{"id":181379,"date":"2025-10-06T08:09:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T08:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/181379\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T08:09:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T08:09:12","slug":"i-was-paralysed-with-anxiety-after-being-made-redundant-at-50-this-is-the-surprising-medication-that-gave-me-my-life-back-polly-hudson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/181379\/","title":{"rendered":"I was paralysed with anxiety after being made redundant at 50. This is the surprising medication that gave me my life back: POLLY HUDSON"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘Are you somewhere you can have a difficult conversation?\u2019 asked the voice<\/a> on the phone. Shaking, I mumbled an affirmative reply, and listened in horror as my life was blown to smithereens.<\/p>\n

The caller was my new boss of ten months. It was the first \u2013 and last \u2013 time she had spoken to me, and the news she delivered was devastating. Due to budget cuts, the job I\u2019d been doing for almost 20 years was gone. \u2018It\u2019s nothing personal,\u2019 she said. That\u2019s not how it felt.<\/p>\n

Although treated as staff, technically I was a freelancer so there would be no redundancy pay off to cushion the blow. It was November, and I was about to be unemployed. Happy Christmas<\/a>!<\/p>\n

The job I\u2019d known for longer than my husband was over forever. The monthly salary I depended on gone.<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t take it in. I was almost 50, an age when you\u2019re supposed to be established, sorted and secure.<\/p>\n

\"At <\/p>\n

At 50, Polly\u00a0job was made redundant from the job she’d been doing for almost 20 years<\/p>\n

Instead, I was completely adrift and absolutely petrified. From the second the bombshell was dropped, I felt I was going to have a panic attack every second of every day.<\/p>\n

I was already a pretty anxious person before this and my family\u2019s financial status being shattered in an instant didn\u2019t exactly help. I couldn\u2019t sleep, I couldn\u2019t eat, I could barely breathe. I have never been so frightened in my life.<\/p>\n

It sounds dramatic, but the following sentence is true: I do not know how, or even if, I would have got through it without beta blockers.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d taken Propranolol once before, when I had to give an important speech I\u2019d been dreading. My GP happily prescribed, saying she regularly did so for people who had big work presentations or anybody who was nervous and needed, largely, not to be.<\/p>\n

\"I <\/p>\n

I do not know how, or even if, I would have got through the anxiety without beta blockers, writes Polly Hudson<\/p>\n

She explained they block the effects of adrenaline (a racing heart doesn\u2019t beat so hard and blood pressure is lowered).<\/p>\n

Beta blockers were an unbelievable, almost magic cure for my public speaking phobia. So now, I wondered if they could help again.<\/p>\n

I spoke to my doctor and explained what had happened. She prescribed Propranolol again, now to be taken up to three times a day, if I felt I needed it. You will not be shocked to hear that I did \u2013 and, 12 months later, still do.<\/p>\n

Propranolol is \u2018not addictive\u2019, says Dipa Kamdar, senior lecturer in pharmacy practice at Kingston University. \u2018It doesn\u2019t produce sedation or euphoria, and its risk of dependence is low.\u2019<\/p>\n

In my experience, she\u2019s right. I don\u2019t feel numb, out of it, or sleepy. I still feel like me, just with the panic removed, so I can go about my day rather than be paralysed with fear.<\/p>\n

In my opinion, the beauty of beta blockers is you can take them regularly, as I am, or as and when you need one.<\/p>\n

And the longer I\u2019ve been on them, and openly chatting about them, the more I\u2019ve realised how many others are too. Prescriptions for anti- anxiety medication have soared in recent years.<\/p>\n

According to a University of Bristol study in 2022, for every man prescribed beta blockers, there were 2.33 women.<\/p>\n

In fact, if they came in a bottle rather than a blister pack, I suspect most of the women I know would rattle.<\/p>\n

\u2018I love how tiny they are, you can slip one in your mouth wherever you are,\u2019 revealed the friend who first recommended them.<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019d never leave the house without them,\u2019 a school mum told me, \u2018I have some in every handbag, just in case.\u2019<\/p>\n

A third devotee said: \u2018They work in ten minutes \u2013 and just knowing that makes you relax a bit.\u2019<\/p>\n

Most of the people I know in the beta blocker bunch are women, relying on them for many reasons \u2013 from perimenopause symptoms to general overwhelm from their demanding lives.<\/p>\n

Obviously no medication is without risk or side-effects, and beta blockers may not be suitable for those with asthma, diabetes or certain heart conditions. They\u2019re also largely seen as less effective than anti-depressants when it comes to long-standing or severe anxiety.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d taken the anti-depressant Citalopram once before, after my father died in 2012.<\/p>\n

They made me feel anesthetised, which was a relief at the time, but I didn\u2019t stay on them long because I was aware I had to go through the grieving process rather than switching my emotions off. I knew they wouldn\u2019t be right for me now either.<\/p>\n

Everybody in my life agrees that beta blockers have made me calmer, and they\u2019re relieved that since I\u2019ve been on them I seem more able to navigate my new normal.<\/p>\n

My husband clearly isn\u2019t as worried about me as he was, not that he ever came right out and said it.<\/p>\n

I have more patience with my son, too \u2013 I was dismayed to find myself snapping at him BBB (before beta blockers). I was under so much pressure that any extra request or question could cause a system meltdown in my brain.<\/p>\n

I can breathe now. I can cope. I\u2019m slowly carving out a new work life, which is more interesting and fulfilling than what I was doing before.<\/p>\n

While I hope to wean myself off beta blockers three times a day, never missing a dose, relying on them, I can\u2019t imagine never taking them again. I\u2019ll be one of the many people out there \u2013 some who admit it, some of who hide it \u2013 who always have a pill in their pocket, just in case.<\/p>\n

If you have any concerns, please speak to your GP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘Are you somewhere you can have a difficult conversation?\u2019 asked the voice on the phone. Shaking, I mumbled…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181380,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[97,519,59,102,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-181379","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-dailymail","9":"tag-femail","10":"tag-gb","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}