Anyone suffer from anxiety/panic attacks?

then what happened?

 

unless he's typing from a hospital bed, I'm guessing it all turned out ok.

DM

 

My BP was high in the ambulance (182/?) but the portable EKG looked ok - but I agreed to go in because I was still in pain and figured they could run a scope down my esophagus to troubleshoot whether it's an ulcer. Got to the hospital, they rigged me up and had EKG, x-ray and blood tests. Came back negative on heart problems from what they could see. My resting heart rate settled around 68-72 and my BP went down to about 130/80. They didn't have gear to check my throat ("we're here in ER to make sure you're not dying, you have to come back in the day for that"). Doc suggested it might be muscle strain or cartilage around ribs/sternum and prescribed some Naprosyn.

I got a referral to a cardiologist to follow up for more diagnostic stuff just in case, but admittedly their delivery about that was kind of "well, if you *need* to..." which makes me think that they don't think I need to. Got released about 1:45am.

My hunch is some sort of acid/ulcer issue: I take 150mg Zantac 1/day for H2 blocking for chronic hives and angioedema. I don't have stomach issues, but when it wears off I get bad heartburn pretty much daily (and nightly, if it wears out at night). Both 'flare ups' of pain yesterday were a while after eating, although it doesn't feel like normal heart burn, it hurts deeper in my chest and more to left side.

I've had stress and anxiety before, but this was the first time that I came close to collapse because of it. And even I was surprised how intense the fear of passing out (because in that instant I felt like it would mean I would probably die) hit me and what basically felt like a 30-60 second seizure.

 

Ryan

Really glad to hear it wasnt a heart issue. Panic attacks can be scary but you dont die from them.

Another positive thing is that now you know you dont have heart issues and when you feel something like this coming on, you can mentally remind yourself its just a panic attack. Mind over matter.

Try to relax a little...I know you work really hard.

 

Hey Mike,

I'm not an expert on anxiety attacks but I can speak for my experiences.
I started having them about 10 years ago. I'm not going to get into the details of why they were happening, as I don't think it will help. All I can say is that it is rare that they are due to a chemical imbalance. They are mostly due to stress, fatigue and emotional state. |t least this is what I have read and have been told.

There are many medications that can help, however what helped me was seeing a psychologist. There may not be one root cause for the attacks. As in my case it was years of bottling issues. I was getting them quite often for about a year. Once I started dealing with the issues it took another year for them to go away. Over the past eight years the odd one has popped up, but with what I have learnt I can control them so they don't turn into anything more than slight nervousness.

I would stress how important it is to deal with them. Odd behaviour can start to develop to the point that they become dehabilitaitng. Case in point, I couldn't take any form of pill after sunset, no caffeine or sugar after 3pm, then I couldn't get on a plane. I actually have walked away from 3 plane trips while standing at the boarding gate. It was pretty much at this point I realized that something had to be done.

It can take time to find a doctor that you can work with as this can get into some pretty deep stuff. I don't think that going down the medication route is the way to go, at least not in the long term. I actually refused to be prescribed meds, maybe that wasn't such a smart thing to do as it could have been part of therapy.

Regardless of what you choose, don't let this get out of hand. I wouldn't wish anxiety attacks on my worst enemy. They are incredibly brutal and don't get better by ignoring them.

I wish you all the best.

 

Ryan ~ it sure beats the alternative, doesn't it?

 

Sorry to hear all that.

Glad nothing serious (Ihope, hard to tell from just an ER visit.)

 

Much less serious and maybe slightly off topic, but does "white coat syndrome" prior to getting a blood pressure reading fall under this same behavior?