Is this anxiety or something else?

[adidas23]

Hi, I'm 37 old, male, in otherwise good health so far. I'm an IT worker and while I do have a history of being considered a very 'tense' and 'high strung' person, I never had the below issues before. I'm desperate for help in getting a diagnosis.

In the last four weeks I have suddenly developed the following symptoms. I have seen 4 GPs so far and have had a clear brain MRI. However, no one diagnosed me with anything: they just send me home recommending to 'take time for myself and do some meditation and exercise', yet this 'condition', whatever it might be, is literally ruining my life (I can't work, I can't have fun, I can't do anything).

During the worst of it (comes on suddenly, for no particular reason, last approx 4-6 hours):
- feeling visually overwhelmed: a distinct feel that there are too many objects to focus on. I find that displays in supermarkets are particularly bad, but even outside too many trees or plants or patterns on the ground quickly lead me to feel completely overwhelmed. I want to close my eyes or look at something simple, like the sky or a blank wall.
- feeling faint / nauseous / tunnel vision (but without vomiting). This is a terrible feel of weakness, with everything around me feeling far away all of a sudden, as if i was about to be ill, as if i was about to faint.
- confusion. This ranges from a minor feeling of not knowing where things might be, to not understanding what people are telling me, as if i didn't understand english anymore, as if their voices were too far. Orienting myself is very difficult.
- sudden, extreme irritability and combativeness. Everyone feels like they are overwhelming me. I have this instinct to run away from everyone. It's very upsetting because i'm usually a very social and happy guy.
- the floor below me feels like it's shifting. While i'm aware the room is not moving, I feel a lack of balance, as if i was walking on a trampoline. I'm scared to fall, and I hang on to objects even though it's likely unnecessary.
- weak, cold limb extremities: particularly fingers. Weakness in my arms.
- a sudden, urgent need to go to the restroom, repeatedly
- dull pressure around the temples and behind the eyes, varying in intensity. Initially the headaches were concerning me the most but in the last few days it's actually an afterthought, considering how overwhelming the other symptoms are.


At all times:
- post nasal drip: Like a sinusitis, but i have no sinusitis. Clear phlegm falls down at the back of my throat. All day long.
- underlying sense of anxiety, fearing the above, more intense symptoms will come back.
- dissociation: lasted most of last week, thankfully gone now. That was probably the worse feeling. It's as if I was watching a movie of myself and being in someone else's body. I know how it sounds, and it's so upsetting when it happens it scares me to bits. I'm please this hasn't come back, because it felt like going insane, it was really terrible.


However I DO NOT have:
- a fast heart rate: My BPM is between 80-90, during the attacks it doesn't move
- abnormal blood pressure: my blood pressure is completely normal, better than average in fact
- temperature: my body temp is completely normal at all times.
- low or high blood sugar: everything is normal
- brain/ear/sinus issues: according to the MRI, all these are normal (no fluid in ears, sinus are clear, brain is healthy)


I can tell the people on this forum are very knowledgeable about these things, so I'd really appreciate any help, but more importantly if someone could say to me 'ah yeah, you have panic attacks, no doubt', it would really be a great relief (in my head i'm worried about all sorts of things, like going insane). Also if anyone has the same symptoms I'd like to hear i'm not the only on in the world Or what to tell / ask my GP, or what strategies to implement to stop the above.

The reason I'm not sure I have panic attacks is because being 'visually overwhelmed' doesn't seem to be something common in panic attacks, the fact that if feel unwell above most of the day (panic attacks from what i read come and go), and the fact that I do not have a fast heart rate even at the worse of them.

Thank you a million, million times in advance.

[gypsylee]

Well if 4 doctors have thought it's "just" anxiety they can't all be incompetent can they?

I don't know. I get the dissociation thing and I can relate to some of the other things, but my main physical symptom is a racing heart. I don't like trying to diagnose people but I thought I'd let you know I read your post :)

Bye now,
Gypsy x

[NixonRulz]

Hi, Adidas

Yes. You are having panic attacks. Much like a Gypsy, I do not like to give a diagnosis but your story is just way to easy to diagnose and I have four doctors to back me up

The reason you don't feel well all day and you are visually overwhelmed is because that is anxiety. Anxiety and panic attacks are two separate things

You dwell on how you feel so much that you develop physical symptoms. My ou can even create symptoms by just fearing them. Obsessive thoughts are part of OCD a, which is an anxiety disorder

By feeling bad all day from the anxiety is very stressful. At some point that stress will peak over constant fear and worry and a panic attack occurs.

A good SSRI if you are open to taking it can mostly eliminate your anxiety disorder so without the anxiety, panic doesn't occur

But understanding your thoughts and beliefs will allow you to change your habits to rid the anxiety completely

Take a look at the symptoms thread in the sticky section. Amazing the games anxiety can play on people

So......you have anxiety with panic. Nothing more or less

Be well!

