Heart attack fear been googling

[phil06]

I know it sounds rash but I've been feeling anxious the past day. Tonight I spoke to somebody young who almost had a heart attack or something due to stress.

I since googled..I'm now worried as I read it's symptoms start slow..and could go unnoticed so I'm worried Im either having one as I had the odd chest pain and short of breath from anxiety as I do..OR because I've been stressed all year could I have one?

I get myself very stressed easily..I'm worried I'm a risk. I'm only 22 but quite worried.. :ohmy:

[PokerFace]

"Almost" had a heart attack or "something"? Are you completely sure this is true? Even if it is, are you sure it was just pure stress? I asked my doctor if I could give myself a heart attack from stressing myself silly like this all the time and he looked at me if I was mad! He said although it's not doing me any good being like this all the time, anxiety is pretty harmless. I have a massive phobia of having a heart attack I guess, it's pretty much ALL I can think about. I have horrible chest pains every single day sometimes all day, palpitatons/missed beats, shortness of breath, funny feelings in my chest the lot and aparently my heart is fine! Please stop Googling, it always does more harm than good. x

[CrazyCatLady]

If having anxiety caused heart attacks, all of us here would be in hospital, and the NHS would be broke :hugs:

[nomorepanic]

I am not sure you can nearly have a heart attack - you either have one or you don't to be honest.

I had one 2 years ago and have recently attended a cardiac rehab course.

When I had the heart attack I asked if stress could have caused it and they said no but recently we had a talk all about stress and the cardiac team said that there is some link between stress and heart disease.

It is all to do with the chemicals released into the body when you are stressed and also the fact that the blood pressure rises when we are stressed. So apparently there now is a link.

The other thing is that we tend to do more of the "bad" things when we are stressed - i.e. we smoke more, drink more alcohol, don't eat as well, stop exercising etc - so all these things can contribute to heart disease in the future.

I need to get this confirmed again as I just looked on the British Heart Foundation's website and they say that stress does not cause heart problems so now who do I believe?

I will ask at my session this week about it all again.

[PoppyC]

Stress does do damage in a lot of ways but I don't think it can actually cause a heart attack alone, there will be other factors as well, including poor diet, being unfit, and the rest, but then again people can have heart problems and be fit, but maybe that is because they have an undetected underlying heart problem. At least there is a lot that can be done for heart problems these days.
Stress is not good though for the body and has been linked to many things.

[phil06]

The other thing is that we tend to do more of the "bad" things when we are stressed - i.e. we smoke more, drink more alcohol, don't eat as well, stop exercising etc - so all these things can contribute to heart disease in the future.


Well I have never smoked, rarely drink, and I continue to eat and do my best to exercise. Maybe it would take extreme stress or trauma of some kind over years to cause health issues?

But alot of things can cause extreme things but I mean stressing over life, tests, friendships can that cause it with anxiety too? The person I spoke to who had the stress and almost heart attack I only spoke to briefly and never heard what other health issues they had.

If you read the BBC News health page there's always a new link to something though. I'm a bit unsure about this anyway because even if there's a link what are the chances? I tend to trust history more than lab research. If a doctor says it's unlikely just stress can cause that then that's probably good enough really? It can be easy to read a link with something and unnecessarily worry..there's been times it has worried me..