mrsak87
11-02-17, 22:27
Hi everyone, this is my first ever post but I think writing this down and getting it off my chest will help me. It's an essay sorry
I see a lot of posts here which are mainly of people really really struggling like I've been doing for the last 6 weeks. 6 weeks doesn't sound long at all compared with a lot of people on here but to me it's felt like an eternity
My story is that I'm a relatively young (29), sporty male who's never suffered with any form of anxiety or depression before. My friends all see me as a laid back, super chilled, easy going guy which makes this all the more shocking to them when they find out that this has without a doubt been the worst time of my life.
It all started when I was visiting friends in Liverpool. We had a cracking night out, got some truly delicious take away and went to bed. At 8am I wake up with my arms twitching, rolling over I realise it's not my arms but it's actually my heart beating insanely fast and hard SHAKING me awake. I say to my girlfriend "My heart...my heart it's going so fast! It wont stop" I try to get some water but it turns into a full blown panic in which I can't feel my arms or legs and my chest feels like it's vibrating. In my head I know this is the end as my vision starts clouding in and I'm close to passing out. Crying my girlfriend calls an ambulance which literally somehow feels like 30 seconds. The paramedic comes in, hooks me up and my heart is going 160 bpm! In his scouse accent he tells me my heart "is beating like the clappers" but I'm just having a panic attack "my mate" and to try take steady slow breaths. After about 5 minutes my heart rate is down to 100 and everything seems fine. Naturally I'm highly embarrassed as I've just woken up the whole house because I've just had a "panic attack" which I previously and naively believed wasn't even a real thing.
Everything seems fine, but the paramedic tells me he's seen from the ECG that I have a "small heart defect" known as Right Branch Bundle Block (RBBB). He goes on to tell me that this in the vast majority of cases doesn't mean much but occasionally it can mean that are underlying heart issues and that I have to get checked with the doctor. Taking his very reassuring word for it I think sweet, I'll book a doctors appointment, get it checked and everything will be grand.
Later on that week it's new years Eve so I go out with my girlfriend and some others for a night out. Same thing happens, I wake up in state of panic with my heart through the roof. This time though I calm myself down pretty quickly but it alarms me that I'm waking up in the middle of the night with a racing heart....This is where the spiral into an absolute abyss happens.
Calling Dr google I input RBBB + racing heart. The results that come up with are literally all the worst things. I convinced myself I had sudden death syndrome, heart failure, was having a heart attack, blood clots. The more I looked the more symptoms I seemed to be developing. I developed left arm pain (probably a 5 out of 10) and heart burn which I immediately attributed to a heart attack and went down to A&E. At A&E (5 hour wait in the worst week for the NHS or something) they told me I'm fine and gave me 6 diazepam to help me sleep that night and take through the week as well as being told it looks like I have an anxiety disorder. They told me to wait till I see my doctor about the heart tests.
The next cliff I fall off is when I go to the doctor. He takes an ECG, asks about my symptoms and I tell him I have an annoying pain in my left arm and that sometimes my index finger and second finger are going numb. He performs a quick battery of tests, takes my blood pressure and pulse (so anxious I was reading 130/80 and 120 beats per minute!!) He tells me I have to get blood tests to rule out some things and gives me some anti anxiety pills (They're actually anti psychosis!?) and refers me to a cardiologist . He also says if I can't get my pulse down he's going to be putting me on beta blockers
Hilariously immediately after the doctors I had to have some fillings (Naturally I have a full blown panic attack on the dentists chair because I decided the local aesthetic in my gums would be too strong and stop my heart, managed to keep it together though but wouldn't be surprised if they could hear my 150bpm heart thudding away or could see my completely white hands from squeezing so hard.)
I go get some blood tests and then return to work where the medicine is starting to take effect. My head feels like it has a hot towel tied round it, my arm is killing and now I'm getting breathless going up the stairs to sit at my desk. While I'm sat down the doctor rings me and tells me 1 of the 3 tests, the D-Dimer blood test which is what he really needed hasn't been done because the nurse put the blood sample in the wrong tube. He asks how I'm feeling and I tell him my arms still not good and I seem to be out of breath... He tells me to go straight to A&E because the test is for blood clots in the lungs and that my ecg is showing signs of "right sided heart strain". Type that into dr google and that's anxiety for 2 weeks right there and then.
