health anxiety 24/7

[kbizzack@yahoo.com]

I have been dealing with health anxiety for almost 4 yrs. It all started off diet pills. I had my first panic attack. I called 911 thinking I was having a heart attack. Anything I did that day before the attack I'm afraid of still..so here gos my silly fears. Pills, exercise & eating. Yes eating?? I'm afraid that what I ingest will make my heart race or make me dizzy. I have constant anxiety. From morning till night. I have 4 beautiful children. I feel so bad not being my old self. I don't know how to overcome this. I don't wanna take pills. Not just because of the diet pills but side effects & what if it makes my heart race or I get dizzy. My other 2 big phobias are heart attack and & stroke. Always concerned that I'm gonna have 1. Ughhh some advice pleaseeee..:weep:-(

[Baggs]

I don't have any advice, sorry - just a welcome to NMP.

[MyNameIsTerry]

I have been dealing with health anxiety for almost 4 yrs. It all started off diet pills. I had my first panic attack. I called 911 thinking I was having a heart attack. Anything I did that day before the attack I'm afraid of still..so here gos my silly fears. Pills, exercise & eating. Yes eating?? I'm afraid that what I ingest will make my heart race or make me dizzy. I have constant anxiety. From morning till night. I have 4 beautiful children. I feel so bad not being my old self. I don't know how to overcome this. I don't wanna take pills. Not just because of the diet pills but side effects & what if it makes my heart race or I get dizzy. My other 2 big phobias are heart attack and & stroke. Always concerned that I'm gonna have 1. Ughhh some advice pleaseeee..:weep:-(

Hi,

Welcome to NMP :welcome:

I'm sure you will find loads of people who understand.

I am the same. When I was at my worst, I would have elevated anxiety when eating. I dreaded it and just had to stuff it down me. In the end I started concentrating on the power button on the TV whilst I ate and I found it helped a fair bit as it worked as a distraction technique. Not long after this I started not having the same strength of anxiety while eating and eventually it faded a great deal.

I put it down to the fact when you eat it causes your body to heat up, especially if you eat a lot of protein, and the sensations this was causing were close to the panic I felt at work when I was sliding into an anxiety disorder. I still had it and occassionally get it with certain types of foods for instance anything of a hot nature, but its just hyper sensitivity and anxiety sufferers are like that until you work through these issues.

Exercise was the same as I had my first real panic when I had been doing a lot of rowing. How I felt should have been just due to exercise but due to the anxiety getting worse it started to see anything like that as a problem. After that, exercise had barriers to break through. I'm still working on this one myself but what I have found is that it is a matter of exposure in a gradual fashion.

It is also advisable to be working on anxiety in general with other techniques such as relaxation, breathing and the best one of all is Mindfulness.

Suggest you raise some threads and people will come along and give you some opinions.

[Simmons]

Have you been to a cardiologist? That could be something for peace of mind.