24 and struggling...again

[AlwaysSomething]

Hi my name is Jamie, and I found this forum when googling anxiety. Like many of you, my anxiety has bestowed it's greatness upon me at a very inconvenient time in my life. I am having an extremely difficult time coping, and especially lately, it's been debilitating to the point that I have left work early a couple times and called off because I literally just can't function. I won't say that I am 'sad' or feeling like crying in a depression sense, it's just that I feel bad. Something feels like it's 'wrong' and I can't get past it. I am 'sick'. I've been through this all before and I have dealt with a myriad of physical symptoms. In short, it's debilitating. I feel like I'm in a daze, my ears ring, I feel nausea, stomach upset, sometimes I start to shake and feel like I may pass out, my vision becomes blurred and things and people around me seem 'surreal' like I'm watching one of those cheap soap operas. I begin to become hyper aware of my heart, which is usually racing at this point. That in turn causes me to feel palpitations, and the dizziness and walls closing in feeling becomes insane. I begin to worry heavily about my health and that I'm going to die 'right now' just dropping to the floor, game over. I've seen many doctors and wracked up 20-30k in medical bills from cardiologists, ENT, family doctors, etc - to no avail. I'm currently on 50mg of Zoloft which helps somewhat.
I just want somebody to help me, I know nobody can make it all go away but there has to be someone that can help me make it through this. I have a Boyfriend who tries his best to comfort me, he rubs my feet when I'm having episodes, and holds me and anything that he can think of. But even when I'm not having an episode, I still feel sick like somethings wrong.

[AlwaysSomething]

So the past two days I was in the hospital, after shaking, near passing out, and feeling absolutely TERRIBLE. My heart was racing and I was in such a mental fog I don't even know how I drove myself to the ER. After mentioning the heart and stuff I was rushed in rather quickly, and people performed all kinds of tests on me. I was in a daze by this point and was getting hooked up to machines and stuck by needles and you name it I probably got it. A room full of faces I've never seen before. I was in complete horror, compounded by the fact of how badly I was feeling.

Things settled down after awhile and I was left kind of just 'hanging' on the edge. I asked someone "Am I going to die?" to which she said 'No, no I don't believe you are." And she kind of touched my ankle at the edge of the bed for a moment while looking at me before she walked out.
Blood test results come back about an hour later, and I'm low on electrolytes, specifically potassium and magnesium. Within a matter of minutes I am hooked up to an IV with magnesium, and am given potassium pills to swallow which were the size of my thumb.. not exactly easy to just gulp down. Another 45 minutes to an hour goes by, my IV is nearly gone and I'm about to piss my pants. I call for the nurse, and 15 minutes passes before someone comes to check on me. She frees me from my tangle of wires and lines, and I Woozily Wobbily make my way to the bathroom. Back in the room again I make every effort to ask questions about things that are bothering me. At one point panic attacks and anxiety are mentioned, and the woman explains to me that although I came here for a real physical issue, that the panic attacks and anxiety are making it much much more complicated than it should be, and that includes the recovery afterwards. The one thing that I asked specifically was "Well If I'm okay and in such good shape relative to my age, then why do I feel so out of it? Why do I feel like my vision is messed up?" She says that it's stress induced and that anxiety can take on many physical/mental symptoms. That beyond a certain point of stress our brain begins to 'zone out' going into a sort of damage control mode.
To that extent I would have to say that I agree with her. I was so zoned out I could barely do anything at all, and I became very, very tired almost constantly. I could wake up from a nap just in time to be ready for another nap, and the scary thing is the dreams and absolutely absurd thoughts that go through our minds during these times of immense stress, seem to pile on top of everything else and create yet even more worry. Then the worry is that I'm losing my mind, or that my frequent wake ups is because I have stopped breathing while sleeping, and everything all together creates this absolute wreck of a human being. I got so screwed up that I couldn't even tell what was real and actually happening to me and what I was just 'feeling'.

Kind of lost where I was going with that momentarily but back on track!
So at this point with my major electrolyte imbalance beginning to become corrected, I start to feel 'better' but definitely not good enough. I began to relax a little bit and my heart rate began coming down. I was put on an EKG machine a total of 6 times, to get readouts of my heart when it was racing, all the way down to when it had fallen to a pretty normal rate. Although I had an abnormally high pulse for several of them, it was ruled that my heart itself is 'in fact' ok. I also receieved a Chest X-Ray to look at my lungs and heart and make sure there was no obstructions or physical deformities etc. that would be causing havoc with my body. That too- came out okay. So once again I asked about what I felt was neurological symptoms, and my doctor was kind enough to take me down for a head CAT scan. I waited an hour for results as a team read it and picked through it. That too came back with an A-OKAY!