At A&E (just over an hour this time) they test me for the blood clots, heart attack and all my values come back in completely normal ranges. He tells me he feels safe sending me home, to wait for the cardiologist and take it easy. I never take another anti-anxiety pill again
My anxiety by this point has become absolutely terrible, I could no longer eat, and had the weirdest symptoms:
A dry persistent cough (thought this is heart failure)
Left arm pain (thought this was heart attack)
Cramping in my right calf, sometimes behind the knee (Thought this was blood clots)
An extremely acidic stomach (heart attack and or heart failure)
Left fingers going numb (heart attack)
Headaches (Blood clots causing stroke)
Trembles (I actually managed to put this to anxiety)
Pain in left side of chest when breathing in (heart attack/failure)
Lump in throat
CONSTANT awareness of my heart beat (heart attack/failure)
Instant memory loss (heart attack/failure)
Twitching in my ear (heart attack/failure)
Palpitations (heart attack/failure)
Obviously these are all caused by anxiety (IF THE DOCTOR HAS RULED THEM OUT)
At this point I was thinking there could be something wrong with my heart but I 100% have some anxiety problem so I need to be tackling that because IF I do have a heart issue then the stress and anxiety will be making it much worse on my heart. I immediately signed up to a thing the NHS do which is amazing it's called the "NHS wellbeing" which is a free self referral program for people who are struggling with anxiety/depression/stress. It's a group session type setup with presentations on CBT, controlling worry and all that jazz. They also offer 1 to 1 help if the group program doesn't work. So I started going and then found this website
Finally I saw the cardiologist, who was incredibly calming and actually pretty amazing. She took an ECG (said the branch block is only partial and "within normal limits"), took blood pressure and pulse (110/70 and 60bpm), Did a 24 hour holter monitor which showed benign palpitations, probably stress induced, and an echo which I'm still waiting on the report for - The technician who did the echo said "you'll be pleased to know it all looks pretty normal, there are 1 or 2 minor changes which are to be expected but wait for the cardiologist, there is nothing alarming". I don't know if that means there are changes as seen on my ecg i.e my partial RBBB or because I'm nearly 30? But I know now not to worry until the cardiologist gets back to me. I guess the GP before was just trying to rule everything out but he really did make me spiral.
My recovery has been slow and steady but definitely happening since my low point. The best steps I've taken were:
1. Whatever you health anxiety is get it checked out by the doctor. ESPECIALLY if it's heart or cancer related, write down any questions you might have and then believe what they say. They are professionals. This was important to me with my left arm pain "You CAN'T be having a heart attack you've just been tested yesterday!!" I'd call myself an idiot for not trusting them and getting slightly pissed off about it seems to help in a strange way. There's always going to be the story you can find of a dr missing something but this is extremely rare, and rarer still if you know you have health anxiety as it's now even more likely that the problem will be health anxiety related!!
2. Go on soundcloud and search for "progressive relaxation deep relaxation wellbeing". I'd be so panicked that all I could feel was my heart until about 5 minutes in before I'd start to relax, then I would really start to relax. Do it every day to start with and just before bed. Don't let anyone disturb you while it's playing. This really helps trust me
3. Completely ban Dr google. It's always death
4. Exercise. This one is a big one for me. I've always been massive on the exercise; Gone from captaining my school team for football, ran 3 half marathons, done insanity a couple of times - to being scared to walking up stairs thinking I might die. I managed to play my first game of football on Tuesday after work since the ordeal with only minor heart worries and even scored a goal. Hopefully next week I'll be able to do the whole game without the worries and move on from there. They say exercise is one of the best stress relievers even if it's just going out for a brisk walk
5. Alcohol. Drinking seems to make the next day an absolute horror if I'm feeling anxious. If I'm not however and I don't overdo it then it doesn't seem to be a problem. I got cocky last week and drank Friday AND Saturday (girlfriends birthday). After the Friday I was completely fine but after the Saturday I'd had quite a big setback and ended up being anxious and aware of my heart again for a couple of days. I went round a friends and had 4 pints yesterday though and have had absolutely no effects from it anxiety wise. I guess moderation really is key now....
6. Sleeping. Sleeping is the absolute worst and is probably still my biggest problem. If you're aware of your heart you can feel it in your chest, ears, arms because it's so quiet. It's so difficult to switch it off. What worked best for me was lying in my right hand side (left is the worst for feeling your heart) and putting my arm round my girlfriend, it's kind of distracting... When I wake up in the night to get back to sleep I count to 100 in German, imaging each word in my minds eye. Usually I can only get up to about 20 before sleeping. I also do a thing where I look at the room and in detail think about 5 things I can see, 4 things I can feel, 3 things I can hear and 2 things I can smell. Now I can almost sort of switch off the feeling of my heart and switch back into it if I want to. Hearing my heart beat now doesn't terrify me either although I am still waking up in 3-5 in the night every night.
I guess as well the people around you help. My boss has been amazing, my girlfriend has been ridiculous and hasn't lost her cool with me once even though we both know I'm being ridiculous. I think writing out your experience helps too as it's incredibly distracting and also a little amusing looking back at the things you've been worked up about. You need to remember if the doctor says you're fine after having tests. Then you are fine.
