know why it would be prescribed to OP when it's not anxiety that is causing the problems, but simply overwork. Seems like he could take Xanax daily and if he kept the same life, the same thing would happen.

Also it's physically and mentally addictive. You take it so seldomly it doesn't matter, but that stuff can be nasty if you take it daily then stop.

 

[edro]

Stressed? Here! Take a psychoactive drug!

WTF... might as well put you on a morphine drip while they're at it.

 

[amicold]

For those who don't know, I'm a professional classical musician. As of late, I've taken on waaaay too many concerts (solo and collaborative), lots of students, lots of odds and ends gigs, etc. Generally, I've been working 7 days a week, usually from 7 or 8 in the morning til the wee hours of the following morning (each of these things, of course, requires extensive practice time and rehearsal time in addition to the performances themselves). I guess the stress caught up to me.

I'd been having chest pains and shortness of breath, accompanied with dizziness, for several days. It was always very fleeting, so I didn't think much about it. Then, late yesterday afternoon, they set in incredibly heavily during a rehearsal. I stood up, fell over, and lost consciousness. A friend took me to the ER. They did a shitload of blood work, EKG, and several lung x-rays. Their conclusion: I collapsed from stress and exhaustion. Lovely. I've been prescribed Xanax (anyone have experience with the stuff?), and told to take a couple days off.

My girlfriend used to have similar (almost identical, actually) problems when she was a teenager. She's being so wonderful and supportive. Now, I'm just trying to figure out how to tell the folks. See, my whole immediate family (literally) has been in hospitals lately. I was the only healthy one. Now, I gotta lay this burden (not financially, I have my own insurance) on them. Sigh.

Do you ever ingest any stimulants? I get the same symptoms with yohimbine and it is known to cause orthostatic hypertenstion. If you don't then just relax, cut some gigs, get some sleep. You aren't dead and you aren't dying so relax. Eat the xanax if you want just know that benzodiazepenes have high addiction potential and addiction is physical.

 

[IceBergSLiM]

LOL typical american medicine: HERE! TAKE THESE DRUGS!

 

[Greenman]

I don't understand why doctors so love mind altering drugs.

 

[johnjohn320]

Yeah, the Xanax is basically just sitting there in case I happen to really need it, I guess. Haven't taken one yet, don't really intend to.

 

[TraumaRN]

I don't understand why doctors so love mind altering drugs.

Because it's the easy way out. And because people like to think a pill will magically cure them. I can't tell you how many times people have literally demanded antibiotics for viral infections and can't grasp the idea that they just have to suck it up and deal with an illness.

OP you should talk with your doctor about the risk/benefit of taking a low dose beta blocker to help with stress.

 

[etrigan420]

Yeah, the Xanax is basically just sitting there in case I happen to really need it, I guess. Haven't taken one yet, don't really intend to.

If you trust your doctor, then don't be afraid to take the medicine he/she prescribed to you.

It's easy for people (myself included) to talk shit about "Ooooh Xanax is the debbil!" and what-not, but only you and your doctor truly know what's best for your given situation.

Having said that: I think you should crush it in a mortar and pestle, cut it with sidewalk chalk, and mainline that shit. :awe:

 

[chusteczka]

Find a doctor who knows how to treat musicians.
...
Just a few things to think about, ignore if you'd rather. Best to you.

Excellent post :thumbsup: 🙂


Honestly, if it was me in your shoes, and my doctor prescribed a mind altering drug, I would be slightly upset and insulted. I would then ignore the prescription, not get it filled, and throw it away.

It is up to you to control your stress, business, profession, and lifestyle. You will be far better off if you can manage that mentally inside your head through decisionmaking without drugs.