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View Full Version : How anxiety came to my life



MidM3d
03-18-2014, 09:47 PM
Hello guys, I have posted before but I never really introduced myself.

I`m a 22 year old male, studying in university.

February has been a rough month for me. In the first week of February a guy who I went to high school with, passed away. Although we weren`t that close, the death has been hard on me. Never did I know that it would lead me to anxiety. The guy who passed away was only 23 years old and was a fitness trainer. He died of a heart attack.

A few weeks later, I was diagnosed with an ear infection. The doctor told me to put some rubbing alcohol in my ears to melt the large amount of wax inside my ears. That`s what I did. However, once I put alcohol inside my ears, I felt unusually dizzy. I thought I was going to die. My heart was beating really loudly. I thought I was going to reach the same fate as my deceased ex-classmate. Once I went to the ER, the doctor didn`t even bother checking my ears. I told him that I put more alcohol in my ears than the doctor told me to and he didn`t even focus on my ear. He told me that as long as my eardrum is not burning, I should be fine. Good news, my ear drums weren`t burning and he told me that it`s just a panic attack.

Although I though this was just a one time thing, the anxiety came back. A week later after my first panic attack, my mom`s friend, who was only 34 years old, passed away from cancer. Although the sadness melted the day after she passed away, I had no clue that this death would affect me on the long run. I became hypochondriac. I kept on googling the littlest health issues I had. I had small rash, had to google. I had minor headache, check the symptoms on WebMD. The worst was my eczema. I had have eczema on my back for a few years and it never really bothered me. But after those 2 deaths, I just checked and compared my eczema with images of cancer rashes. I had the worst panic attack. My legs were tingling, my hands were sweating, my muscles were twitching and I had the worst palpitations. It was so bad that I even had palpitations while I was sleeping. The panic attack was recurring for 12 hours, from the evening all the way to next morning. Although I was feeling better the next morning, things got actually worse. I had spring rolls for lunch that day and it got stuck in my esophagus. To the ER again!

With the death of my classmate and the death of my mom`s friend along with the esophagus incident, I became a hypochondriac. I felt very vulnerable for a few weeks and I thought that somehow bad luck and recurring anxiety symptoms (sweaty hands, tingling, twitching, etc) were signs of death. For a few days, I also felt that life had no meaning (I recovered from that, and I will post about this in another post).

Although these events happened in a very short period of time, I would say that the last 3 days have been great and I feel that I am recovering. Palpitations are gone, sweaty hands didn`t happen in a while, I can control muscle twitching, and best of all, I feel like I know how to control panic attacks. However, there are a few symptoms that are still persisting and new ones coming up ( blurry vision, tingling in new parts of the body, light headaches, etc). With some improvement, I feel that anything can happen! However, with these new symptoms coming up it makes me feel depressed. To keep my depression away, I try to keep myself busy with other stuff. However, when I`m not busy, I still dwell on the new symptoms. It might take a while for me to fully recover (a few months, possible a few years) , but for now, I am just happy that I feel that I can defeat those painful panic attacks with no problem!

butterfly82
03-18-2014, 10:44 PM
Ah...webmd, the culprit and a hypochondriacs worse enemy. I quit going to that site, I was convinced I was going to die every-time I looked up my symptoms which was always anxiety related.

I'm sorry for all those losses you experienced. You can get through this, start with staying away from googling and webmd.


Also- the dizziness could just be an inner ear problem.

MidM3d
03-19-2014, 03:19 PM
Ah...webmd, the culprit and a hypochondriacs worse enemy. I quit going to that site, I was convinced I was going to die every-time I looked up my symptoms which was always anxiety related.

I'm sorry for all those losses you experienced. You can get through this, start with staying away from googling and webmd.


Also- the dizziness could just be an inner ear problem.


Yup. Although I am still hypochandriac, I always tell myself that if we could just google our symptoms and diagnose ourselves, doctors would be totally useless in our society and anybody could become a doctor. Those guys are professionals, let them handle our health matters, they studied medicine their whole lives and they are much more informed than us.

cml
03-19-2014, 04:52 PM
I have read your post.. i know those symptoms ive been there ive experience twice as creepy as yours believe me haha. It has been for a year now. Im from the philippines. You sounded like an asian are you?

MidM3d
03-19-2014, 06:14 PM
I have read your post.. i know those symptoms ive been there ive experience twice as creepy as yours believe me haha. It has been for a year now. Im from the philippines. You sounded like an asian are you?

Wow you're good! Yes, my parents are from India!