Hi,
I’m Poppika from Hungary. I’ve been following your posts for several years, they have helped me a lot in the darkest monents of my HA. My HA started in my childhood, every year or couple if years i would have a cancer scare which would always be resolved quite quickly after seeing a doc for my symptoms.
Fast forward to 2 years ago. I was 30yo, finishing my Master’s degree, preparing for my PhD applications and working in a call center in the evenings to support myself through university. Also, I had just lost my dad to testicular cancer and a good friend to breast cancer. When stress was at its peak I started waking up every night to what seemed like panic attacks (mainly very fast pulse - 190bpm at one point, weakness, nausea and a sense of impending doom). I had some seriously traumatic experiences with medical staff throughout this ordeal (they were very indifferent to me when i thought i was having a heart attack, i got misdiagnosed with SVT and they wanted to operate on my heart as a consequence, etc.). Finally, after every possible physical illnes was ruled out I was referred to a psychiatrist who said i “did not look like with someone with a mental illness” but told me to take alprazolam 3 times a day until my exams are over, then stop as quickly as possible because these pills are highly addictive. I did feel better on the pills except that they made me overly sedated. As soon as my exams were over, i suddenly stopped taking the pills, and that’s when all hell broke loose: i had a migraine for 3 weeks, got scary BP spikes and all kinds of arrhythmias, etc, the list could go on and on. All of these symptoms were physical, and without exception they were things i had never ever experienced before. My doc made me reinstate and basically said i had too serious an anxiety to stop taking the pills. I did not agree because none of my symptoms had anything in common with what i had before the pills. I did some research online and found that many people who came off of benzodiazepines had similar symptoms and i could in fact be having withdrawal symptoms. All of the doctors i was seeing at the time told me that the pills weren’t to blame they simply did not cause withdrawal symptoms. I decided not to argue and to come off the pills slowly at my own pace without consulting any of thise doctors ever again. Slowly i reduced my dose to crumbs and while sometimes my symptoms did flare up real bad along the way i did eventually stabilize every time, which tells me that the doctors were wring when they suggested that i needed the pills for the rest of my life. The symptoms changed a lot along the way: sometimes i get panic attacks for two weeks, then arrhythmias for 3 months, sometimes my BP is too high, sometimes it’s too low, i get short bouts of lethargy, depression, insomnia, etc. I guess this is how my nervous system is trying to heal. However my worst symptom is HA by far! And it’s nothing like it was before. I don’t just get scared every onve in a while, now it’s constant! I can be equally afraid of melanoma, heart disease, breast cancer and stroke all in the same day, and it’s really really hard to put things in perspective. I just keep googling like a madwoman, and of course i always diagnose myself with the most fatal illness possible based in my symptoms. Coming off these pills is making me experience lots of physical symptoms, and when it gets very bad it becomes impossible not to catastrophize and to just chalk everything up to withdrawal. At this point i don’t want to seek professional help because that’s what got me where i am in the first place. Hungarian doctors don’t treat patients as equals, one doesn’t get to ask questions, so i prefer to just finish my taper and deal with my HA as best i can. It’s mostly by coming here and read your posts. I feel really really bad for my fellow HA sufferers, but i must admit it is also a huge relief to see that i’m not alone and i’m not crazy. There’s a pattern to this, and we can help each other by seeing thise patterns and making each other see them. I really hope to get to be of help to you guys, I’m always happy to be in touch!
Thank you for reading my superlong intro!
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