Need some help please

[ella32]

Ive struggled with chest pains and chest pressure for a while but unfortunately i still cant accept that physically heart is fine because i still think im having heart attack every time i get the symptoms which is every day. This has drained me physically mentally and emotionally. In january i had stress test which was normal and had an echocardiogram aswell which was normal so why am i so convinced that theres something wrong with my heart . Im tired of the pain and other weird symptoms i get . At the moment having chest pain and weird burning tingling feeling in chest and arms and am starting to convince myself something dangerous going on.

[Gary A]

Can only repeat what I've told you countless times before, if there were something wrong with your heart, the countless tests you've had done would have shown it.

[pcdoc]

Hi Ella
Yep, vicious circle. Your HA causes you to think something bads going to happen and yourbody oliges by provide pain and/or discomfort.

My HA manifested itself 3 years ago now, sat watching tv and heart decided to beat 25 to the dozen. So wifey rang ambulance, to cut a long story short ecg's, 24 hour monitor, echo. Nowt, all was fine.

Now because of the ticker playing silly buggers I was convinced it was going to pack in. But fortunately wifey had seen some leaflets about panic attacks & anxiety, oh deep joy not my ticker its me head however even after being on citalopram for all that time I still get the jitters as I call em.

Back to wifey and talk to her about my fears etc (she is so understanding, a pain but understanding *grin*)
And I feel better once we've talked and I've blubbed.

HA is a little shitebag, either wont leave you alone for a while, if it does it then sneaks up on you.
If you've had all the test dux you'll be fine however our brains can make us think allsorts, again wifeys make her think shes a beautiful princess HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

[Panicer]

Hi Ella
As I'm sure you know it's all classic symptoms of anxiety. I battled this for about 4 months Last Oct to this Feb. I say battled because as has now been explained to me it was an internal battle with myself. I was constantly feeding my own anxiety and managed to give myself extreme chest pains, tingling arms, dizziness etc, whilst being convinced I had some sort of heart problems.

I've been having a lot of therapy for the last month or so and thankfully it has started to reduce. Although I knew and was told by others it was all anxiety related I still secretly thought but what if??? I can also say whether it was all in my head or not the pain was very real. I'm not 100% there yet but would suggest you look at some CBT techniques to help you. Probably the one that helped me the most was challenging my catastrophising thoughts by speaking out loud to myself for a couple of minutes, 5 times a day. It sounds silly and it is but the idea is if you keep doing it the positive thoughts stick. Something along the lines of " This is simply anxiety, I've been to the doctors they've told me my heart is fine, I am causing myself to feel like this because I am dumping Adrenalin into my system and it is a perfectly normal response that my heart beat has raised, I am sweating, my chest is tightening, my arms are tingling because of Adrenalin nothing else, if I had these sensations on a roller coaster I wouldn't be concerned, so why am I concerned now" then stand up shake yourself off, jump up and down, anything to use up a bit of the Adrenalin and ease of your muscles and repeat.

[Mojo61]

That's a great idea Panicer, I'm going to try it!

[Panicer]

Hi mojo, not mine but that's what I've managed to distill from a lot of very expensive therapy. All I can add is once I accepted it was anxiety, then accepted I'm going to have anxiety and it doesn't feel great but I'll be ok, rather than trying to run away from it, everything got a lot better.

[ella32]

Thanks for the replies. Its been hell the last while trying to tell myself my heart is fine regardless of what im feeling. Its just a never ending cycle. I get weird spasm feelings in heart aswell as chest pains and stuff and it automatically sends me into a panic which makes the thoughts it heart related so much harder to dismiss.

[Gary A]

Thanks for the replies. Its been hell the last while trying to tell myself my heart is fine regardless of what im feeling. Its just a never ending cycle. I get weird spasm feelings in heart aswell as chest pains and stuff and it automatically sends me into a panic which makes the thoughts it heart related so much harder to dismiss.

Your pains are clearly related to your anxiety. There simply cannot be a problem with your heart as you have had literally dozens of tests that have all shown a perfectly normal functioning heart.

Muscle tension and faulty breathing patterns are most likely the cause here. You have to try as hard as you can to stop automatically jumping to your heart being the cause.

In the meantime, if you're so scared of heart disease, try to excersise regularly, maintain a healthy diet with lots of fruit and veg, keep alcohol to a minimum and above all, quit smoking. Doing these things will greatly reduce your risk of heart disease.

You have a healthy heart, the only thing you can do is maintain it.

[ella32]

Thanks gary. I think im caught up in the worst case scenario thoughts all the time .they seem to be an automatic response to any kind of pain or sensation in chest. Its just spiralled out of control since my mam passed suddenly from a heart attack she was only 66 since then i cant get to grips with this obsessive fwar

[Ben1989]

My initial Health Anxiety was actually brought on by my heart not feeling slightly normal after playing football. For days it would feel a bit tight and I thought it was heart burn or indigestion or something. Then three days later (as I was searching possible causes) I got HIT with dizziness (my HA began from there).

I went to the hospital thinking it was heart related, but my main concern was dizziness. I had three ECGs, countless tests and all came back normal. I was told that ECGs are so good, that they can pick up anything. If there is even something ever slightly wrong it would be shown. They are extremely advanced. If there was anything wrong with any aspect of your heart, trust me it would have been picked up on most of the tests that you've had.

Following that I just accepted that's the feeling of my heart after sports. Learned to accept it. My heart has been fine since.