fishysushi
11-05-09, 15:55
Hello,
My Panic history:-
I had my first panic attack about 4 years ago. I woke up in the middle of the night and my heart was racing. The palps went on for a good few hours, I was sweating, my adrenalin was dumping all over but I knew I wasnt having a heart attack, I knew it was a panic attack but I didnt know why I was having it.
I walked around the garden for about an hour and still kept getting the adrenalin dumps so I started hitting golf balls around but I still couldnt calm down. In the end, a combination of putting in the living room with my dad and playing spider solitaire on the PC stopped my brain from ticking over and eventually I went back to sleep.
For a couple of weeks after I felt on edge, like I was about to enter an exam every morning, always looking back to how I felt during the panic attack, basically anticipating another one, dreading the recurrance.
After a while I sort the help of my GP who prescribed citalopram.
At first this worked, I stayed on it for the prescribed time, increased my exercise levels and felt fine, came of the medication and was fine. Then for some reason (which I struggle to recall) I started to get back into the cycle of panic attacks. After trying to beat this again on my own without the pills I returned to my GP and was prescribed citalopram and Diazepam for the times when I just couldnt out think my brain and what it was telling me
***by this time i had had 2 courses of cbt!!!
I went through a few cycles of having attacks and feeling bonza and was probably about a 6 months without having anxiety or panic in my world until I was playing in a football match and I had palps. I was fine with this as they lasted a few seconds but It started a little worry at the back of my mind...has something just gone wrong with my heart. I didnt think to much about it to be honest and played the next week just fine then I was lifting weights a few weeks after and had palps again. I started scouring the internet and all that kept flashing up was HEART ATTACK HEART ATTACK HEART ATTACK.
This triggered a panic attack, probably the worst Ive experienced last several days of thinking im going to die, adrenalin shooting through my body, catastrophising the whole situation, then the rational part of my brain kicking in and saying ''c'mon John, think it through, you havnt collapsed, your still here, youre just being a hypochondriac''. This cycle of up and down went on as a I mentioned for several days....I didnt want to go to the doctors and sit in front of the GP and say 'Im a 29 year old with a history of anxiety and I think theres something wrong with my heart because when I said it out loud it it sounded ridiculous.
In the end the panic attacks were physically crippling me and I ended up getting over my male pride and heading back to the docs feeling guilty once again about waisting there time. The doctor gave me an ECG and checked my blood pressure which were both spot on and I was happy.......
.....Then over the next few weeks, the more I read on heart attacks (I studied biology at uni) and hearts I convinced myself I had had some sort of infarction and I was about to have the follow up one that would be the end (and being of a scientific background and an athiest - the end for me is the end which makes it all the more scary).
I returned to the GP who put me back on meds and sent me off for another round of CBT. During this time I was not doing any exercise for fear of popping my clogs. My CBT chappy convinced me I was fine and I started to convince myself by starting to cycle to work and to double convice myself I took up mixed martial arts.
I mangaged to escape the cycle of panic again and was doing well until after the christmas just gone when I noticed I was belching more than the average 30 year old would or at least more than I would so I looked it up on the interweb and the first thing that popped up was stomach cancer......panic attacks again......made the stomach gas ten times worse...back to the docs....put on some meds to build up stomach lining...at worst, small stomach ulcer....Im fine again (mostly.. the odd relapse but I have since come off the meds and am hunky dory).
All was well and I was happy then I picked up a chest injury during an mma session. It was an ache I noticed the next day ( I had cracked my sterum a few years earlier and it felt like it was in a similar area but not as painful). I was all happy but then I started getting pains in my arms (this has been put down to an old shoulder injury (i am a walking wreck) or because I sleep on the arm quite a lot. This combined with the chest pain once again led to me convince myself that my heart was in a bad way but there was still a bit or sensible me saying it was fine and not to bother the GP but that side of me got demolished by the irrational side of me saying im dying....the pain got worse....I ended up back at the docs....blood pressure, oxygen saturation and all the ''you are fine sir...its just your anxiety''.
Once again happy until I caught I nice right to the noggin whilst sparring which rockd me a bit. No KO but my eyes fuzzed. I shook it off and carried on sparring for the rest of the session. Next day I woke up and I had a headache which lasted for 2 days (as expected if 17 stone lad clocks you) and by the weekend I was fine....I kept thinking back to the Richardson girl who had died from a small knock to the head and panic set in again on the Monday and I was convinced I had a heamorrage...i was getting all the somatic symptoms, fuzzy head, was I getting blurred vision, maybe??? lightheadedness, confusion...im sure I was but its a little for a brain bleed to erupt...hmmmm.