I don't know if anyone will even read this. But if you do and have questions then feel free to ask.
Sean
I see a lot of posts here which are mainly of people really really struggling like I've been doing for the last 6 weeks. 6 weeks doesn't sound long at all compared with a lot of people on here but to me it's felt like an eternity
My story is that I'm a relatively young (29), sporty male who's never suffered with any form of anxiety or depression before. My friends all see me as a laid back, super chilled, easy going guy which makes this all the more shocking to them when they find out that this has without a doubt been the worst time of my life.
It all started when I was visiting friends in Liverpool. We had a cracking night out, got some truly delicious take away and went to bed. At 8am I wake up with my arms twitching, rolling over I realise it's not my arms but it's actually my heart beating insanely fast and hard SHAKING me awake. I say to my girlfriend "My heart...my heart it's going so fast! It wont stop" I try to get some water but it turns into a full blown panic in which I can't feel my arms or legs and my chest feels like it's vibrating. In my head I know this is the end as my vision starts clouding in and I'm close to passing out. Crying my girlfriend calls an ambulance which literally somehow feels like 30 seconds. The paramedic comes in, hooks me up and my heart is going 160 bpm! In his scouse accent he tells me my heart "is beating like the clappers" but I'm just having a panic attack "my mate" and to try take steady slow breaths. After about 5 minutes my heart rate is down to 100 and everything seems fine. Naturally I'm highly embarrassed as I've just woken up the whole house because I've just had a "panic attack" which I previously and naively believed wasn't even a real thing.
Everything seems fine, but the paramedic tells me he's seen from the ECG that I have a "small heart defect" known as Right Branch Bundle Block (RBBB). He goes on to tell me that this in the vast majority of cases doesn't mean much but occasionally it can mean that are underlying heart issues and that I have to get checked with the doctor. Taking his very reassuring word for it I think sweet, I'll book a doctors appointment, get it checked and everything will be grand.
Later on that week it's new years Eve so I go out with my girlfriend and some others for a night out. Same thing happens, I wake up in state of panic with my heart through the roof. This time though I calm myself down pretty quickly but it alarms me that I'm waking up in the middle of the night with a racing heart....This is where the spiral into an absolute abyss happens.
Calling Dr google I input RBBB + racing heart. The results that come up with are literally all the worst things. I convinced myself I had sudden death syndrome, heart failure, was having a heart attack, blood clots. The more I looked the more symptoms I seemed to be developing. I developed left arm pain (probably a 5 out of 10) and heart burn which I immediately attributed to a heart attack and went down to A&E. At A&E (5 hour wait in the worst week for the NHS or something) they told me I'm fine and gave me 6 diazepam to help me sleep that night and take through the week as well as being told it looks like I have an anxiety disorder. They told me to wait till I see my doctor about the heart tests.
The next cliff I fall off is when I go to the doctor. He takes an ECG, asks about my symptoms and I tell him I have an annoying pain in my left arm and that sometimes my index finger and second finger are going numb. He performs a quick battery of tests, takes my blood pressure and pulse (so anxious I was reading 130/80 and 120 beats per minute!!) He tells me I have to get blood tests to rule out some things and gives me some anti anxiety pills (They're actually anti psychosis!?) and refers me to a cardiologist . He also says if I can't get my pulse down he's going to be putting me on beta blockers
Hilariously immediately after the doctors I had to have some fillings (Naturally I have a full blown panic attack on the dentists chair because I decided the local aesthetic in my gums would be too strong and stop my heart, managed to keep it together though but wouldn't be surprised if they could hear my 150bpm heart thudding away or could see my completely white hands from squeezing so hard.)
I go get some blood tests and then return to work where the medicine is starting to take effect. My head feels like it has a hot towel tied round it, my arm is killing and now I'm getting breathless going up the stairs to sit at my desk. While I'm sat down the doctor rings me and tells me 1 of the 3 tests, the D-Dimer blood test which is what he really needed hasn't been done because the nurse put the blood sample in the wrong tube. He asks how I'm feeling and I tell him my arms still not good and I seem to be out of breath... He tells me to go straight to A&E because the test is for blood clots in the lungs and that my ecg is showing signs of "right sided heart strain". Type that into dr google and that's anxiety for 2 weeks right there and then.
