JackInTheBox
13-11-12, 03:22
So, the last time I had an noticeable HA episode was almost a month ago.
During this month I felt totaly anxiety-free, no fears, no startling at each beat and such an incredible inner peace, a tranquility so exquisite... I never thought possible to achieve that again in my life, and yet for a straight month I had it.
The Events:
Of course that you win some and then you loose some. On friday I was working out, I think I must have overdid myself and had an small heart event, I can't tell quite well if it was ectopics or tachycardia, but it left me a bit unsettled for the rest of the day. I took the axiety pills and the rest day went about without any further episodes.
On saturday again no episodes, and I thought I had the matter settled, but later in the day I was told that a friend of a friend (not acquainted to me personaly) had died in the gym from a heart attack. As you all know, this is the worst type of news someone with HA should ever get, specially if you obcess with the condition...
So knowing that someone suffered an unexpected death from a situation that has been the cause of my distress did manage to throw me off my game.
On sunday I had a very small ectopic beat event (yeah, I get to know those pretty well) after my workout, then later in the day I went to a party and kind of drowned myself into alchool and cigarettes. I was actually feeling very fatalistic and rambling about fate and the inevitability of things.
Finally today without any surprise my body hates me, I have assorted aches everywhere, chest, back and lower back. I also had a very bad night, I woke up for some reason in the middle of the night (still half-drunk) and obcessed about my heart beat for a couple of hours, then I got fed up with the situation, took an anxiety pill and slept like a baby. During the day I had another small ectopic episode and felt all round anxious.
The Causes:
Like I said on the top of the post, I was "clean" of HA for a whole month, however I did felt the "regular" anxiety from time to time, on specific and "normal" situations, such as work. This last week was a bit stressing for me, I noticed it and kept it under check, now a days I don't take any chances, if I feel myself stressed out or anxious and I can't shake it off, I go for the pill.
However in spite of my best efforts to keep my anixety under control, I pushed myself a bit too hard on my workout, my body complained and on we go for another ride on the HA roller coaster!
I was rationalizing the whole thing pretty well, but then getting that awfull news, plus a stressing day of work and then plus an small ectopic event on the day after really did a number on yours trully.
Basically I am aware that I'm stressed about some matters that are work-related, but I am also getting stressed due to the constant repetition of "heart events" with so such short intervals from each others, specially after spending a month without incidents. I know that my events are "normal" and somewhat harmless, and I'm really trying to rationalize this, but it's hard. :( I'm fully aware that there are many reasons for the heart to behave like that, and I am being able to handle the episodes without panicking, the ammount of them and the space between...thats a whole different world of concern.
What I'm telling myself at moment is that I created a perfect storm for myself: stress from work, over-workout, bad and unsettling news, more stress from work, anxiety starting to run rampant and then a nice binge just to finish the business in style. I guess I'll have to ride it out.
The Wins:
In spite of this unpleasant trip to my own personal hell, I had some wins and some positive stuff to take from all of this.
First I was able to handle and rationalize my "heart episodes", I felt it and I thought "calm down, breathe slow, stretch the chest, you know what this is and there is no need to panic", secondly I managed to rationalize the "after effects" and tried to save myself more anixety by taking the appropriate pills. I refused to create a new "trauma", so on the very next day I did my workout again but payed extreme attention to the workloads and it went on just nicelly.
All and all it could have been worse, I took some lessons from this and I will improve on my handling of this condition. I also got to "test" my rationalization skills and I was happy with the result.
Conclusions:
Sunday could've been my "V" day, but I was very stressed due to work and at the same time I was keeping the anxiety/HA in check, I had an "episode", dealt well with it and moved on to getting drunk. Had I not suffered the "episode", that day could've been different. It was not and I did some small mistakes while dealing with anxiety on the past week.
I think I need to balance things a bit better, keep stress and anxiety in check yes, workout yes...but if I'm feeling stressed/anxious I must deal with that as soon as possible (like solving the cause for it for instance) and also reduce or even supress my workout workloads on such complicated days to avoid "heart events".
This last week I felt anxious/stressed due to work, but I didn't dealt with it right away, on top of that I kept my workout workloads even though I was stressed, which was silly since I know that I am prone to "heart events", specially when I mix stress with tireness.
And I also must take the meds, I have been improving that on the last month and it helped, I guess I have to act faster to avoid HA and physical manifestations of anxiety and stress.I took them a couple of times to counter some resilient anxiety. This time however I took the pills after the first event and before the last one (today), what I should've done was to take the pills when stress is identified (and not solved) and keep the treatment while the stress lasts (or at least try).
To clear off my head regarding HA, I'm sending an email to my GP discussing the latest events and ask for his advice on the matter.
---------- Post added at 03:22 ---------- Previous post was at 02:48 ----------
Just to keep things a bit clear, I'll leave a rundown of the sympthoms for my "heart events":
Case 1:
-the classic "pang" on chest or "missed" beat
-dizzyness/light head
-mild numbness (sometimes)
fits well under a ectopic beat scenario.
Case 2:
-sudden, rapid and large increase of heart rate
-shortness of breath
-dizzyness
-light head
-numbness
fits somewhere under a SVT scenario maybe?
