Learning to ignore bodily sensations?

[Mander]

Does anyone have a good resource or advice for training yourself to ignore body sensations? I've had a big increase in panicky feelings lately, and they are almost always triggered by noticing some little minor pain or discomfort somewhere in my body. It seems that if I could train myself to ignore them I might be able to reduce the panic attacks.

If I have random little pains or discomfort in my left arm or chest, a very vague sense of unreality or lightheadedness, or sudden awareness of my heart beating, that usually makes me start to panic. These sensations are usually transient, and disappear in a few moments, or are often just the same as random little pains or discomfort in other parts of my body that I am barely aware of. A twinge of pain in my calf, for example, can feel exactly the same as the little twinge I would get in the area of my sternum, but won't make me think I have a blood clot in my leg. The same little twinge in my chest gets me thinking about an impending heart attack.

Has anyone found a method for training yourself not to react to these little random sensations?

[PanicMan]

This is the hard part about HA. How do you determine what is an ache that should be ignored or worried about? Most people will say I'll leave it a few days and see how it goes whereas someone with HA will react straight away on the basis that something being caught early can help you.

Personally until you have had a full work up by a doctor and everything comes back clear it will be hard to just shut yourself off to your aches.

[Angelicnorth]

Hi Mander

I have the same symptoms as you, they were so severe that I have been off sick for almost three months, bearing in mind I have never been off sick ever! I went for CBT and was told that I needed to rationalize the symptoms.

I was shown two sets of symptoms and asked to rate the ones I had/was experiencing from 1-10 in severity so I did and guess what . . one was for a panic attack and one was for a heart attack, I did not know this when I was started rating the symptoms.

I rated the heart attack the worst and panic attack second and did not have all the panic attacks symptoms . . . needless to say the therpaist was taken aback and said I sincerely apologise now if you have had a heart attack and I can send you for special therapy if you have.

I was sure I had had one many doctors said it was anxiety (overexaggerated and irrational response) and other said it could have been a blood clot.

I am still no further forward with a definite diagnosis, all the tests (Echocardiogram ECG + 24ECG) were negative but apparantley 20% of all Heart Attacks go undiagnosed and do not always cause damage to the heart muscle if it is an inferior MI.

What I am trying to say is don't ignore bodily symptoms but try and rationalize, if something really bad is happening you will know the difference, I didn't recover from the chest pain for over 10 weeks that's and it stopped me walking, I was too breathless to speak at times and had an intense feeling of impending doom.

On the bright side, I am still alive and thank full.

Helen x

[Mander]

Drat, I was writing a nice long reply and hit the wrong button. :(

Anyway, the upshot is that I have had several tests recently (including EKG, blood pressure, cholesterol, etc.) which show no reason for concern. I do have a couple of risk factors (lifelong obesity, father had a minor heart attack, ex-smoker) but the doctor is not terribly concerned about these. She points out that if I can walk up the extremely steep hill from my house to her office and end up only somewhat out of breath, that I am not in any imminent danger of death.

I have been fairly well reassurred that rationally I have nothing to fear. It's just reminding myself of that (and believing it) that is the hard part, and I wonder if anyone had a method they have tried for really learning how to change your mind.

[tasia]

I suffer with HA and I sometimes have to calm myself down by telling myself its nothing to worry about and im overreacting and occasionally it does work. I must say that since joining NMP it has really helped me so much. I get fed up of myself because I just get over one thing and have a little peace and than something else happens for instance at the moment its my eyes again, im panicking about them I had this problem a few months ago went to the optricians etc., nothing wrong ofcourse, now here we go again its like being stuck on a merry-go-round. Life sucks sometimes.

[Fledylids]

So really, it seems to be about "practice." At first, any kind of new panic symptom would freak me out. Now it's like... well, I know I've felt Symptom X many many times before, and guess what: I'm not dead yet. Based on previous experiences, I conclude I'm not gonna die this time either. I've only had HA for like... 3-4 months now, and the journey can be tough. To give you an example, I currently feel some pain in my left chest and arm. Actually I did like five minutes ago, not so much now. I'm still alive though. It's all about practice: you get used to the symptoms, and you start to realize that your body is doing fine and the symptoms are nothing to worry about (provided you've seen your doctor of course). Good luck!

[Utility]

Hi

It's a case of listening to reason and it happened to me when I had a chat with a cardiologist.

Me sitting there with my shortness of breath, chest pains, sore arms, aching legs and thinking I was not long for this earth. Then the cardiologist reminded me that all my tests were fine, in fact very fine. He went on to tell me that out of all the people that are referred to him only a fraction of them require further investigation and out of that fraction only a fraction of these need further investigation. In other words the vast vast vast majority can be explained through non life threatening situations.

That did it for me.

Still get some feelings but not a patch on what they were - because I listened to reason

[mark1980]

For me it comes in stages. I can go weeks and sometimes longer where I am not noticing my health anxiety. It gets triggered by stress, changes in my life or over doing things - then once it has started it often takes weeks to stop. It's a terrible place to be when things are bad and thankfully I am on the mend at the moment - being rational.

I wish I knew a way to totally overcome this but part of me accepts that it will happen. Just recently things were the worse I have ever felt and I don't want to go back there anytime soon. The method is to be rational, but that is easier said than done when you are in the thick of it.