My life now

[Derekedstedt]

Hi everyone, my name is Derek and I am new to this forum. To get started I couldn't tell you if I have anxiety or not. I've never had anxiety, worry or fear my entire 22 years of life. It came out of nowhere while I was at work. I am a cna, and I used to drink monster energy drinks religiously, and smoke close to a pack a day. I also skateboard and am VERY active. Well one night at work my sugars dropped because I hadn't eaten much that day and only drinking monsters it could happen to anyone. They dropped to about a 40 and no I'm not diabetic. I went to the hospital and they came back up and I felt fine. Doctors told me to quit drinking them, and fyi I drank about 3 monsters a day for about 3-4 years. A couple of days go by of not having them and I felt great and then this all started. I couldn't breathe I was very short of air. Never had this happen. Went to the ER and they gave me an albuterol inhaler and sent me on my way. I've never had any past surgeries or really any hospital visits. I've been healthy my whole life. Then everyday I felt I couldn't breathe more and more and my nose got stuffy all the time. Went back to the ER and they took blood and everything was fine again except they gave me a decongestant was all. Fast forward to a few months it's still worse, can't breathe, nose is stuffy, I'm afraid of my sugars dropping so I'm constantly eating and I'm weak and tired all the time. Well all of this has gotten so bad and I mean BAD. My sugars always feel like they're dropping and I still feel I can't breathe, nose is stuffy, I'm always light headed it's hard to walk, I'm dizzy, I've lost all motivation and this about a year later. I even have blurry vision like the little floaters and it's awful. This is about a year later and it's only getting worse. I've seen the doctor and they said my adrenal gland was all enlarged but I had a CT scan done and nothing it came back normal as well as my blood work. I used to weigh 120 pounds and now because of the binge eating I weigh 175. And this was all within a year. I wouldn't say I'm fat but now I'm just so uncomfortable with my body it's terrible. I work out as much as I can but it's hard to find motivation. I just had 4 days off work and I literally sat in my room and played games the whole time. THE WHOLE TIME. My girlfriend is very supportive but I want to know if anyone else is going through this or has because this is literally hell for me. My life is so anti-social now I've lost all my friends and only talk to those at my work. I'm almost to the point where I feel killing myself would be better than dealing with this everyday. So if anyone out there is listening feel free to talk to me about this

[Joe.]

Welcome to the forum!

Seems like anxiety man! The symptoms you described fit the symptoms of panic attacks and general anxiety. Energy drinks are medically accepted to cause the onset of panic attacks.

Don't see this as a mental problem....That plays on my mind. See it as your nervous system has crashed :) The flight or fight response has messed up.

I would still recommend pushing your doctors to get you checked out, just in case, but the most likely result it that it's anxiety. Maybe, see a psychiatrist?


Wish you all the best!

[Derekedstedt]

Thanks a lot! It's just so strange cause I've always been healthy and active my entire life and now I just get so lazy and unmotivated to do absolutely anything. Plus on too of the fear of dying everyday it's awful. I'm at work right now and I keep scarfing down food for my sugars but I'm also so hot and sweaty and just worn out. I'm just ready for all of this to pass

[creative ineptitude]

My brother had similar experiences. He was drinking energy drinks and coffee and mountain dew. He has cut a bit of it out (not totally yet) and *knock on wood* has not had another incident. The doctors think it is a heart thing but all the tests they have done has come back with nothing. I think all that "energy" is not good, actually none is good but that is a whole other story. Your body gets used to consuming all that outside energy so it stops producing or at least slows down your production of energy and metabolism. So until you get through the withdrawal you are going to have issues. You have to try and get a routine going. Eat properly, best thing is several smaller meals in a day and not less larger ones. This will help you with energy levels and will get your body back to doing what it used to do, wants to do and should be doing.

I am not a doctor these are things I have observed, questions I have asked doctors and info I found in searches. I hope you get things back to the way they were. And can people just lay off the energy drinks and coffee. You should not need that much extra energy.