Some help and advice to my fellow anxiety suffers

Hi All,

As you well know I've been on this anxiety journey for nearly 2 years now and I can tell you its been hell however I've had my ups like getting engaged and married :D

Throughout this time like many of you I've had dizziness, tingling, numbness, chest tightness etc etc...

I have also had a huge amount of tests - MRI's, ECGS, Balance testing etc all of which have come out normal.


Over the past few months I've been seeing one of the leading physiotherapists in the country at the Queen Elizabeth - shes been a god send! What I wanted to share was something really common that shes diagnosed me with yesterday -

Chronic Hyperventilation Syndrome - I didn't think I ever hyperventilated as never really felt like I was breathing to quick etc but whats he said is over time after a stressful period or being generally anxious your body starts breathing badly. You can test whether you are over breathing really easily by counting how many times you breathe in a minute - most people who breathe properly take under 15 breathes per minute. To give you an idea of how bad my breathing is (considering I thought it was normal) I take 22-28 breathes per minute when I am just sat down.

I found this article online from the NHS regarding it: http://www.dchs.nhs.uk/assets/public...20Syndrome.pdf

I really think it can attribute to a number of peoples symptoms on here and it may be worth a shot at just taking some deep breathes and following the exercises to see if it helps improve anything.

The most common thing we all suffer from is anxiety and as I said above this can develop into chronic hyperventilation from being an anxiety sufferer.

I hope it helps at least some one :)

All doctors I've seen so far in almost 8 years of anxiety tell me that most of my symptoms come from hyperventilation and not from a heart condition or any other condition. I try to believe them but sometimes it's a difficult task. It's always reassuring to read about hyperventilation from time to time. Thanks.

Hi

This is just a courtesy reply to let you know that your post was moved from its original place to a sub-forum that is more relevant to your problem.

This is nothing personal - it just enables us to keep posts about the same problems in the relevant forums so other members with any experience with the issues can find them more easily.

No Worries - just thought it was suitable for those suffering with health anxiety :)

That is really interesting, thanks for posting :)

Thanks for posting this.

I was unaware that the NHS recognised this at all because it doesn't recognise methods such as Buteyko which has the same sort of theories.

This makes me think more now that I should look at something like Buteyko because I also have asthma and I have difficulty separating or even knowing whether it's that or anxiety. I have proven on one occasion of a panic attack that it was asthma because the reliever stopping it and that would not be the case with a panic attack or period of anxiety.

The exercises, for me, are far too basic from the NHS and it gives little information but I suppose it's really more a summary. Thanks for posting it.

The trouble is, my GP just assumes anxiety and thats it. I would have to research all of the possible conditions and force him to check them...which seems to be an issue with the NHS and mental health conditions. It makes me think that one of the big challenges of stigma, is to change how GP's operate.