[Im-Suffering]

By feeling bad all day from the anxiety is very stressful. At some point that stress will peak over constant fear and worry and a panic attack occurs.



This ^.

I will add that this could take years. Once the 'attack' manifests, the individual usually over-worries, in itself raising the hormone levels, and contributing to reoccurring 'attacks' from that point on. Another words your fear of the attack creates more of them, even if the other symptoms subside or completely vanish. (the ones you described)

Now you are having anxiety attacks simply from the associated fear of the (predicted) next one combined with how you felt during them. (fear of fear). Or, fear on top of fear, just for the sake of fear itself. Creating additional 'new' symptoms every so often.

Thus the overall general anxiety (like a murmur throughout the day, clinically described as GED) you would find subsides a bit, but the attacks seem to happen out of the blue, with no clear trigger. Underneath it all is the stressful person, with the fear, lying dormant but ever present, you see. That is why in the above post by Nixon he had suggested for you to examine the causes of this whole episode, your beliefs and inner thoughts/feelings, which most likely have been festering, simmering without a boil for quite some time.

You may find that duration almost your whole 'conscious' life, ever since you can remember, so to speak.

Your beliefs, if you are new to this game, are your ideas about yourself, who you are, and you in relation to the rest of the world. Some of these may be 'false' from early on and require examination as an adult, now. If you consider self a 'highly stressed individual' (your terms), this is to be looked at. Why? And where is that stress from. It is NOT the job and current life, the stress is a belief about who you should be, and comes from conditioning. Heal that, and the stress goes away, even as you are in the midst of a stressful event, you see.

Now if you never even realized to look at yourself, understand you are like most (and I mean most)people, in the dark - since self reflection is too scary or often painful, so why look at self for personal growth when you can pick apart others? Most people are also shut down from childhood in one way or another, and thus developed the habit of blame. One cannot look at self if self is not worth looking at. The only purpose of the news for example, is to pick apart others and critique life outside the self. And I say, like another has in history over 2000 years ago, "take the splint out of your own eye, before another, then you will be able to see clearly and be helpful in removing one from your brothers eye", period.

Your job is not your true work, your purpose is to learn, and heal the false beliefs about who you are. In case you ever wondered why you are on earth to begin with.

Happy trails ! It will take some work. (inner).

[Scoobygal]

..........

[adidas23]

Thank you all very much for your replies and good advice, it's very very much appreciated!

Glad to say that I haven't had a 'strong' attack since posting and that so far 'all' i have is a permanent feeling of dizziness. I am going to see a therapist tomorrow who specialized on anxiety, will let you know of the results!

[adidas23]

Quick update as everyone has been so kind: saw a therapist on Thursday, then no symptoms from Friday till Monday noon. The first 3 days without being dizzy! Was lovely. Now symptoms are back a bit, but at least I've accepted this is just anxiety and it can be resolved.

[SALLY2015]

Hello, I have been where you are now and I got through it. It is possible. The reality I understood later was that there were many things in my life that I felt were out of my control and I was unable to do anything about. I started to focus more on myself and in this I created being a hypochondriac and started creating anxiety attacks. I know now this was me trying to bring some control back into my life. I created something and had control over when and how it affected me (even though I hated it) and it gave me something to focus on that wasn't the bigger issues that were truly upsetting me, kind of a weird distorted reality to escape to. So after the bigger issues faded away and had disappeared the anxiety didn't. I would have nights awake with pumping heart, thinking I was dying, was this truly a shaking hand or MS, was the lump in my throat an allergic reaction I might not be able to swallow soon, staying up all night just to make sure I was ok, are those flashing white spots in my vision what does that mean. All this was increasing my tiredness night after night etc.. I read on forums like this and thought that's kind of like me but not completely, I was truly thinking I'm not that bad because my symptoms are more real, there was always a reason to excuse my symptoms as something real and not made up. Visits to Doctors even help me support this fear, I had a blood test and found to have vitamin deficiency so I was right I was ill. Although not really but in their investigations they found I was slightly low in vitamin D nothing to be worried about but take some extra tablets just to bring it back to a good level again, however it gave me some confirmation and that I wasn’t making this up in my mind. I pushed for my back pain to be diagnosed needing an MRI..etc. What I realise now is that doctors can only try to diagnose off the symptoms you say you have. Sometimes we have unconsciously adjusted them to be like real illnesses through our hours of research on the web and matching our symptoms with conditions to find an answer to our illness. So when we present them to the doctors they can only give their advice in relation to this and often send you for tests to eliminate the possibility and this is just in case and not as confirmation that you are ill. So finally one 3am I was lying awake thinking I was going crazy again I read on a forum like this about a book, Pass though Panic by Dr Claire Weekes which I ended up ordering. It was revolutionary for me as it described me and everything I know about anxiety and my hypochondriac tendencies in detail. She does write about the extreme break downs but at some point she started writing about a patient living constant health fear and Anxiety and I recognized the person she was describing as me.

