18 & tired of being afraid of dying/having a heart attack?

[jasmine95]

I know it may sound super silly, because when I say it out loud it sounds unbelievable but its true. I'm an 18 year old female in college, and I am afraid of having a heart attack. I'm not quite sure what brought on this fear, in high school I never had this problem. I didn't really start having 'anxiety' until towards the middle of my senior year. I became ill with bronchitis and I had to stay in the hospital for around 15 hours, why I stayed so long is because when I was discharged, I fainted. Apparently the breathing machine they had me use that's supposed to open up your lungs, makes you very jittery and lightheaded.


So I was back in the hospital for another few hours and they were monitoring my heart. I got into college and thats when the anxiety REALLY started. All the stress from my friends, boyfriend, and college itself was getting to me. I took a Zumba class and sometimes I wasn't able to enjoy that because I would start getting chest pains and then I'd think I was gonna have a heart attack. Finally I went to the doctor they checked my heart, and they diagnosed me with a heart murmur. As you can imagine this only intensified my fear even though heart murmurs are pretty much harmless. The doctor orded me to have a ecg done, and they wanted them to comment on my valves.


So I had the ecg, and the whole time the tech kept saying "you have a beautiful heart". Anyway I called my doctor back to get my results but she wasn't answering and then when she did call back, I didn't answer, and legally they can't give you your results over a voice message. So I put it off because I was half scared and then I recently called back and I am waiting for the doctor to call me back. My boyfriend has been so supportive through all this, he's pretty much the only person who knows about this fear that I have, he seems to think that I'm overreacting and its my anxiety thats playing with my head.


Anyway, I'm just tired of living in fear, any small symptom I get I immediately think of having a heart attack and it scares the crap out of me. I'm pretty healthy, I'm 5'3", I weigh 121 lbs and I'm taking weight training. I just wanna be normal again.

[ohwell123]

hi it just sounds like typical health anxiety you are worried over your heart which is perfectly healthy

your telling your body theres something wrong (don't blame yourself for that its part of anxiety)
then because your filling your body with worry and a bit of adrenaline but your not using that energy up because your just sitting on the sofa you will then start to notice the physical symptoms of anxiety which could fill a book

tingling down arms shooting pains here and there elastic band feeling round head etc etc etc

which ofcourse makes you WORRY MORE
try and stop thinking about it if he said your heart is fine
your young enjoy life

also if you drink regularly youll feel great at the time but your anxiety will ruin your next day so for now limit your drinking and get your HA under control

hth kris

[LeFi_81]

Hi Jasmine,

Read this:
http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/articles/panicattack/

[jasmine95]

Thank you so much, I know its probably all inside of my head but it feels like my mind is turning on me sometimes. And its so crazy because I get all the symptoms of a heart attack which freaks me out, but I also know that PD mimics that a lot.

[melvin]

Hi
I started getting the same symptoms as as around your age I'm 50 now and I'm still here lol iv had many test over the yrs so I know what your going through but it is all down to anxiety don't waste your life worrying

[Kmccluskey]

hey jasmine , you sound similar to me , what symptoms do u get specifically? I get loads of chest pains and other cardiac symtpoms on a daily basis.

[jasmine95]

hey jasmine , you sound similar to me , what symptoms do u get specifically? I get loads of chest pains and other cardiac symtpoms on a daily basis.

I get some chest pain or pressure, some joint pain and arm pain. It's confusing because I'm not sure if I'm getting joint pain/arm pain from lifting weights or if its because of my anxiety, or if its both. Sometimes I'll feel lightheaded. On one particular day to work, the whole time I was thinking about dying and on my way to work I almost fainted. I believe this was because of my anxiety, or because of dehydration.

---------- Post added at 00:41 ---------- Previous post was at 00:39 ----------

Hi
I started getting the same symptoms as as around your age I'm 50 now and I'm still here lol iv had many test over the yrs so I know what your going through but it is all down to anxiety don't waste your life worrying

I know I'm too young to worry and lately I've been trying to enjoy my life more and not think about it. Some days are better than others, but I know I have my whole life ahead of me and I need to stop