Fear of coronary artery anomaly making me stop exercise

[Ronan23]

In what is surely the most ironic manifestation of health anxiety in history, my fear of a certain heart issue, which is associated with sudden death during exercise, is making me actively do something unhealthy, i.e. refrain from exercising.

So, in a condition that revolves worrying excessively about my health, I am now doing something unhealthy (not exercising) because of a fear over an anomaly, which few people have, that can cause sudden death while exercising.

Studies show coronary artery anomalies to be present in 0.2% to 1.3% of patients undergoing coronary angiography. Whether those figures can be extrapolated to the entire population, I dunno.

But basically, because of the potential for sudden death with these anomalies during intense workouts, I have now stopped exercising completely. My plan is to pay for an expensive imaging test, such as cardio echo or cardiac CT, just so I can be safe in the knowledge I don't have this anomaly.

Can anyone offer advice on getting back to exercise without going through such unnecessary expense and stress? This is clearly no way to live life but I'm now at the point where I feel i'm risking my life by jogging for 30 mins.

[ankietyjoe]

What triggered a fear of something so exceptionally rare? I'm assuming it's Dr Google given that you say 'Studies show......'.

Have you had any symptoms of heart issues such as chest pain or breathlessness during exercise?

I've been down this road before. I had an acute reaction to exercise about 5 years ago that caused prolonged tachycardia (over 120bpm for a couple of days), but that was due to stress. Nothing was found to be wrong with my heard. It happened again about 18 months later, again due to stress. Of course, I became 100% sedentary during that 5 year period.

Ultimately I had enough of being a Hutt and just got of my arse and started exercising about 6 months ago. It was absolute hell to start with, but now I have no regrets.

Your fear is completely irrational (which I feel you already know) and there's a 100% chance of your health deteriorating (which you also know) if you don't exercise, whereas there's a 0.001% chance of your health deteriorating if you do*.

*I plucked numbers from the air....but you know what I mean.