ballerina
12-09-16, 21:02
I'm 22, a healthy weight, I don't smoke (I have smoked a total of around 10 cigarettes in my life), don't take hormonal birth control, I used to drink a lot but not to alcoholic levels, I have now cut down drinking to around once a week, less if i'm anxious, don't really have any significant health problems in my family, except my aunties who had breast cancer at around 60 years old and my dad who died youngish but drank and smoked A LOT.
I suffer with Generalised Anxiety Disorder (always have since I was a very little girl), Health Anxiety (rearing it's ugly head in the last 4 years), mild scoliosis, IBS and TMJ. I have recently had a blood test that came back clear. I am avoiding caffeine and alcohol. I take 40mg fluoxetine for my anxiety.
Chest pain - I have visited the cardiologist, he did an EKG and an echo, said my heart was healthy and the chest pain is not that. But it is awful and rather constant, sometimes makes me sit up and gasp if it comes on suddenly. Sometimes it feels like a bubble in my chest, sometimes like pressure, or like a tight knot. It is right over my heart and goes to my jaw and left arm also. My heart is often racing. Finding it hard to believe it is not my heart!
Disturbed sleep - Waking up a couple of times in the night and then being unable to get back to sleep. I'm known for being a lazy bones and when my boyfriend gets up in the morning he leaves me to drift back to sleep for another couple of hours, but the last two weeks I've been waking up with him and not being able to sleep again, not feeling at all relaxed or rested and waking up even before him in the night. He told me I've been moaning in my sleep, although I'm not having nightmares. I am also waking up sweating a lot and dehydrated when it's not even hot.
Loss of appetite - Usually I clean my plate and want seconds, people asking me where I put it all as I'm skinny. But I have felt no hunger at all the last couple of weeks, I've forced some food down me to survive but I can barely get through half a meal, everything tastes like cardboard. The thought of eating is sickening.
Derealisation - Nothing that is happening seems real, my home and my workplace seem unfamiliar. I feel like I'm walking through a dream world (well more like a nightmare).
No concentration - Usually I am super organised and I have clear goals of what I want to achieve each day. Uni work, house work, exercise, fun things etc, but my mind is in a complete muddle. I forget to do things like replying to messages. I can't concentrate on reading a book that I was enjoying before this episode. I have to get people to repeat what they are saying as my brain doesn't process it. I live in France and the French that I usually understand I have to keep getting people to repeat. I am forgetting lots of orders at work and I seem like I am always dropping things, knocking things over and bumping into things. This mixed with the derealisation feeling is really scary to me, because not only do I feel physically unwell, but I don't feel like myself. My time perception is also off, I can sit on the computer for 6 hours straight and it feels like no time. Even just writing this I have been doing it on and off for hours. All this is raising my fear of a brain tumour.
Eyesight - Everything seems much brighter and my vision is blurry. The room occasionally spins. I went to the eye doctor and she wrote me a new prescription for reading glasses. Also I thankfully have no pressure behind the eye, which I was worried about in terms of a brain tumour.
One sided pain - This has been going on since before I felt the other symptoms, from my head to my toe on my left side I'm in almost constant pain. I am seeing a physiotherapist and she doesn't understand because the pain seems like a trapped nerve but it would have to be several nerves to be all down my body. This symptom scares me and I've been worried again that I've got a brain tumour. Also the other day I was on the train and my right face and arm suddenly went numb. I was scared I was having a stroke or something, but I could still talk, walk, hold my arms up, and my face hadn't drooped. I am going to call a neurologist and make an appointment.
Feeling like I can't breathe - I have a heavy chest especially when lying down and it feels like I can't breathe properly. I also often feel like I can't breathe properly when out of the house, even though I must be because I haven't passed out or anything?
Headache - For the last two weeks I've had a headache mainly on my left side and on top of my head. It's not unbearable but I never get headaches.
Burning at back of mouth - Just something that happened for a couple of days, I had a burning feeling at the back of my mouth, but not heartburn, so don't know if this could have been acid reflux.
My anxiety had been bubbling up the last 6 weeks or so. I took two flights in which GAD - plane crash/terrorism fear, mixed with health anxiety - blood clot fear, made me rather edgy for a bit. But I was pretty much coping - going out to do things I enjoy with just bad thoughts in the back of my mind.
But about 10 days ago I was working a long shift at work (I am a waitress), 11 hours with no break as we're super understaffed at the moment (although the first 5 hours were very quiet). I had to get up to work the next morning too, and I was worried about oversleeping so I woke up several times in the night. I have felt like this since then. The other day I was sent home from work as all my symptoms were so bad. I spent this week crying for about 5 days straight due to how physically bad I feel. To the point of crying at work and crying walking down the street/on the train like a weirdo.
