Long post but should be worth reading. So apparently I have panic disorder and have had it for quite some time. I have anywhere from 3-5 panic episodes a week sometimes have several in one day. It all reared it heads when I quit taking opiates. I was fine for years and then after 30 days of being clean all hell broke loose. Had my first full blown attack, this was almost 2 years ago now. I'm 5'8" and I went from 193lbs down to 140lbs in 6 months. My stomach just would not digest my food it's like it would sit there for hours. I was terrified to eat and to sleep. All that staying awake and eating around 1200 calories a day took the weight off quick. I started getting severe abdominal pain and difficulty breathing. This where it started consuming me. I had just started to exercise daily by walking for 20 minutes. At first I could only walk @ 3.2mph and that was tough as I had smoked for almost a decade. I quit the smoking 2 years ago shortly before kicking the pills. So finally I found a Doctor that would listen to me about my stomach problems. I had an Endoscopy preformed and had days of Anxiety leading up to the procedure. All that worry and the procedure went perfect not one problem happened. I slept pretty good that day after the test. Some of the best sleep I had in a long time. The next day the surgeon called to tell me he had to take a Biopsy of a mass and out of an Ucler. So at this point I'm freaking as It was clear in my head just 5 years ago my Grandmother passed away from stomach Cancer. After a tense 3 days I got the full results. The mass turned out Benign and so did the test for H pylori the infection that lead to my Grandmother's Cancer. The bad news was that the surgeon found a Sliding Hiatal Hernia, mild/moderate Gastritis and a couple of ulcers in my stomach and into my small intestine. So that explained my rapid weight loss and feeling like I was dying from cancer. I still have bad problems with my stomach and these d@mn panic attacks wreak havoc on my digestion. I don't care what any Dr. says I can feel my Digestion cut on and off during high levels of anxiety. Slowly over the course of a year I developed severe Health Anxiety centered around my Heart. Although I'm scared that at any moment I'm gonna have heart attack somehow I've managed to continue exercising. I went from that 3.2mph for 20 minutes to where now I can walk @ 4.8mph for 5k or 3 miles taking me about 35-40 minutes to cover. I know this has helped my health but somehow I freak now over my blood pressure. Which in my opinion shouldn't vary so much, going from 110/65 to 184/98. Now if my pressure is over 140 I freak and then it all goes down the drain. I know my body and I can tell when it's low/normal and when it's high. I can't count the times I have went to the ER because of my pressure. I may get anxious about other things but its the Blood Pressure that I can't seem to get over. I don't worry about my Heart rate anymore because now my heart is conditioned and never goes over 90bpm while sitting anxious. The only time I freak over my heart rate is at night when it goes into resting mode. Which went from 75bpm before I exercised to 44bpm. Yes I know what my resting rate is because I spent 2 nights in the Cardiac ward at a local hospital. They woke me up one night because my heart rate was 42bpm and my pressure was 105/60. Why this concerned the nurses is beyond me I told them when I'm relaxed I'm really really relaxed lol. The morning before that they conducted a stress echo on me and results came out normal except for 2 things. 1- the echo was inconclusive because of poor picture quality on what they said was the respiratory side and 2- I had mild regurgitation in the Tricuspid valve with slight regurgitation in the mitral valve. All other parts functioned normally and they only found some increased size from all the cardio I had been doing. Now to top off my anxiety my Father age 53 is having symptoms of heart disease. Last week he had a positive stress test and is going this week for an angiogram. He smoked for about 10 years like me but he drank a good bit of alcohol from age 18-35. I'm talking about the stout beer 6% and he would drink 12 or more each night when he got home. He has been sedintary though due to arthritis for 12 years. I would imagine that is a contributing factor in what is going on with his health. So you'd think after what the Dr said about my test result being normal you'd think I'd be over this crap. Well I'm not and I'm sick of panic attacks and always anticipating the worst. I'm sick of having my Jeans laid out with my Shirt, socks and shoes just in case I need to go to the ER. I'm tired of making sure I have my backup battery charged for my phone just in case I have to drive to the other cities ER. Apparently the Dr's are sick of me and I really don't blame them nor hold anything against them. Some understand and some are heartless and need a different way of making a living. So now here I am again just had a panic attack about 4 hours ago now and my body still trying to resume normal function. I went just 3 days ago to the ER over high blood pressure again. The Dr prescribed me more Ativan, so this will make it 2 months that I've been on a Benzo. I know I don't need to take the d@mn things but what do you do? Do you swallow the pill and get a taste of tranquility or do you continue on edge panicking? Now I have days where it's like everything works great. My breathing, my digestion, my blood pressure will all be perfect. Then I'll realize I'm relaxed and I'm not feeling these symptoms and I work myself into an attack. This self preserving fraking cycle has to stop. Some days I can handle it all and other days I can't handle going to the mail box for thinking about what medical bill will be in it this time. All I know is I can remember what was like to be normal and sometimes I get a there for a day or two. I really don't know how many more days of this i can stand. Really started thinking about the easy way out but somehow I always mange after and hour to realize that's not an option. Still here I am at the end of this rope and all I got to hang onto is this Billiard Cue.
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