During this month I felt totaly anxiety-free, no fears, no startling at each beat and such an incredible inner peace, a tranquility so exquisite... I never thought possible to achieve that again in my life, and yet for a straight month I had it.
The Events:
Of course that you win some and then you loose some. On friday I was working out, I think I must have overdid myself and had an small heart event, I can't tell quite well if it was ectopics or tachycardia, but it left me a bit unsettled for the rest of the day. I took the axiety pills and the rest day went about without any further episodes.
On saturday again no episodes, and I thought I had the matter settled, but later in the day I was told that a friend of a friend (not acquainted to me personaly) had died in the gym from a heart attack. As you all know, this is the worst type of news someone with HA should ever get, specially if you obcess with the condition...
So knowing that someone suffered an unexpected death from a situation that has been the cause of my distress did manage to throw me off my game.
On sunday I had a very small ectopic beat event (yeah, I get to know those pretty well) after my workout, then later in the day I went to a party and kind of drowned myself into alchool and cigarettes. I was actually feeling very fatalistic and rambling about fate and the inevitability of things.
Finally today without any surprise my body hates me, I have assorted aches everywhere, chest, back and lower back. I also had a very bad night, I woke up for some reason in the middle of the night (still half-drunk) and obcessed about my heart beat for a couple of hours, then I got fed up with the situation, took an anxiety pill and slept like a baby. During the day I had another small ectopic episode and felt all round anxious.
The Causes:
Like I said on the top of the post, I was "clean" of HA for a whole month, however I did felt the "regular" anxiety from time to time, on specific and "normal" situations, such as work. This last week was a bit stressing for me, I noticed it and kept it under check, now a days I don't take any chances, if I feel myself stressed out or anxious and I can't shake it off, I go for the pill.
However in spite of my best efforts to keep my anixety under control, I pushed myself a bit too hard on my workout, my body complained and on we go for another ride on the HA roller coaster!
I was rationalizing the whole thing pretty well, but then getting that awfull news, plus a stressing day of work and then plus an small ectopic event on the day after really did a number on yours trully.
Basically I am aware that I'm stressed about some matters that are work-related, but I am also getting stressed due to the constant repetition of "heart events" with so such short intervals from each others, specially after spending a month without incidents. I know that my events are "normal" and somewhat harmless, and I'm really trying to rationalize this, but it's hard. :( I'm fully aware that there are many reasons for the heart to behave like that, and I am being able to handle the episodes without panicking, the ammount of them and the space between...thats a whole different world of concern.
What I'm telling myself at moment is that I created a perfect storm for myself: stress from work, over-workout, bad and unsettling news, more stress from work, anxiety starting to run rampant and then a nice binge just to finish the business in style. I guess I'll have to ride it out.
The Wins:
In spite of this unpleasant trip to my own personal hell, I had some wins and some positive stuff to take from all of this.
First I was able to handle and rationalize my "heart episodes", I felt it and I thought "calm down, breathe slow, stretch the chest, you know what this is and there is no need to panic", secondly I managed to rationalize the "after effects" and tried to save myself more anixety by taking the appropriate pills. I refused to create a new "trauma", so on the very next day I did my workout again but payed extreme attention to the workloads and it went on just nicelly.
All and all it could have been worse, I took some lessons from this and I will improve on my handling of this condition. I also got to "test" my rationalization skills and I was happy with the result.
Conclusions:
Sunday could've been my "V" day, but I was very stressed due to work and at the same time I was keeping the anxiety/HA in check, I had an "episode", dealt well with it and moved on to getting drunk. Had I not suffered the "episode", that day could've been different. It was not and I did some small mistakes while dealing with anxiety on the past week.
I think I need to balance things a bit better, keep stress and anxiety in check yes, workout yes...but if I'm feeling stressed/anxious I must deal with that as soon as possible (like solving the cause for it for instance) and also reduce or even supress my workout workloads on such complicated days to avoid "heart events".
This last week I felt anxious/stressed due to work, but I didn't dealt with it right away, on top of that I kept my workout workloads even though I was stressed, which was silly since I know that I am prone to "heart events", specially when I mix stress with tireness.
And I also must take the meds, I have been improving that on the last month and it helped, I guess I have to act faster to avoid HA and physical manifestations of anxiety and stress.I took them a couple of times to counter some resilient anxiety. This time however I took the pills after the first event and before the last one (today), what I should've done was to take the pills when stress is identified (and not solved) and keep the treatment while the stress lasts (or at least try).
To clear off my head regarding HA, I'm sending an email to my GP discussing the latest events and ask for his advice on the matter.
---------- Post added at 03:22 ---------- Previous post was at 02:48 ----------
Just to keep things a bit clear, I'll leave a rundown of the sympthoms for my "heart events":
Case 1:
-the classic "pang" on chest or "missed" beat
-dizzyness/light head
-mild numbness (sometimes)
fits well under a ectopic beat scenario.
Case 2:
-sudden, rapid and large increase of heart rate
-shortness of breath
-dizzyness
-light head
-numbness
fits somewhere under a SVT scenario maybe?