At A&E (just over an hour this time) they test me for the blood clots, heart attack and all my values come back in completely normal ranges. He tells me he feels safe sending me home, to wait for the cardiologist and take it easy. I never take another anti-anxiety pill again
My anxiety by this point has become absolutely terrible, I could no longer eat, and had the weirdest symptoms:
A dry persistent cough (thought this is heart failure)
Left arm pain (thought this was heart attack)
Cramping in my right calf, sometimes behind the knee (Thought this was blood clots)
An extremely acidic stomach (heart attack and or heart failure)
Left fingers going numb (heart attack)
Headaches (Blood clots causing stroke)
Trembles (I actually managed to put this to anxiety)
Pain in left side of chest when breathing in (heart attack/failure)
Lump in throat
CONSTANT awareness of my heart beat (heart attack/failure)
Instant memory loss (heart attack/failure)
Twitching in my ear (heart attack/failure)
Palpitations (heart attack/failure)
Obviously these are all caused by anxiety (IF THE DOCTOR HAS RULED THEM OUT)
At this point I was thinking there could be something wrong with my heart but I 100% have some anxiety problem so I need to be tackling that because IF I do have a heart issue then the stress and anxiety will be making it much worse on my heart. I immediately signed up to a thing the NHS do which is amazing it's called the "NHS wellbeing" which is a free self referral program for people who are struggling with anxiety/depression/stress. It's a group session type setup with presentations on CBT, controlling worry and all that jazz. They also offer 1 to 1 help if the group program doesn't work. So I started going and then found this website
Finally I saw the cardiologist, who was incredibly calming and actually pretty amazing. She took an ECG (said the branch block is only partial and "within normal limits"), took blood pressure and pulse (110/70 and 60bpm), Did a 24 hour holter monitor which showed benign palpitations, probably stress induced, and an echo which I'm still waiting on the report for - The technician who did the echo said "you'll be pleased to know it all looks pretty normal, there are 1 or 2 minor changes which are to be expected but wait for the cardiologist, there is nothing alarming". I don't know if that means there are changes as seen on my ecg i.e my partial RBBB or because I'm nearly 30? But I know now not to worry until the cardiologist gets back to me. I guess the GP before was just trying to rule everything out but he really did make me spiral.
My recovery has been slow and steady but definitely happening since my low point. The best steps I've taken were:
1. Whatever you health anxiety is get it checked out by the doctor. ESPECIALLY if it's heart or cancer related, write down any questions you might have and then believe what they say. They are professionals. This was important to me with my left arm pain "You CAN'T be having a heart attack you've just been tested yesterday!!" I'd call myself an idiot for not trusting them and getting slightly pissed off about it seems to help in a strange way. There's always going to be the story you can find of a dr missing something but this is extremely rare, and rarer still if you know you have health anxiety as it's now even more likely that the problem will be health anxiety related!!
2. Go on soundcloud and search for "progressive relaxation deep relaxation wellbeing". I'd be so panicked that all I could feel was my heart until about 5 minutes in before I'd start to relax, then I would really start to relax. Do it every day to start with and just before bed. Don't let anyone disturb you while it's playing. This really helps trust me
3. Completely ban Dr google. It's always death
4. Exercise. This one is a big one for me. I've always been massive on the exercise; Gone from captaining my school team for football, ran 3 half marathons, done insanity a couple of times - to being scared to walking up stairs thinking I might die. I managed to play my first game of football on Tuesday after work since the ordeal with only minor heart worries and even scored a goal. Hopefully next week I'll be able to do the whole game without the worries and move on from there. They say exercise is one of the best stress relievers even if it's just going out for a brisk walk
5. Alcohol. Drinking seems to make the next day an absolute horror if I'm feeling anxious. If I'm not however and I don't overdo it then it doesn't seem to be a problem. I got cocky last week and drank Friday AND Saturday (girlfriends birthday). After the Friday I was completely fine but after the Saturday I'd had quite a big setback and ended up being anxious and aware of my heart again for a couple of days. I went round a friends and had 4 pints yesterday though and have had absolutely no effects from it anxiety wise. I guess moderation really is key now....
6. Sleeping. Sleeping is the absolute worst and is probably still my biggest problem. If you're aware of your heart you can feel it in your chest, ears, arms because it's so quiet. It's so difficult to switch it off. What worked best for me was lying in my right hand side (left is the worst for feeling your heart) and putting my arm round my girlfriend, it's kind of distracting... When I wake up in the night to get back to sleep I count to 100 in German, imaging each word in my minds eye. Usually I can only get up to about 20 before sleeping. I also do a thing where I look at the room and in detail think about 5 things I can see, 4 things I can feel, 3 things I can hear and 2 things I can smell. Now I can almost sort of switch off the feeling of my heart and switch back into it if I want to. Hearing my heart beat now doesn't terrify me either although I am still waking up in 3-5 in the night every night.
I guess as well the people around you help. My boss has been amazing, my girlfriend has been ridiculous and hasn't lost her cool with me once even though we both know I'm being ridiculous. I think writing out your experience helps too as it's incredibly distracting and also a little amusing looking back at the things you've been worked up about. You need to remember if the doctor says you're fine after having tests. Then you are fine.
I don't know if anyone will even read this. But if you do and have questions then feel free to ask.
Sean