soManyProblems
04-18-2014, 10:55 AM
Do you have any serious physical health problems? Personally, I am dangerously underweight and I have a cardiac arrhythmia. My low weight is largely related to anxiety, because anxiety makes me nauseous, but I suspect there is also something wrong with my digestive tract. Maybe irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), maybe functional dyspepsia, who knows.
I also have episodes of tachycardia. It's like a switch flips and then my heart is going 200 beats per minute. On one occasion, it made me pass out and hit my head. They have never successfully recorded it with an EKG, so they don't know exactly what kind of arrhythmia it is. Most likely it is a supraventricular tachycardia, which has no chance of killing me. There is a small chance it is a ventricular tachycardia, which could kill me in a matter of minutes.
As you can guess, this leaves the door wide open for heart-related anxiety. Sometimes I get chest pain, which is quite clearly caused by anxiety. Even if I have the potentially deadly ventricular tachycardia, it would not cause episodes of chest pain during normal heart rhythm. My coronary arteries are in good health, I do not actually have angina (pathological heart pain).
I also have episodes of tachycardia. It's like a switch flips and then my heart is going 200 beats per minute. On one occasion, it made me pass out and hit my head. They have never successfully recorded it with an EKG, so they don't know exactly what kind of arrhythmia it is. Most likely it is a supraventricular tachycardia, which has no chance of killing me. There is a small chance it is a ventricular tachycardia, which could kill me in a matter of minutes.
As you can guess, this leaves the door wide open for heart-related anxiety. Sometimes I get chest pain, which is quite clearly caused by anxiety. Even if I have the potentially deadly ventricular tachycardia, it would not cause episodes of chest pain during normal heart rhythm. My coronary arteries are in good health, I do not actually have angina (pathological heart pain).