Am I OK?

[NervousNellie]

Hi everyone! I'm new here and I'm looking for some support - I suffer from terrible health anxiety. If I'm not worried about myself, I worry about everyone else! Last month, I ended up in the hospital after a visit to my GP. I went in because I was coming down with a virus, so I was hoping that I would get some antibiotics. When I first got there, my blood pressure was 142/82 (which is quite high for me) and I was having constant palpitations (from my fear of doctors)and when the nurse checked my pulse, she felt one. So she told me that she wanted to do an ecg - I got so worked up about this and thought something was terribly wrong, so I sent myself into a full panic attack. The ecg read my heartrate at 148, so the doctor sent me to the hospital from his office, by ambulance!
Once I got to the hospital, they ran another ecg and the heartrate went down a bit and the rhythm was normal. They did bloodwork and an student in training ran another ecg, however on the 2nd ecg, the rhythm was abnormal. So they ran another round of bloodwork. When the doctor came in, he told me that he couldn't understand why my 2nd ecg was abnormal when my bloodwork was so perfect! He told the nurse to run a 3rd ecg (this was the same nurse that ran the first one) and if that was normal, he was going to send me home. Before running the 3rd ecg, the nurse noticed that one of the leads was not connected properly and the 3rd ecg came out perfect with a heartrate of 94. The doctor sent me home with a diagnosis of anxiety.
My question is....do you think that I am OK? I have been to a cardiologist 3 times in the last year and he did ecg's, an echo and I wore a holter monitor for 24 hours. All results were normal and he said that whatever I was experiencing was not cardiac related and not to come back! I am 30 years old. I started to relax about my heart health until this episode with being sent to the hospital. Now the fact that I had an "abnormal" ecg is driving me nuts. I've heard that panic attacks and movement during an ecg can alter the results, but I'm still worried about it. I was panicking during that 2nd test and I also moved my head, but the doctor said that things like that won't affect the test. I know that it may have been an error with the 2nd test because the lead may not have been hooked up correctly, but I am absolutely panicked by the thought of having an abnormal ecg! The doctor at the hospital also mentioned that he has never seen such perfect bloodwork in a patient that came into the hospital in the same situation as me - he said it was textbook perfect. Do you think it's safe for me to believe that my ecg's were normal and I am OK? Please help me!:weep: I just need some reassurance!

[gtrgrl3369]

I think you are just fine honey. The doctors told you that and know it is up to you to try and believe them. I had the same fears as you did, no matter what they told me I knew they were wrong and missing something, my heat would pound so hard I thought it was going to jump right out of my chest. It never did and when I learned how to breathe the right way I was able to calm it down myself. Fear is a nasty thing. It takes hold and until we can let go of it, it will remain there and do all sots of fun stuff to us to scare us more. The next time your heart starts to race, take some deep breaths and remember that it is beating to keep you alive and is stronger than what you think. You can do this. Take care and write me if you ned to talk.

[pedropanic]

This is me all over!

I was at gym, very stressed and unhappy at that time, bent over too quickly and my heart went THUD and a fearful thought occurred: what if something was wrong?

Well I had my worst panic attack ever and ended up in the ER where the nurses were useless; rude, abrupt, telling me how concerned they were about my ECG readings and skipping heart beats and that I HAD TO calm down which sent me over the edge: my adrenaline surged, my resting rate went to 168bpm and the rhythm was all over the place, my vision went, I couldn't feel my fingers.....I've never experienced panic like it! And the clatter, the horrible machines, the rude doctors, the ignorant nurses, the junkies vomiting, the car crash victims.....the ER is no place to try and calm down!

I don't know why but they gave me Morphine and as this relaxed me my heart went right back into a normal rhythm and came back down to 78bpm.

The next week I had X-Rays, bloodwork, ECGs and Echos, went to see a cardiologist: all fine. Still the experience in hospital was so traumatic and shattered my trust in emergency medical teams. It's the fear of having that experience again which creates my anxiety, I was terrified of dying at 29! I know how you feel, so allow yourself time to let the memory of that experience fade, and don't recoil in terror everytime you think about it, this alone can create more anxiety.

I know how hard it is to trust that all the tests are pointing the in the right direction but just remember at a specialist level like Cardiology the doctors are highly skilled and the technology is just amazing. Chances are your doctor is right and there is nothing to worry about, but it can be hard to make that leap of faith. Trust your doctor, he didn't do all that study just for a certificate!

Don't add fear to your fearful thoughts; don't tense yourself as soon as you think: oh God am I OK!? This is just a normal thought we all have, let it come and go. As soon as you tense yourself you add more symptoms, your heart rate goes up which convinces you you're not OK! Let your shoulders go loose, relax your stomach muscles, take your attention to breathing properly (through your diaphragm) and let the thought float in an out of your mind as you continue on, it's not an important thought.

You'll be fine. We all will :)

[Trixie]

Well all I can say is this..........................................



ANY FITTER AND YOU'LD BE POSITIVELY DANGEROUS:D

[NervousNellie]

Thank you everybody! I am so glad that I found this site! Although anxiety isn't any fun, it's nice to know that there are other people out there that experience the same thing! It really makes it a lot easier to deal with! :D

[nickieb]

Ecg's are amazing for diagnosis but with human error can read a whole range of probs. the fact that the ECG was checked again suggests you are fine. The blood work would have showed anything cardiac related and the fact u have had every test going suggests its just panic hun.

Its a bugger xx