In desperate need of help and guidance/heart failure /lung disease scare

[anxietycat]

Hello everyone, Name's Kelsey. I have posted on this forum some year ago under a different username about my worries about having a brain tumor on a horrible winter when I had an anxiety episode that lasted 3 months straight. Well it seems like most of it is coming back. First of all I wanna warn everyone that I'm a healthy 17 year old female 168cm tall and weigh 55kgs. My genetics when it comes to health are VERY good, no history of any serious diseases, heart problems and all that. I mean my great grandmother died just a month ago and she was around 100 years old! The only chronic problem I've had is anxiety, since I was 7.
It started with me being a huge hypochondriac, afraid of all kinds of diseases and poisonous animals, I've even had signs of developing OCD. Although now that I'm older I was diagnosed with GAD, and my fears have expanded, although I am still VERY VERY sensitive about my health.

Now here's the important part:

A week ago I was at a friends house, I started yawning continuesly, but I usually do that when I'm really tired and my sleeping pattern has been really bad the past few month. Of course due to constant yawning I started feeling out of breath and during that period I was scared of diabetes so I slowly started panicking that I would faint. This turned into a mild panic attack and made me feel out of breath for around an hour. I was freaking out!
We went to a concert in a small enclosed area full of smoke and that just made all my symptoms worse. Ever since that day I can't stop taking in deep breaths and yawning, it drains my energy so much and it makes me feel so alarmed. Like it feels like I'm constantly out of breath and need to get more oxygen. I get chest pains too. I've been to my GP, she measured my oxygen saturation which was 100% normal and said it's mostly anxiety related, but I just don't get how that small incident could make my subconscious so alarmed that I have it all day long now. I don't remember having an anxiety symptom like that last for so long the whole day, I'm not even having actual full panic attacks.

I REALLY NEED YOUR HELP, MY BRAIN TELLS MR TO KEEP GOOGLING AND LOOKING INTO DISEASES AND I'M FREAKING OUT!!!

i should also mention that I have smoked hookah a few times at a hookah bar but only this summer, and I've smoked some normal cigarettes at parties but I don't often go to those so I guess you could call me a social smoker. I have told myself that I will never smoke again after this incident of course but now I'm scared that this is what made me have heart failure or a lung problem..

[Dolphin8808]

Yup anxiety! Its crazy how the mind can control the body. Now you are soooo concentrated on your breathing and pains, that your mind is making it worse. There are many with anxiety who will focus so much on their breathing that they feel they are not breathing correctly at all. Breathing is a bodies automatic response, its not something we think about, we just do it. When we begin thinking about it, we try to overide the bodies automatic responses.

You need to try to distract yourself, hard to do I know. But you need to pull your mind away from your breathing and focus on other things. You will notice in time that you went... a hour without checking your breathing and that you are just fine. Then the time between checking your breathing will get longer and longer until you can break the habit.

Also, OCD is very closely related to Health Anxiety and Hypochondria. Its why often treatments for each are similar. We become so totally obsessed with our health and can focus on little else.

You are fine, even your doc agrees, now you have to distract your mind my friend.

[anxietycat]

Thank you for your reply, Dolphin8808. It has kind of calmed my worries down but my desire to Google hasn't vanished, so I am now scared to move or do anything cause I'm scared I'll have a heart attack. It's just so frustrating, I probably sigh/yawn once every minute, sometimes more, and when I try to make myself not do it, I feel like I'm gonna chocke. It's all ruining my life... :c