So here I am. I'm still alive. I've been through a lot in the past few days, but I'm still here. Do you know what the most likely cause for all of this was? I became extremely stressed out, which caused me to have the trots. (Diarrhea). That constant loss of bodily fluids only took a few days to drag me down into severe dehydration and electrolytic imbalance. I fought it with Gatorade and Pedia Lyte for as long as I could, but it wasn't enough. I eventually got so tired, and so sick, and so out of it, that I decided I was either going to lie in my bed and die, or get help.
I decided to get some help, and although I'm still struggling with things, I can say that I am improving compared to how I was two days ago.

I'm now prescribed Klonopin 0.5MG use as needed for anxiety, Inderal 25mg (beta blocker for stopping racing heart symptoms), and also to increase my dosage of zoloft from 50mg to 100mg.

[superchick22684]

So sorry to hear that anxiety has made your life difficult this week. Actually the description of your "zoned out" feelings are seriously striking a chord with me right now. I've been really tired for the last 2-3 weeks so I'm going to try to do my best to reduce my stress and maybe do a little bit more relaxation exercises or yoga to help with that. Welcome to the forum and hope that things get better from here on out.

[AlwaysSomething]

So sorry to hear that anxiety has made your life difficult this week. Actually the description of your "zoned out" feelings are seriously striking a chord with me right now. I've been really tired for the last 2-3 weeks so I'm going to try to do my best to reduce my stress and maybe do a little bit more relaxation exercises or yoga to help with that. Welcome to the forum and hope that things get better from here on out.

Thank you superchick. I was beginning to think that this forum was just a ghost town. I have a suggestion for you if you can do it. If you're tired, just sleep. Sleep for as long as you reasonably can. After my fiasco at the hospital I came home and I'm pretty sure I slept for about 20 hours, not continuous mind you but in total. What a difference recovering a sleep deficit can do for your mental state. I am much more lucid, I don't feel NEARLY as run down, and the 'zoned out' feeling is tons tons better! I still have a fair amount of anxiety, but with some medication I think that I should be back on my feet in another week or so. I just hope I still have a job by then.

[itsamandayay]

Hi I'm new. Hopefully I can enjoy myself on here. I think summer makes my negative feelings more apparent, it is also generally a season of lower energy. Does anyone else feel better when it starts to cool down?

[itsamandayay]

You're lucky you have a caring boyfriend. I noticed that you type a lot, it is probably therapeutic for you to express yourself. Have you tried keeping a journal? It might seem weird at first if you aren't into writing, but it feels good to keep and look back at.

[AlwaysSomething]

Hi I'm new. Hopefully I can enjoy myself on here. I think summer makes my negative feelings more apparent, it is also generally a season of lower energy. Does anyone else feel better when it starts to cool down?

Actually no. I tend to be the opposite. Much cheerier and content during the summer months, with more drive for being outside and exercising. When it gets to be fall, depression starts to kick in for me. Interesting how we humans can all be so different.

[Xerosnake90]

So sorry to hear about all this. I've gone to the emergency room myself over anxiety just last month . I wrote a welcome entry detailing my story, it's a few posts down and a long read. It took me until last week to understand it was anxiety controlling my brain the last few months. After being hit by stomach flu I had physical symptoms manifest and I'm oh so close to being over them. Some things will trigger my anxiety, but now I'm learning to let go and get past it. I hope you can do the same, we shouldn't let such a thing weigh us down from enjoying life. Hope you find the strength you need, we are here for you whenever you need.

[AlwaysSomething]

The thing that is scaring me the most right now and giving me a ton of anxiety is the uncertainty of my situation. The whys and whats. What I'm truly afraid of is WHY my Potassium and Magnesium were low. They diagnosed that they were low but I don't know what else they did. I was infused with magnesium and given the potassium by mouth. A few hours later I was feeling a bit better. I have not been having the trots or anything since then and I'm starting to eat a lot more again but when I woke up this morning I was pretty shaky and I definitely felt anxious. At this time I don't know whether to write it off as anxiety or be afraid that my kidneys or something are failing causing this problem.

[Xerosnake90]

Having low amounts of either does not mean anything is failing at any capacity EXCEPT that you're not taking in enough of these supplements. There is a list of nutrients that you need to get from foods and honestly , few people eat well enough to get them all. Now I'm going to link you to the plan I've been following to get more of my nutrients. I can't follow it perfectly just yet as money is tough right now due to me missing work from anxiety. However I eat better than I ever have and that's a great improvement to my health which is what I worry about plenty. If you can see positive increase there's no reason not to feel better.

It's whfoods.com

Look around on the website for more food info but this will help you eat well and get what you need. Hopefully you'll alleviate some of your worries with this. There is a "perfect way of eating" plan.

[AlwaysSomething]

I am guilty of eating more fast food than not for about the past two years. When I was a stay at home boyfriend with my ex, I would make dinners for us and try to get some salads and fruits and things on the table when I could. Besides the can of fruit I opened the other day, I can't even tell you the last time I ate something home made.