So strange

[oldgraymare]

Hi my ha is crazy today. I've been feeling I'll every minute of every day for nearly two years now. I've had blood tests urine tests stomach tests intestine tests heart tests everything, and nothing has been revealed other than anxiety and depression. My sister saw my a year ago when I was feeling so sick and at my worst mentally before she went travelling. Now that she's home she's revealed she's been experiencing the exact and I mean exact same symptoms including panic, all out of the blue and it's been going on for months. Now I can understand her having anxiety and depression right now too since we are going through a rough time with my brother who has very serious health issues and it's wearing on my parents, it's a lot of stress. But I don't know, to experience it the exact same way right around the same time? It seems awfully coincedental...what we feel is:
stomach upset - (reflux, nausea and for me bad cramping and diarrhea though I think she's beginning to experience that too)
light headedness
weakness
a strange, trapped in a dream feeling
exhaustion (for me to the point of shaking and shivering)

this is twenty four seven. Without respite. At all. Anxious, tired, depressed or not, we both just feel awful and like we are dying.
Is this how anxiety works? I've had symptoms of anxiety for years bit of stomach upset, stiff muscles and what not but everything seems increased ten fold no matter what I do or what drugs I take and it came on so hard and rentless just all of the sudden out of no where and has yet to ease for even a
second. How could this only be anxiety? I mean my sister only saw me once in the worst of it so it's not like she would learn from my symptoms or wutever it just makes absolutely no sense to either of us and it's getting extremely frustrating and scary. Does anxiety just suddenly cause symptoms all day every single day? I don't get it...

[jothenurse]

I have symptoms every day - it's just that some days are better than others. I always feel nervous to some degree and my gaggy feeling is always there in the morning. I take Ativan every day to help that.

[anthrokid]

After travelling and having a horrible and scary night I woke up the next day feeling icky, sick, sore and like something was wrong. I've had some symptoms all day every day since then, others come and go. But I've had symptoms like numbness and pressure in my face for a month continually at one stage. And I constantly feel 'out of it' or I suppose like everything is not real. Dreamy perhaps? Just wierd! The more I think about it the worse they get. Horrible cycle because you really can't help but think about them when it's all you can feel!

[oldgraymare]

to jo: im sorry that you suffer something similar. its so awful to have to go through every day with this weird feeling underlying everything you do. im glad the ativan helps you a bit. its a comfort to know that someone else feels it daily. thank you for your reply and good luck to you with everything.

to aimee: i had an incident like that years ago where it was another period where my brother was in and out of the hospital, we had zero time to plan moving out because of that so not only were we leaving my childhood home but we were racing to get things packed at 2 am...so when i finally did get to sleep i woke up only a couple of hours later shivering uncontrollably and feeling awful, but there wasnt any heavy panic or anxiety involved, just a bit of uneasiness that time. all the same though it wasnt a pleasant experience so i can only imagine how awful it was for you :(. My catalyst was when i had a bad bout of what ive been told was ibs after working night shifts at work for a couple of weeks and i was commuting 2 hours there and 2 hours back 4-5 days a week, 9 hour shifts, feeding my aunts cats on the way home, sleeping on my moms couch, my usual anxieties on top of everything, so on and so forth. one night i just had the horrible bout of the d word and from that moment on have not felt the same. im so sorry that you feel the same heady derealization feeling i get, i think that has to be one of the worst parts of the whole thing, like your brain has gone on vacation. i hope you are at the stage where it doesnt freak you out as much. thank you very much for your post, again it is a comfort to know that its possible to feel these things every minute of every day, thats one of the big things i cant wrap my head around about this illness. i wish you the best.

the other thing i cant understand is, it sort of makes sense that i would have this physical and mental, for lack of a better word, breakdown as i have always had a pretty high, though bearable, level of anxiety. my sister on the other hand has never had any issues at all with anxiety, at least not that i know of perhaps she hid it really well. she has always considered me a bit of a spaz (in a lovable way of course) for my anxieties, at least she never understood them. so for her to not only have such a sudden and heavy breakdown as well at pretty near the same time as me, but to also have it manifest itself in the EXACT same way, i mean she sounds EXACTLY the way i was in the beginning, saying all the same things i feel physically and mentally. i cant help but feel its a bit odd...but i guess thats the nature of anxiety and or specifically HA...

[Zee]

This time round my HA started about 3 months ago.I had been ok for 10 years before that..It started this time with indigestion on/off couple days but then neck and shoulder tension started up and then sinus, balance probs.. Since the HA really took over ive had all sorts of symptoms..uncomfy throat, hot turns, cold turns, nausea, tum upsets, inside shakiness..It always seems a bit better in the evening for some reason.

[anthrokid]

Oh your catalyst sounds horrible, sorry to hear about that! I'm getting a bit better with my HA now, but still have freakouts every now and then. Couple of times a week. Sometimes i have days now where I feel almost normal, you'll get there too. One day you just wake up and it clicks 'hey I'm finally getting better'.

Sounds like me and my sister. She's always been the one with high anxiety and worry and stuff and I never had a worry in the world. I'm somewhat of a hippie, peace and love and no worries all around. Then BAM all of a sudden I'm a nervous wreck. Anxiety can do amazingly horrible things to us!

[oldgraymare]

To Zee: im sorry to hear you've had a bit of a relapse, that can be so frustrating especially after such a good long stretch. hopefully this time it wont take as long to get your brain back in order since you have been through it before. try to take heart in the fact that you've made it the other side once before so you know you can do it again, that there is light at the end of the tunnel. i hope you feel better asap. thank you for the post

to amiee: thats quite funny you sound very much like my sister was before this started. she was a very happygolucky hippie type as well lol. and as you say ive always been much like your sister, worrying over everything. do you both suffer ha? since ive been doing it for nearly two years now and my sister has only been for a few months, im closer to the place where you are, im not as devastated as i used to be by weird symptoms that pop up and though im no where near back to being able to function fully, im much more functional than i was, able to work a few hours a week, able to go out here and there, able to eat more...so im hoping the more i can do these things the better i will feel. and it helps when i talk my sister through the big waves of panic, when im reassuring her i make myself believe it too kind of thing
thanks again for replying :)

[Zee]

You mentioned shaking and shivering oldgraymare..I was wondering today about this because I feel cold so much of the time and sometimes it can come out of the blue for a little while..Is this part of anxiety as well ?

[oldgraymare]

zee: yes i do believe feeling oddly chilled is typical of stress and anxiety. our mind is constantly racing with negative thoughts, overreacting to things most wouldnt, adrenaline is coursing through us so much, our body is perpetually tense...it just becomes exhausted, like running a marathon so its hard for our bodies to keep things like energy, circulation, temperature at a steady, normal level.

[anthrokid]

It's quite funny how it work's isn't it. Even funnier is the fact that my sister doesn't suffer from HA or any form of anxiety disorder! She is only 16 though so it may hit her in coming years, but I hope not!