anxiety advice

[Aidan Broderick]

Im a 35 year old male, around 4 months i woke up for work and i got this hot feeling all over my upper body including my neck i also had chest pains not bad pains but annoying and frightening i taught i was having a heart attack went straight to hospital, they did 2 ecg test took bloods and xray and everything came back clear, went for a stress test few days later and that came back clear,at home i was starting to get these attacks at night i would have to stand over a chair for nearly a hour till they went while i was having an attack i kept waiting for something serious to happen like a heart attack, i went back to GP and he said i was suffering from anxiety attacks and that the pains and feelings on both sides of my chest was from the anxiety, he put me on lexotan 1.5mg tablets twice a day there to calm you down, i still get the anxiety attack some worse than others i even get them when i in a good humour,its just the chest pains that really scares me there like dart feelings and others are pains around the nipple area,i get the chest pains during day and night even without taking the attacks,its got to the stage i hate night time i dont go bed really since this all started and its all i think about, are these chest pains common with anxiety and how long can anxiety last for.

[alankay]

Anxiety attacks can a be a minute to 10 in general. It's all adrenaline that makes you feel hot, flush, shake, get a racing heart, make you very scared, etc. The body can only make so much adrenaline so it will end.
Some of the things you can do it take slow, deep breaths and practice relaxing the muscles in your head, neck, jaw and shoulder. These get tense as part of the "fear response" and that can be sort of "short circuited" by slow, deep breathing and keeping those muscles relaxed.
Your doc might start you on a low dose SSRI like zoloft(25mg) and raise the dose slowly. Also a counselor might be called in as developing anxiety at your age(it usually starts much earlier) might indicate simply very high life stress as opposed to just an anxious personality(getting anxiety for no real reason). He might also give you a bit higher dose of the lexotan for now. PM me any time at all. Alankay.

[alankay]

I also prefer a longer acter like prazepam, diazepam, clonazepam, clorazepate, etc, but you might want to tuck away that benzo you have just to have for the occasions you cannot calm yourself down. Use as little as you can...as with any benzo only when truly needed and ask for a longer acter(any of those I listed) when you can see your doc again. The doc might also add an ssri at low dose to start for a period to see how you benefit and refer to counseling. Alankay.