New here - scary symptoms

[DJP]

Hi All,

Panic / anxiety definitely runs in my family (unfortunately, on both sides). I believe that panic / anxiety has both chemical and psychological roots. In other words, some of us are predisposed to it, but it is exacerbated by our unique psychological makeup.

I'll describe my current struggle and would certainly appreciate it if anyone has found relief. First of all, it has been a tough 12 months because of deaths in the family and other struggles. I am also a hypochondriac, so I am sure that I carry a baseline level of stress at all times. Today, my heart start beating fast for no apparent reason - right out of the blue. The last time it happened was about 4 months ago. That gives me some comfort since I am able to convince myself that if it really was a serious heart condition, it would happen much more in the absence of medication treating that condition. Perhaps it wasn't as 'out of the blue' as I think. Has anyone noticed a link between food and panic? I ate lunch about a 1/2 hour before the panic set in. Perhaps there was an ingredient in this particular meal that quickened my pulse and heart rate, thus setting off a cascade of events that only made things worse? I felt completely fine all morning. Of course, once it hits I go through many of the other symptoms, from shakiness to feeling like I'm going to pass out. The last time it happened it struck in what I consider a completely random way too.

If anyone else has this happen to them and has found relief, I would appreciate hearing about it. I apologize if this particular topic has been discussed before - feel free to steer me to that thread.

[NixonRulz]

Hey DJP - A good diet is never a bad thing and some believe it can help keep your anxiety level down.

I am a believer that anything can cause anxiety. If you have a panic attack after looking at an oak tree, you may just associate the two so now trees cause your anxiety

Anxiety can occur any time you believe that there is something that caused it. That is why people are anxious about so many different things

Meds are a big one. People begin meds and swear they are having side effects when in reality they are afraid the meds will cause side effects so anxity is more than happy to take over and convince them the anxiety symptoms are caused by taking meds

[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, yes I was ill, see I have vitamin deficiency I was right well not really but in their investigations they found I was slightly low in vitamin D nothing crazy, undiagnosed back pain 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 symptoms. 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.

[DJP]

Nixon & Sally,
Thank you for your responses. I think the irony is that to regain control you have to let go of 'control.' I have found that my anxiety / panic has improved dramatically as I've developed an "I don't give a sh__" attitude. If this is the end of me, so be it. It is that 'who cares' attitude that really helps. However, today when the symptoms that I described came on, I was not in a position where I could easily adopt that mentality. I was at work in our conference room and had to chime in during a meeting. I couldn't leave, I had to sit there and stew in my symptoms. I like to think that this happened: subconscious anxiety that had been building picked that time to rear its ugly head while being reinforced by something that I ate. A toxic brew had formed. An hour later I was fine, but it was living hell while it lasted.

[SALLY2015]

Yes DJP the irony is you have to give up the control of the fear of it happening. The fight you are creating wihtin yourself and to be in control of yourself what is leaving your body in such a heighten state of tension this is the adrenaline buzz. You can see why you'd be stressed in a meeting, eyes on you, needing to participate etc. that is stressful. So you understand why its happening you just need to focus on how to stop it interfering so much. So I work in TV production and I get the same when I head into production meetings, so firstly no coffee..none, I can't risk the caffeine sparking me off. I also eat very simple foods on stressful days like toast with butter on and I eat very little, basically trying to keep a settled stomach no sugar. I do chew gum because this keeps something of me moving if I sense the anxiety raising its head. Then the hardest thing...I put it all to the back of my mind. I literally go ohh hello heart starting to beat crazy, shaking hands, mind racing....etc. Right now I know you're there but I can't focus on you, so I am focusing on...I usually then try and zone intently into the meeting whats being said. I focus harder and harder and I realise after about 10 minutes I haven't thought about my anxiety. I focus in on what the person speaking is thinking.. I think about what the next person might say. If I can't do that I look at each person and think about where they are from, what their families like, do they play sports, what are they doing when they get home tonight... I literally do not allow myself a single thought on my anxiety symptoms. If I suddenly do I say to myself no no no no, right lets start again. What are we talking about...This is really hard to do but you must try and obtain at least 10 minutes of where you controlled the thoughts to not to come into your head. I also put my hands under the table and slowly put a finger to my thumbs and count through them but concentrate really on counting. I then count backwards up to 50.

So what this does it is starts to give me a sense of the fact I could control my anxiety, this then grows from 5mins to 10mins. Once you have mastered the ability to stop it at it hits you then you start to lose the fear of it, this takes away the power of it. You need to stop the cycle of it, as it starts you need to stop it and any second you give yourself of thinking about it the more is multiplies. So you'll know when you've allowed it in, so stop and start thinking about anything but.

I hope that helps. We sound crazy but really its a symptom of the stress we put ourselves under and that fact we are all trying too hard to live full lives, in good jobs, with good families we put too much pressure on ourselves to be perfect in such demanding lives. Something has to give and this comes out in Anxiety.

[DJP]

Yes DJP the irony is you have to give up the control of the fear of it happening. The fight you are creating wihtin yourself and to be in control of yourself what is leaving your body in such a heighten state of tension this is the adrenaline buzz. You can see why you'd be stressed in a meeting, eyes on you, needing to participate etc. that is stressful. So you understand why its happening you just need to focus on how to stop it interfering so much. So I work in TV production and I get the same when I head into production meetings, so firstly no coffee..none, I can't risk the caffeine sparking me off. I also eat very simple foods on stressful days like toast with butter on and I eat very little, basically trying to keep a settled stomach no sugar. I do chew gum because this keeps something of me moving if I sense the anxiety raising its head. Then the hardest thing...I put it all to the back of my mind. I literally go ohh hello heart starting to beat crazy, shaking hands, mind racing....etc. Right now I know you're there but I can't focus on you, so I am focusing on...I usually then try and zone intently into the meeting whats being said. I focus harder and harder and I realise after about 10 minutes I haven't thought about my anxiety. I focus in on what the person speaking is thinking.. I think about what the next person might say. If I can't do that I look at each person and think about where they are from, what their families like, do they play sports, what are they doing when they get home tonight... I literally do not allow myself a single thought on my anxiety symptoms. If I suddenly do I say to myself no no no no, right lets start again. What are we talking about...This is really hard to do but you must try and obtain at least 10 minutes of where you controlled the thoughts to not to come into your head. I also put my hands under the table and slowly put a finger to my thumbs and count through them but concentrate really on counting. I then count backwards up to 50.

So what this does it is starts to give me a sense of the fact I could control my anxiety, this then grows from 5mins to 10mins. Once you have mastered the ability to stop it at it hits you then you start to lose the fear of it, this takes away the power of it. You need to stop the cycle of it, as it starts you need to stop it and any second you give yourself of thinking about it the more is multiplies. So you'll know when you've allowed it in, so stop and start thinking about anything but.

I hope that helps. We sound crazy but really its a symptom of the stress we put ourselves under and that fact we are all trying too hard to live full lives, in good jobs, with good families we put too much pressure on ourselves to be perfect in such demanding lives. Something has to give and this comes out in Anxiety.

Thanks Sally - great practical advice.