samscaredycat
04-06-14, 22:24
Hi everyone
It's so lovely to read all your posts and instantly feel as if I'm among friends who don't think I'm going round the twist!
I've had a rough year health wise, last September I had an ectopic pregnancy which went on for a while as I had a mirena coil in so wasn't expecting to be pregnant.
The coil never did agree with me and I kept going back to the doctors with bleeding and various other symptoms and was just told it would settle down. 18 months later I realised I was really feeling like crap all the time, it wasn't going away and via doctor google realised that it *could* be an ectopic pregnancy. So thought I would just take a pregnancy test to rule that out and bingo test was positive. This was Saturday night, I was admitted to hospital Saturday, had a scan on Sunday showing an ectopic pregnancy but no internal bleeding, emergency laparoscopy on Monday by which time I had blood in my abdomen. So a very close call. I came out of hospital (with the doctor telling me that having a mirena coil is better than being sterilised!) and tried to get back to normal. I didn't rest, I just wanted to forget about it. I went to see my GP a week later to have my coil removed and she never even asked how I was (she had also put the coil in for me). I got an infection in my scar which I had to take some heavy duty antibiotics for and I got serious withdrawal symptoms from the hormones in the coil. I started having palpitations regularly, even when sitting down relaxing, in fact especially then. I felt faint and dizzy all the time and was convinced something was really wrong with me.
Fast forward to January one night my palpitations didn't seem to go away. I kept taking my blood pressure like a maniac and my pulse and blood pressure were high for at least two hours or so. Next day after a crap nights sleep my heart was still racing. I went to the emergency GP, they sent me to the hospital walk in centre to check for a pulmonary embolism. After waiting for a few hours, having a chest xray (my pulse above 100 the whole time I was there) I was told there was nothing physically wrong with me. I came home and told my husband my anxiety was really getting out of hand and I needed to speak to someone about it. On Thursday of that week I woke up with what felt like really bad period pains. This was 4am and they woke me up and didn't really get better the whole day. I did my usual stuff with the kids but felt sick all day, off my food which isn't like me at all. When my husband came home from work he offered to cook dinner but I still wasn't hungry and I went upstairs to lie down. Suddenly I was freezing cold and started shaking uncontrollably under the duvet for ten minutes. I went downstairs and took my temperature, it was 38.5. I took a taxi to the out of hours doctors and felt as if I was going to pass out in the waiting room. When I got in to see him my pulse was 136, my temperature was 39 and my urine tested strongly positive for infection even though I could only squeeze two drops out. They sent me straight to A&E where I was waved through the waiting room and told I had septicaemia and appendicitis. Two days later I had my gangrenous appendix out (the Consultant who took it out told me blood poisoning is no big deal).
When I was discharged from hospital I couldn't do anything for over a month, my mum had to come and stay and help us look after the kids and I was also on more heavy duty antibiotics which made me feel really strange all of the time. I took my temperature every day and it was regularly 38, 39 and on one occasion 42!! I went back to A&E 7 times convinced I had an abscess or cancer or was going to have a heart attack or a stroke.
Since then I have regular panic attacks and it is usually down to my health. If I feel sick or dizzy, short of breath, have palpitations or headache I automatically assume I am going to die. I am suddenly a lot more sensitive to my environment so I regularly get strange rashes, itching and other symptoms of an allergic reaction to something. I have flushing of the face, abdominal cramps, bowel symptoms, you name it I've had it and I constantly take my temperature and check my pulse and blood pressure.
I am seeing a counsellor who is excellent but she doesn't think she can work on my health anxiety yet because as she sees it I have been through some traumatic health issues very recently so in some ways my anxiety is not irrational.
However it is making me crazy worrying about every little thing and I just want to get back to normal. The irony is that when I WAS really ill I was very zen about it, I realised that I had to just let the doctors do their job and I would just be OK or not and I would just have to deal with that. I have seen some really lovely doctors and nurses over this last year but I have also had some shocking treatment from the healthcare profession and I diagnosed myself with an ectopic pregnancy from looking on google so although I know how destructive it is to look up symptoms, in my messed up head, it works sometimes and its the best way of taking back control of your own health....because unless its an emergency I don't get to see my doctor for at least 3 weeks.
So I'm really pleased to have found this site, to know that I am not alone, that panic attacks happen to normal people and they don't make me a nutter or a freak. I look forward to learning a lot from you all.
