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View Full Version : Lots of new symptoms out of the blue, all anxiety?



summer_son
12-13-2011, 03:35 PM
Hi there, I am new to the forum.

I am a 25 year old male and for the past month have been quite alarmed by a number of symptoms which seem to have manifested out of thin air. The first thing to happen, I was at work when all of a sudden I felt dizzy and light headed and my heart began to race..I thought I was going to pass out and had cold shooting tingles down my arms and legs..and a whole host of other symptoms like a strange heavy sensation in my chest. My manager called an ambulance and I was taken to A&E. Whilst in the ambulance my pulse was 180 bpm and blood pressure something like 160/110. They took bloods and an ECG and told me everything was normal, apart from having a small heart murmur. So I went home very shaken and not sure what happened. I went to my doctor and he told me it was likely anxiety..he listened to my heart and took my BP and told me it was all fine.

Since then though I have been plagued by a whole array of symptoms. I will be sat there and suddenly feel cold, and have a weird sensation in my heart and go a bit dizzy..I have had to visit A&E two more times with similar episodes of extremely fast pulse and sensations of passing out and dizzyness..each time a similar story, bloods and ECG fine and sent home. This has led me to be constantly worried and I compulsively check my pulse all the time. It seems irregular to me, a few fast beats followed by a pause, then some slower ones. It also varies hugely, for example an hour ago it was 100 bpm and now it is just about 60 bpm.. yet I haven't got up off the sofa.

Other things that happen, I seem to have lost my apetite completely, I have no issue eating if I think to..but my natural urge to eat seems to have dissapeared.

I am also quite scared of falling asleep..a few times in the past I have awoken suddenly with the feeling that I have just stopped breathing or my heart has stopped, I usually put this down to dreaming and didn't think anything of it but lately I have became more and more worried about it. Sometimes at night my heart rate is very slow and I just feel like my natural urge to breathe is absent..and if I fell asleep I would just stop breathing. Its actually led to me laying there for hours and hours, and if I do feel like Im about to drop off I will set my alarm for 30 minutes time just to make sure I can wake up..Im sure none of this is helping any anxiety I may have.

Just for the record, I had never mentioned this worry to anyone, and two weeks ago I was staying at a friends house in her bed. She actually woke me up at around 5am and asked if I was ok, in the morning I asked her why and she said she had woke suddenly and looked over at me and my head was back, jaw wide open and I didn't appear to be breathing..so I do genuinely think something is happenning while I sleep and its making me worry constantly :(

My GP is convinced this is all anxiety but I am not so sure, it seems like an easy way out if you have unexplained symptoms like these and are young and apparantley healthy. I am seeing a cardiologist on thursday who will hopefully do an 24 hour heart trace or echo scan etc..but just wondered if anyone had any similar experiences or input?

I have been under a lot of stress lately and while I have never felt anxiety in the past, I wouldnt be surprised if it was. I am just a bit worried at the sudden onset of these symptoms and its making my life a daily misery :(

Thanks for reading :)

jessed03
12-13-2011, 03:52 PM
Posted before, but I realise I can't post links, so it will be delayed.

Is it possible that you have a Sleep Apnoea? A condition where you harmlessly stop breathing in your sleep, causing you to wake up suddenly or to assume very strange looking positions. It could explain the unusual awakening symptoms, and your friends concern. It does have links to causing anxiety too.

Other than that, the symptoms you've described are very normal (assuming tests have come back normally)