I need a couple health anxiety questions answered.

[medic09]

I'm too overwhelmed at typing all my issues so I'll make it short. My health anxiety is debilitating. It interferes with my Paramedic class, it interferes with me sleeping, I'm too afraid to take my own medicine, etc. It has been severely bad recently.. I have these scary, inner body sensations that happen sometimes and it causes me to go into anxiety attack mode. It's almost as if I had a sudden drop in blood pressure. It makes me feel as if I have to crumple over and keep me head down in order to be able to breathe, see straight, not faint, etc. BUT, if I keep my head up, I'm able to do those things, but this sensation amplifies. I sometimes have hot flashes with it and other times I go really cold to the touch, even my chest and stomach. I'm chronically dehydrated; the first "episode" I had with that sensation I was in shock from dehydration. Now it seems to happen more frequently, especialy since I started a class relating to health problems (Paramedic). I made it through my EMT Basic just fine though..

I also don't eat much at all. Could this be a result of malnutrition? Dehydration? If so why only when I have anxiety?
I've been reading up on Birquet's Syndrome, and it goes hand in hand with pretty much everything. Should this be something I relay back go my doctor or therapist?

[jessed03]

How long have you been having symptoms? Usually people only receive a Briquet's diagnosis if they've been having symptoms for several months/years. If that's you, it's worth chatting to your therapist about it, sure.

To answer your other question: Anxiety goes hand in hand with poor health. If you feel you're malnourished or dehydrated, getting tested/resolving any issues you have is recommended. A blood test doesn't interfere with anxiety treatment, so there's nothing to lose there. You can at least test for the important stuff like vits D and B and iron. Takes about a week for results to come back. It's worth it.

Here's something to think about though: Anxiety is hard for the human brain to deal with. It's so intense, it's so confusing. It makes us feel so very powerless. Our animal brains, being what they are, are desperate to make sense out of it. They're desperate to try to form patterns in order to better understand it. I remember putting my anxiety down to many things over the course of half a decade. These conditions were all viable (like low blood sugar levels), and were all things I was genuinely suffering from. But as each minor condition resolved itself, the anxiety remained.

It's smart to get tested for anything you're concerned about. But it's also smart to understand anxiety itself. Your symptoms, I believe, are far more likely to be because of the tension crippling health anxiety is causing within you than your fluid intake. That's not to say that fluid intake isn't important. It's just that anxiety is immensely powerful. Its effects ripple throughout the body and the mind in ways we sometimes don't even comprehend. It's crucial you familiarize yourself with that you're actually up against rather than underestimating it by assuming it's the result of a minor physical imbalance.