Best wishes
Sam
It's so lovely to read all your posts and instantly feel as if I'm among friends who don't think I'm going round the twist!
I've had a rough year health wise, last September I had an ectopic pregnancy which went on for a while as I had a mirena coil in so wasn't expecting to be pregnant.
The coil never did agree with me and I kept going back to the doctors with bleeding and various other symptoms and was just told it would settle down. 18 months later I realised I was really feeling like crap all the time, it wasn't going away and via doctor google realised that it *could* be an ectopic pregnancy. So thought I would just take a pregnancy test to rule that out and bingo test was positive. This was Saturday night, I was admitted to hospital Saturday, had a scan on Sunday showing an ectopic pregnancy but no internal bleeding, emergency laparoscopy on Monday by which time I had blood in my abdomen. So a very close call. I came out of hospital (with the doctor telling me that having a mirena coil is better than being sterilised!) and tried to get back to normal. I didn't rest, I just wanted to forget about it. I went to see my GP a week later to have my coil removed and she never even asked how I was (she had also put the coil in for me). I got an infection in my scar which I had to take some heavy duty antibiotics for and I got serious withdrawal symptoms from the hormones in the coil. I started having palpitations regularly, even when sitting down relaxing, in fact especially then. I felt faint and dizzy all the time and was convinced something was really wrong with me.
Fast forward to January one night my palpitations didn't seem to go away. I kept taking my blood pressure like a maniac and my pulse and blood pressure were high for at least two hours or so. Next day after a crap nights sleep my heart was still racing. I went to the emergency GP, they sent me to the hospital walk in centre to check for a pulmonary embolism. After waiting for a few hours, having a chest xray (my pulse above 100 the whole time I was there) I was told there was nothing physically wrong with me. I came home and told my husband my anxiety was really getting out of hand and I needed to speak to someone about it. On Thursday of that week I woke up with what felt like really bad period pains. This was 4am and they woke me up and didn't really get better the whole day. I did my usual stuff with the kids but felt sick all day, off my food which isn't like me at all. When my husband came home from work he offered to cook dinner but I still wasn't hungry and I went upstairs to lie down. Suddenly I was freezing cold and started shaking uncontrollably under the duvet for ten minutes. I went downstairs and took my temperature, it was 38.5. I took a taxi to the out of hours doctors and felt as if I was going to pass out in the waiting room. When I got in to see him my pulse was 136, my temperature was 39 and my urine tested strongly positive for infection even though I could only squeeze two drops out. They sent me straight to A&E where I was waved through the waiting room and told I had septicaemia and appendicitis. Two days later I had my gangrenous appendix out (the Consultant who took it out told me blood poisoning is no big deal).
When I was discharged from hospital I couldn't do anything for over a month, my mum had to come and stay and help us look after the kids and I was also on more heavy duty antibiotics which made me feel really strange all of the time. I took my temperature every day and it was regularly 38, 39 and on one occasion 42!! I went back to A&E 7 times convinced I had an abscess or cancer or was going to have a heart attack or a stroke.
Since then I have regular panic attacks and it is usually down to my health. If I feel sick or dizzy, short of breath, have palpitations or headache I automatically assume I am going to die. I am suddenly a lot more sensitive to my environment so I regularly get strange rashes, itching and other symptoms of an allergic reaction to something. I have flushing of the face, abdominal cramps, bowel symptoms, you name it I've had it and I constantly take my temperature and check my pulse and blood pressure.
I am seeing a counsellor who is excellent but she doesn't think she can work on my health anxiety yet because as she sees it I have been through some traumatic health issues very recently so in some ways my anxiety is not irrational.
However it is making me crazy worrying about every little thing and I just want to get back to normal. The irony is that when I WAS really ill I was very zen about it, I realised that I had to just let the doctors do their job and I would just be OK or not and I would just have to deal with that. I have seen some really lovely doctors and nurses over this last year but I have also had some shocking treatment from the healthcare profession and I diagnosed myself with an ectopic pregnancy from looking on google so although I know how destructive it is to look up symptoms, in my messed up head, it works sometimes and its the best way of taking back control of your own health....because unless its an emergency I don't get to see my doctor for at least 3 weeks.
So I'm really pleased to have found this site, to know that I am not alone, that panic attacks happen to normal people and they don't make me a nutter or a freak. I look forward to learning a lot from you all.
Best wishes
Sam