First panic attack & HA

[JJ75]

Hi everyone,

I stumbed across this site last week whilst feeling very anxious and just not myself. On friday night I had my first panic attack, luckily for me I was with a friend. My friend rang NHS direct and I had a chat with a really lovely lady who advised me to see my doctor and tell her my worries.

My anxiety is coming from worries that I have some terminal illness that has yet to be diagnosed. I saw my doctor today and am waiting on blood tests to come back. I moved into a property on my own about 12 months ago and this is when the negative thoughts started to kick in, what if I'm ill in the night and nobody will be there, turned into I'm ill and I'm going to die.

I still feel really quite weird, head and arms dont feel like they belong to me, vision is still distorted, eye is still twitching and the pain in my neck/shoulders is still giving me grief.

How long do these symptoms last for? This is all new to me and I'm really trying to get my head round it. Any advice or tips would me much appreciated.

Thanks

[dorothy1983]

Hi JJ75.
I have had many of the symptoms you describe. Mine all started when my mum was diagnosed with a brain tumour. Although she has now been cured after 18 difficult months, I think the stress of it all built up and built up, until I had a panic attack 2 months ago.
I have convinced myself that I have a problem with my heart after suffering with pains in the centre of my chest for a few weeks. Went to A&E with the chest pains, they did an ECG and took bloods...all fine. Went to my GP with the same chest pains, still unconvinced that my heart was fine, another ECG and more bloods, fine. I was put on pills for stomach acid, I was unconvinced. How could a pain in my chest be caused by stomach problems?
I convinced myself my left arm kept going numb and tingling. Obviously related to my heart problem!! This continued for about three weeks, then the pain started to subside after my stomach pills were increased. Perhaps it was stomach related after all? Which of course meant that I must have STOMACH CANCER! I then started thinking about how the outlook is poor, I will be dead within 5 years, who will look after my kids?? So I then went a month convincing myself I had cancer of the stomach and no one would take me seriously! This has now subsided, although it sometimes comes back if I get any pain abdominally.

Then I had a different sort of pain in the right side of my abdo, this was either liver disease (I checked myself for Jaundice!) or gallstones! The pain was extremely severe, yet only lasted about 2 hours. I convinced myself that I would die that night from pancreatitis/gall bladder disease/liver failure etc etc etc. Well...I survived, and it turned out to be probably a bit of trapped wind:blush:.

If I have a headache, its not a headache, its a brain aneurysm/meningitis/brain tumour. I too had the pain in my neck/shoulders and a few days later a migraine. It was most likely down to holding my shoulders up and being tense, most of the time without realising it. Of course, it wasnt down to menigitis. And the red blotchy area that came up on my chest was just a bruise, not septicaemia!
I found a hot water bottle wrapped in a towel and held against my neck/shoulders relieved the pain in them and helped me relax them. Make a concious effort to relax your shoulders and let them drop.

Don't google symptoms! 99% of the time, a symptom you google with return with a page that says you have a life threatening condition (ie: My chest pain which google told me was probably a heart attack and/or stomach cancer, was in fact most likely heartburn now the symptoms have gone).

Its been a terrible few months really, with me convincing myself I would not live to see my children grow up. However, no one in my family have died young. Apart from my mum, we have had no serious diseases or conditions in our family, so I used to say 'so why should I get it?, theres nothing to worry about being passed down in the family, I should be FINE!'. I know thats not strictly the way health conditions work, but still, it was reassuring to me to tell myself that 'It hasnt happened in the family before, so why should it happen to me?'.

I was also started on paroxetine. Although I was VERY sceptical at first, I believe it really has helped. I am now on just 20mg a day, and although I had some side effects to begin with, they were manageable, and now I can look back at all of the health problems I had diagnosed myself with and laugh! And I am no longer convinced that I do have anything serious.

Take care. If you are still concerned, visit your GP and talk through your concerns. That is what they are there for afterall, I am sure your doctor would rather spend time reassuring you than have you worry yourself sick over it all.