fortizboriqua
04-20-2014, 03:54 PM
February of 2013 I was diagnosed with panic disorder. I fought for my normalcy and I won in 8 months. There were a bunch of peaks and valleys but I was able to defeat it. And for those of you that think that it can't be done, I am living proof that it can. Until this day my doctor is baffled on how I was able to make it disappear in such a short time. And I will be the first to tell you that it was by far the hardest battle of my life. Last night I got to talking with my friends wife. We started to share personal experiences and to my surprise she was suffering from panic disorder. She told me about all her experiences but the one she struggles with the most is heart palpitations. I can remember when I used to get heart palpitations. It felt like my heart was going to explode out of my chest. It most certainly felt like I was going to have a heart attack. It was very scary to say the least. One of the many things that I did when I first was diagnosed was that I educated myself about PD. I wanted to know everything I could about this dreadful illness. And one of the things that I found out was that those who suffer from PD their nervous system goes out of whack. It's like your nervous system goes out of alignment. My right leg and arm would tremble. My face would have light trembling. My hearing was over amplified. On cool days I would get cold easily. Those are a few examples that I would experience. Basically all of my senses were over amplified. This is where my explanation of heart palpitations comes in. Towards the end of having heart palpitations I would literally laugh at them because I knew it was not what I thought it was. When it would hit I would literally laugh at it and it eventually went away at that particular moment and until it went away completely. First let me explain that your heart is one of the strongest muscles in your body. And the normal heart rate for an adult is 60-100 beats per minute. Your heart is so strong that it can endure double the amount of beats per beats per minute. When you exercise you can take your heart rate past the normal rate. Now the moment you were waiting for. When I wasn't having heart palpitations I would take my pulse to see what my normal heart rate was. I would take my pulse for 30 seconds and the number I came up with I would multiply that by 2, and that would give me my beats per minute. I averaged about 75 bpm. Here is where it gets good. When I would get heart palpitations I would take my pulse and found that my heart rate went up slightly about 80-85 bpm. How is this possible when my heart feels like it's running so strong and so fast that it feels like it is about to explode. I found it to be 2 things. The first is your heart rate slightly increases because when a heart palpitation first happens your initial reaction is fear and with fear comes an increased heart rate and adrenaline that is already there. Secondly, comes the nervous system and the over amplification. You feel your heart rate a lot easier because when you have heart palpitations your senses are over amplified. So in turn you feel your heart go crazy a lot easier. Once I realized that my pulse was normal during heart palpitations it made me feel less fearful. And when I became less fearful it slowly started to go away. This is one of many things I used to defeat pd. I hope and pray that this will be helpful to you.