Health anxiety around heart - CT Angiogram with contrast due

Hi all,

My father unfortunately died age sixty of a heart attack. At fifty-three he needed a quadruple heart bypass operation.

Mum had high blood pressure for years and is on medication for that and is doing well at seventy-five!

I developed an underactive thyroid after the birth of my daughter - my body began to treat my thyroid as a foreign object not long after my daughter was born nineteen years ago.

From there I developed marked palpitations so I would have been twenty-six years old at the time. At this point I had developed what I would term as health anxiety, placing too much focus on my heart and what I perceived my heart as doing.

Was medicated with Propranolol for a few years then I came off it and all symptoms subsided.

I am now soon to be forty-five. Over the last twelve months the health anxiety has spiked again (may or may not be related to the pandemic on an implicit level) and I was forced to work from home since March of last year so not been amongst people, working in a fairly isolated way.

Palpitations have returned, I can get pains that I perceive as 'angina' pains but it's fair to say that's my health anxiety voice talking there!

I am a smoker - I know I shouldn't. I never used to. Would only socially smoke every few months when I went out on a night out. Was always the one who thought myself lucky not to be addicted to nicotine!

Well I'll take you back two years ago when my daughter needed a ten hour life threatening surgery for an inherited condition that resulted in her being in pain 24/7 where she had four organs removed. My stress levels as you can imagine were through the roof! Whilst I know this is not the best way to deal with stress, what did I do? The silly girl I am? I started smoking regularly just to get by.

I now smoke ten cigarettes a day and I am the first to know this will not help my fears of my heart! Have been trying to stop, want to stop but fail when the urges hit me!

I saw a cardiologist in clinic a month or so back who due to the family history of cardiac disease, family history of high blood pressure, my own underactive thyroid disease, my age and the fact that I smoke led him to sending me for a CT Angiogram with Contrast.

Now as part of my health anxiety (I can never cut long stories short lol!), I sometimes worry about side effects, of tablets, of hair dye, of even goat's cheese would you believe!

And I'm having kittens about possibly being allergic to the contrast dye they will be using in the CT scan on Monday of next week.

I have been trying to control my fear leading up to the scan but truth be told, I'm petrified! I read on the internet (yes Dr. Google isn't anyone's friend) and found that severe reactions can include cardiac arrest or heart attack! I read it and thought 'I BEG YOUR PARDON!".........cardiac arrest or heart attack?

My anxious mind is telling me that I will be one of those people. The logical part of my brain is reassuring me that I won't be. There seems to be a mini battle going on.

Anyone had a CT Angiogram with Contrast and felt this way?

Reassurance would be sooooooooo gratefully received! Huge thanks for reading this long winded essay. Cheers, Sal.

Health anxiety around heart - CT Angiogram with contrast due - feeling VERY nervous