I am stuck.
Every day. It's like I don't know how to live normally anymore.
I don't want to say I suffer from, because I know there's people in the world going through so much. But every day, I fear that I'm dying. From what changes all the time, but it's to a point where it's so overwhelming. I wake up with panic and shivering and feeling cold. And almost every day I feel on edge and cry and cry because I want to live a long life. I'm 29.
I've struggled with the thought of turning the big 30 for awhile now. Last October I had an advanced case of Covid and didn't know if I was going to make it through. I did, and immediately I was so happy to be alive. I had this new appreciation on life. I quit taking Lexapro, I was simply enjoying existing. After covid I was diagnosed with tachycardia because my average resting heart rate was around 100. It never bothered me. Until this last month. At the end of August I was at my office and I had a huge dose of derealization hit me where it felt like nothing is real. The only thing I did that day was drink a shit ton of caffeine and I'm attributing it to that. Since then though It's like I've been stuck in panic. I let myself go after covid, I was weighing 405lbs (I'm 385 now) I went to the doctor and he ran an an ekg and blood panel (he said my heart was fine, just beating fast) and I found out I have high blood pressure, during my panic attack at the doctor it was 172/124 and he put me on beta blockers. The same day my psychiatrist put me on Prozac 20mg. I went home and cried because of my blood pressure, I was convinced my lifestyle of junk food and no exercise the last 10 years had damaged my heart. Why else would I need beta blockers? My panic was at an all time high, so much I went to the ER convinced I was having a heart attack. They did an ekg, another full blood panel and a chest x-ray, which again told me I was fine and had a young healthy heart. I went home that night and promptly fell asleep relieved, until I woke up in the morning twice with more palpitations. The next 3 days I barely slept and freaked out worse than I ever have. I was convinced I was dying.
So much that I checked myself into the psychiatric ward aka behavioral health for 5 days. I still cried everyday and felt like my skin was going to jump off my arms. They gave me Ativan? but it didn't make me feel better. They adjusted my beta blocker to propranolol and raised my prozac to 40mg. and aslo gave me 50mg of hydroxizine to take every 6 hours (Idk if it helps, I think it does) Last Thursday marked week 3 of being on prozac since then I have convinced myself that I'm dying again, but this time from CJD (Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease
) It's like my brain picked out the worst disease it could find when I was looking up symptoms. I'm convinced that my sudden anxiety and depression spike is why I have it. I pulled away from my friends, I don't enjoy gaming or listening to music. Every day I wake up scared I'm going to forget something and that will be the dementia taking over from the CJD. I wake up and instantly start trying to recall the prior days memories. I start balancing on each leg trying to make sure I have balance. I've looked up almost every case of CJD I can find just to see what the presenting features were. (which btw I found out I have problems balancing with my eyes closed, aka postive Rombergs test and that freaks me out too) It feels like I'm a ticking time bomb, and wondering what day I'm going to wake up to more symptoms, but not just for CJD, but for anything, wondering if I'll have a heart attack, a stroke, a seizure or something much worse and I can't enjoy anything because I just worry about what day in life will be my last. I also don't know what's what anymore as far as how I'm feeling.
Since upping my prozac to 40 and starting propranolol, I've tracked these symptoms:
- Jaw clenching which sometimes causes my jaw to shake and a headache
- Heat sensitivity (Feeling hot)
- Sweating a lot. On and off most of the day in fact.
- Waking up in the morning cold sometimes and shaking
- Hands shaky and fingers twitching
- Muscle twitches in my legs and toes
- Visual Snow (I only notice this when I look for it or I'm super stressed)
- Tinnitus (ear ringing), which again I think is from the jaw clenching.
- Feeling my anxiety spike like I'm going to jump out of my skin.
- Hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations (seeing things upon waking or going to bed)
- Tried having sex and after climax I got nauseous and sweaty
- Crying more than usual
- Not being able to calm down, having panic for hours
- Tension in different parts of my body
My psychiatrist said to go to 60mg of Prozac and since then some of it has seemed even worse so I came back down to 40mg.
I never felt this way when I was taking Lexapro. I've never felt this way in my life before.
I don't understand how it can get this bad just by having anxiety and depression which is why I keep thinking I have something wrong with me.
The though of dying terrifies me, I was raised Christian and believe in heaven, but I made the mistake of reading NDE on reddit one night where so many people that supposedly died and came back just saw nothing or blackness. My whole life I've believed that my relatives who have passed are on the other side waiting, and I'm scared to die.
I don't know what to do anymore.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Cptdebbie