So what I learnt was YES you are feeling symptoms.. these are not made up in your mind but something real that's happening to your body and you are feeling it...BUT you are creating these symptoms. For example when someone makes you jump your hearts starts racing you feel out of breath, maybe shake etc.. well we can create this same effect in ourselves by unconsciously being inwardly scared, nervous. We can create and start a real adrenaline buzz. We have adrenaline racing round our bodies but yes we might not be exercising or doing anything physical. So now what happens to this energy we created? It starts to gives us health symptoms of racing heart, or feeling dizzy as we have speed up our heart rate without moving etc. We get worried so we tense up our muscles and then we wonder why we have the shakes, but it’s because our muscles are fatigued from being tense for so long, our eyes are tired so we worry about flashes we see in our vision.. but we are tired so of course our eyes are showing signs of being tired too. So yes real symptoms we are feeling. However we can make this habit forming and we can do it on cue almost without realising. However most of the time we do this when we stop and rest.. i.e. eating, when we suddenly disconnect from real life and what should be our winding down time, however then our thoughts jump back to reality, to something that's upsetting us, is worrying us or just tasks we have to complete that day etc. and within a second we have created the adrenaline buzz. Food also gives you energy and a sugar buzz so this combined with the adrenaline buzz you have created then you feel twice as bad when you're eating. It then goes out of control again and we are grasping to keep ourselves sane. A lot of the time we can do this even in our sleep and we wake at 3am alone heart pounding wondering what’s going on, we then set off a chain reaction and before you know it you are awake until the early hours worrying. This then starts going downhill because you’re tired, tiredness leads to you being unable to give logical reasons to the symptoms you're feeling because you're exhausted.

So what was the advice to over come this. Well once you understand that you're not sick, that you're not having a heart attack because if had been you would not be on this forum. Then the advice is to go cold turkey, to let the fear flow over you. Stop and say ok if I'm having a heart attack let it come.......but you know it won’t come because you're not having a heart attack. If you've got the shakes, or worrying eye vision just lay down in a dark room and let the fear come. The idea is to start letting it riding over you. It is a way of allowing the adrenaline buzz you have created to disappear and calm down. You realise more and more it’s the symptoms I was creating, that I can calm them down as quickly as I created them. It was scary when I first tried it, 3am my mind was going crazy and I was sick and tired of it and I knew deep down I was well and I was making this up. So I took the challenge and I laid there scared, what if I was wrong etc...but I started to breath slowly, to kind of start to mediate and let it come. I started to feel calm, my shakes started to slow down and I fell asleep. I was amazed the next day when I woke that I had done this and I realised I could control it and stop it and it felt like I had finally found the answer. So I carried on doing this for a few weeks and as the books says I started to break the habit. Within a few months I was back to sleeping and no shakes, no heart pounding etc. I had found a calm again.

Now I'm not saying it doesn't come back, because I know now I have this tendency to try and focus on something other than what is upsetting me. Today for instance I'm on this forum because the stress at work led me to getting tense and muscle shakes and I started thinking crazy again. However now I recognize it and realized I had been tensing my back up all day so yes of course my muscles are upset and tired and shaking. So I am asking what I need to change to stop being worried at work. if its not possible to change then I need to accept that I'm stressed and not fight it, the fighting creates the adrenaline buzz. I spent an hour talking this through with myself in my mind, breathing slowly and the muscles started to relax and I started to calm myself down. I stopped it in its tracks and I have the method to stop endless nights of worry and creating attacks at the most in appropriate times.

I hope this helps you. It's not medicine you need it's the ability to gain control back, but you can only do this if you truly want them to stop and you've had enough and you want to take on this anxiety/ hypochondriac attack as the moment its frightening you. You can stop it, the power to stop it is in you because you actually create it in the first place. Good Luck.

[gabe]

I went to the ER for dizziness.
The Dr there and the head nurse both thought it was anxiety.

Didn't know dizziness was a symptom until recently. My dizziness has subsided mostly but now I have back tension that is killing me.

I wish you luck and would love to hear some updates from you periodically.

[MattS.]

Wow I thought I`ve written this post but could not remember it. I have exactly the same symptoms. I get this every few years and then it lasts for up to 3 month. As a matter of fact I`m going through these symptoms again since December 2014 and now it`s mid of March 2015 so over 3 month. Only at night I feel OK and then there is the odd day when I don`t have any strong symptoms at all but those days are rare. The most scary bit is problem focusing on things and when the mind goes blank. I have this fear of illness, for years it was all about cancer. Had so many check ups and normally after those the symptoms went away for a while.

[Loyd]

yes, sounds like stress induced anxiety