Can this just be anxiety or something else? I'm scared I've got something seriously wrong with my health and I'll never be well again :( Are there any medical conditions that match up with these symptoms??? I could deal with physical problems if my mind and perception of the world weren't a complete fog, I want my life that I enjoy and myself back!!!! :(
I'd really appreciate any advice :)
I suffer with Generalised Anxiety Disorder (always have since I was a very little girl), Health Anxiety (rearing it's ugly head in the last 4 years), mild scoliosis, IBS and TMJ. I have recently had a blood test that came back clear. I am avoiding caffeine and alcohol. I take 40mg fluoxetine for my anxiety.
Chest pain - I have visited the cardiologist, he did an EKG and an echo, said my heart was healthy and the chest pain is not that. But it is awful and rather constant, sometimes makes me sit up and gasp if it comes on suddenly. Sometimes it feels like a bubble in my chest, sometimes like pressure, or like a tight knot. It is right over my heart and goes to my jaw and left arm also. My heart is often racing. Finding it hard to believe it is not my heart!
Disturbed sleep - Waking up a couple of times in the night and then being unable to get back to sleep. I'm known for being a lazy bones and when my boyfriend gets up in the morning he leaves me to drift back to sleep for another couple of hours, but the last two weeks I've been waking up with him and not being able to sleep again, not feeling at all relaxed or rested and waking up even before him in the night. He told me I've been moaning in my sleep, although I'm not having nightmares. I am also waking up sweating a lot and dehydrated when it's not even hot.
Loss of appetite - Usually I clean my plate and want seconds, people asking me where I put it all as I'm skinny. But I have felt no hunger at all the last couple of weeks, I've forced some food down me to survive but I can barely get through half a meal, everything tastes like cardboard. The thought of eating is sickening.
Derealisation - Nothing that is happening seems real, my home and my workplace seem unfamiliar. I feel like I'm walking through a dream world (well more like a nightmare).
No concentration - Usually I am super organised and I have clear goals of what I want to achieve each day. Uni work, house work, exercise, fun things etc, but my mind is in a complete muddle. I forget to do things like replying to messages. I can't concentrate on reading a book that I was enjoying before this episode. I have to get people to repeat what they are saying as my brain doesn't process it. I live in France and the French that I usually understand I have to keep getting people to repeat. I am forgetting lots of orders at work and I seem like I am always dropping things, knocking things over and bumping into things. This mixed with the derealisation feeling is really scary to me, because not only do I feel physically unwell, but I don't feel like myself. My time perception is also off, I can sit on the computer for 6 hours straight and it feels like no time. Even just writing this I have been doing it on and off for hours. All this is raising my fear of a brain tumour.
Eyesight - Everything seems much brighter and my vision is blurry. The room occasionally spins. I went to the eye doctor and she wrote me a new prescription for reading glasses. Also I thankfully have no pressure behind the eye, which I was worried about in terms of a brain tumour.
One sided pain - This has been going on since before I felt the other symptoms, from my head to my toe on my left side I'm in almost constant pain. I am seeing a physiotherapist and she doesn't understand because the pain seems like a trapped nerve but it would have to be several nerves to be all down my body. This symptom scares me and I've been worried again that I've got a brain tumour. Also the other day I was on the train and my right face and arm suddenly went numb. I was scared I was having a stroke or something, but I could still talk, walk, hold my arms up, and my face hadn't drooped. I am going to call a neurologist and make an appointment.
Feeling like I can't breathe - I have a heavy chest especially when lying down and it feels like I can't breathe properly. I also often feel like I can't breathe properly when out of the house, even though I must be because I haven't passed out or anything?
Headache - For the last two weeks I've had a headache mainly on my left side and on top of my head. It's not unbearable but I never get headaches.
Burning at back of mouth - Just something that happened for a couple of days, I had a burning feeling at the back of my mouth, but not heartburn, so don't know if this could have been acid reflux.
My anxiety had been bubbling up the last 6 weeks or so. I took two flights in which GAD - plane crash/terrorism fear, mixed with health anxiety - blood clot fear, made me rather edgy for a bit. But I was pretty much coping - going out to do things I enjoy with just bad thoughts in the back of my mind.
But about 10 days ago I was working a long shift at work (I am a waitress), 11 hours with no break as we're super understaffed at the moment (although the first 5 hours were very quiet). I had to get up to work the next morning too, and I was worried about oversleeping so I woke up several times in the night. I have felt like this since then. The other day I was sent home from work as all my symptoms were so bad. I spent this week crying for about 5 days straight due to how physically bad I feel. To the point of crying at work and crying walking down the street/on the train like a weirdo.
Can this just be anxiety or something else? I'm scared I've got something seriously wrong with my health and I'll never be well again :( Are there any medical conditions that match up with these symptoms??? I could deal with physical problems if my mind and perception of the world weren't a complete fog, I want my life that I enjoy and myself back!!!! :(
I'd really appreciate any advice :)