I popped around to my sisters to see her partner who is an A & E doc after a couple of days worrying ( I try not to go and ask him for med q&a cos I dont want to get in the habbit of bothering him and I didnt want to go to my GP because im sure im responsible by now for the nhs waiting list ((and i had a diff doc last time who said I should be careful about 'crying wolf' he didnt acknowledge the western problems of anxiety)). My sisters fella did the relivant exam and told me to monitor it but he said that I know its just my anxiety playing up and perhaps I should try a different therapy (cbt x 3 and im still struggling).
I laid off the sparring for a week and my headache has vanished but for the wrong reason....I keep agrivating my chest injury and have convinced myself my heart is playing up. As I have written this I have gone through several cycles of anxiety but then when im on an typing roll and not thinking about it...anxiety (and pain) is gone...so I can convince myself i am not dying. In fact, I will be at the MMA gym tonight and I will do a lot of conditioning exercises and sparring and I will be fine when im doing it but as soon as I stop and my heart is pounding I will start to feel the adrenalin dump again and panic will rush through my body. I am not prempting this by thinking its going to happen, It maybe one of the times it doesnt but they are becoming more infrequent again and its doing my head in.
I am on 40mgs of citalopram and had to take 4mg of vallium on Saturday to control a panic attack. Citalopram used to take the edge off but as it stands it seems not to be working as well as it used to and I resent resorting to vallium a) cos its adictive b) its bad for you in the long term c) the doctor will only prescribe me a limited amount so I often dont have any in the house.
Id rather not be taking medication full stop as im sure long term use will have adverse effects but at the moment im walking round like a big ball of stress which again will send me to an early grave.
I exercise 4 - 5 times a week, take citalopram and vallium if I have to, eat well most of the time, ive had 3 sessions of cbt and drink maybe once or twice a week if there is cause to. My partner is expecting our first child and I am double worrying myself that if I dont stop the anxiety I wont live to see the child grow up and I am worrying that I will worry too much when the sprog is born and have it rolling around in a bubble like bubble boy!
Really im asking for any tips/suggestions that you guys use to beat the anxiety!!!!!
When Im feeling at my worst I predict an early grave or at least premature hair loss (which I worry about).....and obviously the anxiety cycle starts all over again.
Thanks for reading.
Sorry about the essay and the gratuitous use of brackets and probably the poor spelling and punctuation
John
My Panic history:-
I had my first panic attack about 4 years ago. I woke up in the middle of the night and my heart was racing. The palps went on for a good few hours, I was sweating, my adrenalin was dumping all over but I knew I wasnt having a heart attack, I knew it was a panic attack but I didnt know why I was having it.
I walked around the garden for about an hour and still kept getting the adrenalin dumps so I started hitting golf balls around but I still couldnt calm down. In the end, a combination of putting in the living room with my dad and playing spider solitaire on the PC stopped my brain from ticking over and eventually I went back to sleep.
For a couple of weeks after I felt on edge, like I was about to enter an exam every morning, always looking back to how I felt during the panic attack, basically anticipating another one, dreading the recurrance.
After a while I sort the help of my GP who prescribed citalopram.
At first this worked, I stayed on it for the prescribed time, increased my exercise levels and felt fine, came of the medication and was fine. Then for some reason (which I struggle to recall) I started to get back into the cycle of panic attacks. After trying to beat this again on my own without the pills I returned to my GP and was prescribed citalopram and Diazepam for the times when I just couldnt out think my brain and what it was telling me
***by this time i had had 2 courses of cbt!!!
I went through a few cycles of having attacks and feeling bonza and was probably about a 6 months without having anxiety or panic in my world until I was playing in a football match and I had palps. I was fine with this as they lasted a few seconds but It started a little worry at the back of my mind...has something just gone wrong with my heart. I didnt think to much about it to be honest and played the next week just fine then I was lifting weights a few weeks after and had palps again. I started scouring the internet and all that kept flashing up was HEART ATTACK HEART ATTACK HEART ATTACK.
This triggered a panic attack, probably the worst Ive experienced last several days of thinking im going to die, adrenalin shooting through my body, catastrophising the whole situation, then the rational part of my brain kicking in and saying ''c'mon John, think it through, you havnt collapsed, your still here, youre just being a hypochondriac''. This cycle of up and down went on as a I mentioned for several days....I didnt want to go to the doctors and sit in front of the GP and say 'Im a 29 year old with a history of anxiety and I think theres something wrong with my heart because when I said it out loud it it sounded ridiculous.
In the end the panic attacks were physically crippling me and I ended up getting over my male pride and heading back to the docs feeling guilty once again about waisting there time. The doctor gave me an ECG and checked my blood pressure which were both spot on and I was happy.......
