Nervous Wreck
17-05-07, 10:35
Hello
This is my first post on here. I've been browseing as a guest for a couple of weeks & found this site very reassurring. Theres been something on my mind a lot recently that I thought I'd share with you and hopefully someone can reassure me that its just anxiety & nothing else...
I'm a 28 year old male. I had what was diagnosed as a panic attack for the first time 3 months ago. At the time I thought I was having a heart attack or stroke, and ended up in hospital - basically I woke up with severe chest pain, both arms paralysed, a weird numbness in my head and breifly complete loss of vision. It only lasted 30 seconds or so and then everything went completely normal again, but it scared me into calling an ambulance.
Since then I've had ECGs, blood pressure tests, and loads of blood tests, but everything seems to be fine, other than slightly higher than average blood pressure (but not dangerously high). I've been diagnosed as having anxiety. Since then I've ate really healthily, gone running 3 times a week and lost two stones. Overall I feel healthier than I have since my early teens, and I've been trying very hard not to worry and to accept that its just caused by anxiety.
However, I've been having similar, but less severe symptoms on & off since then. The symptoms often start happening in dreams, where I'm dreaming that I'm doing something normal, but suddenly get a rapid heart rate, followed often by a horrible spinning & falling over sensation, then numbness in the head. At this point I usually wake up - sometimes the feelings stop the moment I wake, but sometimes carry on for 10 to 20 seconds or so while I'm awake - which suggests they're very real and not just a bad dream. Sometimes, such as when it happended this morning, theres a brief ringing sound in my ears as I wake up. Sometimes theres a massive spasm in my chest, after which everything suddenly goes normal again. The feelings never last long, despite being very intense, & alway goe away very suddenly.
I've spoken with my GP about this & she says its just anxiety & physically I'm fine. But I can't stop worrying about it. Once when looking up the symptoms on google(something I've stopped doing cos it just makes me worse!), it sounded like it could be a mini stroke. My GP assures me it isn't. But it seems a little bit different to most of the descriptions of panic attacks that I've read. The only other anxiety symptoms I get are sometimes I get a dull ache in the left of my chest.
So basically what I'm asking is, has anyone else had these sort of symptoms at all? OR any ideas what could be causing it?
Any help is very appreciated
Cheers
John
This is my first post on here. I've been browseing as a guest for a couple of weeks & found this site very reassurring. Theres been something on my mind a lot recently that I thought I'd share with you and hopefully someone can reassure me that its just anxiety & nothing else...
I'm a 28 year old male. I had what was diagnosed as a panic attack for the first time 3 months ago. At the time I thought I was having a heart attack or stroke, and ended up in hospital - basically I woke up with severe chest pain, both arms paralysed, a weird numbness in my head and breifly complete loss of vision. It only lasted 30 seconds or so and then everything went completely normal again, but it scared me into calling an ambulance.
Since then I've had ECGs, blood pressure tests, and loads of blood tests, but everything seems to be fine, other than slightly higher than average blood pressure (but not dangerously high). I've been diagnosed as having anxiety. Since then I've ate really healthily, gone running 3 times a week and lost two stones. Overall I feel healthier than I have since my early teens, and I've been trying very hard not to worry and to accept that its just caused by anxiety.
However, I've been having similar, but less severe symptoms on & off since then. The symptoms often start happening in dreams, where I'm dreaming that I'm doing something normal, but suddenly get a rapid heart rate, followed often by a horrible spinning & falling over sensation, then numbness in the head. At this point I usually wake up - sometimes the feelings stop the moment I wake, but sometimes carry on for 10 to 20 seconds or so while I'm awake - which suggests they're very real and not just a bad dream. Sometimes, such as when it happended this morning, theres a brief ringing sound in my ears as I wake up. Sometimes theres a massive spasm in my chest, after which everything suddenly goes normal again. The feelings never last long, despite being very intense, & alway goe away very suddenly.
I've spoken with my GP about this & she says its just anxiety & physically I'm fine. But I can't stop worrying about it. Once when looking up the symptoms on google(something I've stopped doing cos it just makes me worse!), it sounded like it could be a mini stroke. My GP assures me it isn't. But it seems a little bit different to most of the descriptions of panic attacks that I've read. The only other anxiety symptoms I get are sometimes I get a dull ache in the left of my chest.
So basically what I'm asking is, has anyone else had these sort of symptoms at all? OR any ideas what could be causing it?
Any help is very appreciated
Cheers
John