My story

[aharris2456]

Just thought I would share my symptoms and thoughts, and see what other people say.

Can you guys remember what you were doing when your anxiety all started? I cant remember what day or even what month, but I do remember what I was doing and to this day I still can't think of why it all started then. I was 20 years old driving over to my uncle's house with my dad and all of sudden I just got a intense fear and wanted to return home. I told him I wasn't feeling well and asked if we could go home. After I was home I still did not feel well. I felt sick to my stomach. I felt this way for most of the year. I went from 150lbs to 110lbs and only being 5'6" tall i was starting to look really sick. In the meantime I went to my doctor and had the normal series of test ran, blood work, basic physical, ect, all came back normal.

When I finally started to eat more and gain my weight back was when my other symptoms started popping up.(I'll list them below the paragraph) So I went back to my doctor and he was understanding and order more test just to try and ease my mind. (I'll also list those below) So its been 5 years since this all started and I still deal with some of these symptoms and still feel like crap some days but I still am able to hold down my job and go to school. Not saying its easy and trust me I do have my really bad days where if I can I dont leave my house or just lay in bed for most of the day. There are times when I still have doubt that it is anxiety and not something else but I've been living with this for 5 years now and I've talked to people that have been living with this longer than I have even been alive and they are still here fighting it everyday just like everyone else.

My Symptoms
Palpitations
Pounding Heartbeat
Chest Pain -Left Side
Left Arm Pain(Mostly in joints)
Brain Fog
Vertigo
Numbness/Tingling
Trouble Falling Asleep
Fear of Having a Heart Attack/dying in my sleep
Fatigue

Test
EKG's (A lot of them)
2 Echocardiograms
Treadmill Stress Test w/ imaging
Barium Swallow Test
Bloodwork
CT of head/neck w/ & w/o contrast
X-rays
Ultrasound of Kidneys


Everything has came back normal except my last echo, they found that I have a very mild case of mitral valve prolapse. Sorry for it being so long, sometimes it just helps to write it all down and share with other people.

[NeverToo...Fear]

Hi Aharris,

A lot of those symptoms you've listed are pretty much anxiety right on the ball there..you said it started driving to your Uncle's house and that you had this overall sense of fear, but as the years went on, has it progressed to something else like a health anxiety? It just seems that you are focusing a lot on the heart?
You've already done the big step and eliminated that it could be anything serious..the next step would be finding ways to tackle your anxiety. It helps me by putting trust in my doctor and believing that if he says there's nothing wrong, then there's nothing wrong. I know it's easy to doubt and figure that they are missing something, but I have to weigh the odds of that and figure that they are in my favor..since I trust my doc, I believe more that I am okay, thus I am able to deal with things like chest/arm pain better now, so it might help you. Being and remaining clam is a big factor to battling anxiety, because that little devil just feeds off of fear.

Just remember that you are not alone and there's a great community here filled with people who are willing to help and offer much support :)

[aharris2456]

Thank you, I do think it has progressed to health anxiety. Plus after having so many test come back normal you would think I would get over it. (Harder said than done) Thanks for the support I've been reading about others peoples symptoms and what they go through and it helps knowing that other people go through the same thing.