.....Then over the next few weeks, the more I read on heart attacks (I studied biology at uni) and hearts I convinced myself I had had some sort of infarction and I was about to have the follow up one that would be the end (and being of a scientific background and an athiest - the end for me is the end which makes it all the more scary).
I returned to the GP who put me back on meds and sent me off for another round of CBT. During this time I was not doing any exercise for fear of popping my clogs. My CBT chappy convinced me I was fine and I started to convince myself by starting to cycle to work and to double convice myself I took up mixed martial arts.
I mangaged to escape the cycle of panic again and was doing well until after the christmas just gone when I noticed I was belching more than the average 30 year old would or at least more than I would so I looked it up on the interweb and the first thing that popped up was stomach cancer......panic attacks again......made the stomach gas ten times worse...back to the docs....put on some meds to build up stomach lining...at worst, small stomach ulcer....Im fine again (mostly.. the odd relapse but I have since come off the meds and am hunky dory).
All was well and I was happy then I picked up a chest injury during an mma session. It was an ache I noticed the next day ( I had cracked my sterum a few years earlier and it felt like it was in a similar area but not as painful). I was all happy but then I started getting pains in my arms (this has been put down to an old shoulder injury (i am a walking wreck) or because I sleep on the arm quite a lot. This combined with the chest pain once again led to me convince myself that my heart was in a bad way but there was still a bit or sensible me saying it was fine and not to bother the GP but that side of me got demolished by the irrational side of me saying im dying....the pain got worse....I ended up back at the docs....blood pressure, oxygen saturation and all the ''you are fine sir...its just your anxiety''.
Once again happy until I caught I nice right to the noggin whilst sparring which rockd me a bit. No KO but my eyes fuzzed. I shook it off and carried on sparring for the rest of the session. Next day I woke up and I had a headache which lasted for 2 days (as expected if 17 stone lad clocks you) and by the weekend I was fine....I kept thinking back to the Richardson girl who had died from a small knock to the head and panic set in again on the Monday and I was convinced I had a heamorrage...i was getting all the somatic symptoms, fuzzy head, was I getting blurred vision, maybe??? lightheadedness, confusion...im sure I was but its a little for a brain bleed to erupt...hmmmm.
I popped around to my sisters to see her partner who is an A & E doc after a couple of days worrying ( I try not to go and ask him for med q&a cos I dont want to get in the habbit of bothering him and I didnt want to go to my GP because im sure im responsible by now for the nhs waiting list ((and i had a diff doc last time who said I should be careful about 'crying wolf' he didnt acknowledge the western problems of anxiety)). My sisters fella did the relivant exam and told me to monitor it but he said that I know its just my anxiety playing up and perhaps I should try a different therapy (cbt x 3 and im still struggling).
I laid off the sparring for a week and my headache has vanished but for the wrong reason....I keep agrivating my chest injury and have convinced myself my heart is playing up. As I have written this I have gone through several cycles of anxiety but then when im on an typing roll and not thinking about it...anxiety (and pain) is gone...so I can convince myself i am not dying. In fact, I will be at the MMA gym tonight and I will do a lot of conditioning exercises and sparring and I will be fine when im doing it but as soon as I stop and my heart is pounding I will start to feel the adrenalin dump again and panic will rush through my body. I am not prempting this by thinking its going to happen, It maybe one of the times it doesnt but they are becoming more infrequent again and its doing my head in.
I am on 40mgs of citalopram and had to take 4mg of vallium on Saturday to control a panic attack. Citalopram used to take the edge off but as it stands it seems not to be working as well as it used to and I resent resorting to vallium a) cos its adictive b) its bad for you in the long term c) the doctor will only prescribe me a limited amount so I often dont have any in the house.
Id rather not be taking medication full stop as im sure long term use will have adverse effects but at the moment im walking round like a big ball of stress which again will send me to an early grave.
I exercise 4 - 5 times a week, take citalopram and vallium if I have to, eat well most of the time, ive had 3 sessions of cbt and drink maybe once or twice a week if there is cause to. My partner is expecting our first child and I am double worrying myself that if I dont stop the anxiety I wont live to see the child grow up and I am worrying that I will worry too much when the sprog is born and have it rolling around in a bubble like bubble boy!
Really im asking for any tips/suggestions that you guys use to beat the anxiety!!!!!
When Im feeling at my worst I predict an early grave or at least premature hair loss (which I worry about).....and obviously the anxiety cycle starts all over again.
Thanks for reading.
Sorry about the essay and the gratuitous use of brackets and probably the poor spelling and punctuation
John