High risk for heart attack

[emeraldgirl]

I get rid of one worry (recent mammogram) and another leaps straight in. There is hardly a day's peace with this health anxiety. I am so fed up with it. About 5 years ago i found I had high cholesterol and chronic kidney disease, placing me at high risk of a heart attack or stroke.I am on various medications. this week I can't get the thought of this out of mind. I feel a tightness in my chest and can't seem to get a deep breath. I have an appointment tomorrow with a nurse to go through recent blood tests. I am terrified. I also stupidly googled and found that heart attack symptoms in women can be very subtle. I am basically just terrified and don't know how to keep living with this silent disease always in the background, stopping me from getting on with life. I know a lot of people live with a lot worse but this is really getting me down at the moment.

[Nico]

You can spend your life worrying about your chances of stuff. I have wasted so much of my time worrying about health, and nothing is achieved. Be thankful you are all right for now, and enjoy life, one day you will look back and feel sad about the amount of time you have wasted worrying. None of us will have perfect health our whole life, when you see others around, a huge number of them will be at high risk for heart attacks etc. but they continue life as normal. You will be fine, now enjoy life :)

[cattia]

High cholesterol can be successfully treated through diet, so you should be able to bring it down to a normal level. Having kidney disease probably places you at higher risk if it is not controlled, but with the right medication you should be fine,and also your health is going to be monitored because of your condition, which means in many ways you are at lower risk than the general population because if there is a problem,it's going to get picked up on early before it puts you in any danger. I have been with someone who had a heart attack. Believe me, if it happened, you would known, it isn't something that you can miss xx

[emeraldgirl]

Thank you for your replies and reassurance. I know I need to live life one day at a time but it's soooo hard at the moment. I had my appointment with the nurse who fed all my results into a computer programme and came up with my risk of having a heart attack in the next 10 years as being 3% She says this is good but I need to lose a bit of weight as my BMI is 26.5. I told her about my heart attack worries and she didn't refer me for an ECG or any further investigations. She said the feeling in my chest is because I am so anxious. Of course, I still have the nagging doubts.