Body Very Tense, BP, Heart Rate Up

[user007]

My anxiety tension has slowly been building for years. I've lived with it until last fall when I asked DR for something to help calm my nerves a bit. He tried me on hydroxyzine as needed. I didn't notice much calming effect, but I slept well with it so I took it nightly for a couple weeks until I started noticing shortness or breath, headaches, and chest pain. My blood pressure was 20 points above normal and my heart rate got up to 100-110. I even woke up like this. I read the medicine can mess with heart rate so I stopped it and within two days everything was normal.

I've now been off it for weeks but have started having the same symptoms again without it. My body is very, very tense. My muscles are sore from just a minute of strain. My chest hurts in the middle. My neck is tight and I have head pain that isn't a true headache. My heart rate is up in the 80 to 90 range and my BP is 20 points higher again, but only the top number where it was both numbers on the medicine.

I'm trying to convince myself this is just a new level of anxiety but nothing I do calms me down unless my mind is 100% distracted or I'm sleeping. The second I wake my heart rate shoots up again and I feel anxious until I fall asleep. I've tried to stay still in a quiet room and control my breathing but my chest stays tight. I'm not sure what to try at this point. It's starting to make me worry of adrenal tumors or cushings, but I just keep trying to think it's just anxiety, but I've got to find something to relax me and don't know what to do.

[Sparkling_Fairy]

Hey, I wanted to reply so you know you're not alone. But I can't offer any advice.
I suffer from the same thing. It's my main symptom of anxiety at the moment. I have moments in the day where I just tense up all my muscles, mainly in my upper body, and my heart goes a little faster, I also feel it really hard, not sure about my BP because I don't measure that. But my stomach muscles also become really tight, and my diaphragm which affects my breathing.
There's really not much I can do to make it stop. Sometimes walking around a bit helps. But mostly I just have to let it pass.
I think it's too much cortisol that is doing this. And I think waiting it out without adding any extra anxiety on top if it is the only way to deal with it.

[ErinKC]

It all sounds like anxiety. It was good to go to your doctor and look for treatment and it's not unusual for the first thing not to work. I would go back to your doctor and discuss the side effects you had from the meds and ask if there is something different you can try.