Some Advice PLEEEEZ

[Beckster26]

Hi Everyone

I am just looking for some advice!!!

I have suffered with Panic attacks. I have noticed
that sometimes I get, what I can only describe, as a shooting pain in my
chest. It hasnt happend for a while now and all of a sudden it happend to
me this morning and I have noticed it all day.

Plz can someone shed any light on this!!!

Thanks take care Becky xxxx :doh:

[Tom_M]

Hi Beckster26

It depends on whereabouts in the chest you get the pain and if there are other symptoms. Most chest pains are completely harmless. We automatically think because it's our chest that it as something to with the heart, which it seldom is - the stomach being the biggest culprit most of the time.

Tom

[Beckster26]

Hi Tom

The pain is in the middle of my chest but I havent got any other symptoms??

Thanks Becky

[Sunkid]

Hi there

I have had all kinds of chest pains, including the one in the middle of the chest that starts off as a sharp pain and lingers for a while afterwards. It sometimes stops me in my tracks. In my case it was related to indigestion and on other occasions it was muscular and related to bad posture.
I also found that the lingering pain was nothing more than me focusing on that part of my body and expecting more pain. Once I told myself that I am fine, the pain disappeared.
I have learnt to accept the pain and to live with it when it comes. It happens out of the blue and at times when I feel on top of the world, but I have learnt that the anxiety thing happens in cycles. I first experience the emotional part of anxiety and the physical symptoms appear later when I feel much better. It is as though the one one feeds on the other. Accept the physical symptoms in order to break the cycle. I know it is not easy, but the rewards are worth it

Good luck

[Jaco45er]

Hiya

When we get anxious, a whole host of chemicals are realeased into the bloodstream. It's a natural reaction to the "fight of flight" mechanism we all have, it's just that with anxiety sufferers, this kicks in with no apparant danger.

These chemicals get you ready for the flight, or fight, by making all your systems alert. This includes adrenaline to the muscles (hence shooting pains as we are not fighting or flighting) and can even make you sick, as the body is designed to get light by losing weight quickly, errr from both ends lol.

This is why we get all these pains while anxious, shooting chest pains, gurgly stomach, wind, dizzy head, and all this just adds to the anxiety.

The trick is in the thinking, once you can get in the mindset that it's only anxiety, and not the precursor to some illness, then it goes relatively swiftly.

As Claire Weekes says, its an illness of how we think, and not as much as how we feel, thinking leads to the feelings.

Good luck :)

Jaco