I don’t want to feel alone anymore..

[Kristin]

First time posting and first time joining a forum. I feel like it always helps me to talk with others that understand what I am going through. I have had a total of three panic attacks in my life. The first two sent me to the ER because I hyperventilated and had chest pains that were so bad, I could of sworn I was having a heart attack. I had my first panic attack in 6 years the other day and I feel defeated. I was so dizzy I almost fell over at work. My chest and back were so tight it felt like every muscle was being flexed at the same time. My anxiety is both mental and physical. I get chest pains, dizziness and the feeling that I won’t wake up if I fall asleep. I can’t remember the last day that I felt completely myself and in control. Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I felt “like me”. I used to be an athlete and so strong, but now I’m overweight and feel mentally weak. Does anyone else get one little weird feeling in his/her chest and automatically think it’s a heart attack and then spiral into this crazy non-stop thought of dread? I just want to feel normal again. I’ve done therapy, medications, diets etc. and nothing seems to work for me 100%. I do yoga and work out 4-5x/week. All my blood work, EKG and physicals are normal, so why can’t I get this thought of “something is wrong with my heart” out of my head?

 

[janemariesayed]

Hi @Kristin and a very warm welcome. You are right it does help to talk to others and you have found the perfect place to come. There is nothing wrong with your heart. The reason that your heart is racing is that, just before you have a panic attack, you have been shallow breathing.

Your heart starts to pump faster to get air around your body. That is why your chest feels tight and you start to feel dizzy. Because of the lack of air.

So it is very easy to relieve the symptoms when you feel them coming on. Take a deep breath and hold it in then let it out slowly. This doesn't stop the attacks from coming, but if you can recognise when they are about to start, the thing to do is take a deep breath.

 

[Kristin]

Hi @Kristin and a very warm welcome. You are right it does help to talk to others and you have found the perfect place to come. There is nothing wrong with your heart. The reason that your heart is racing is that, just before you have a panic attack, you have been shallow breathing.

Your heart starts to pump faster to get air around your body. That is why your chest feels tight and you start to feel dizzy. Because of the lack of air.

So it is very easy to relieve the symptoms when you feel them coming on. Take a deep breath and hold it in then let it out slowly. This doesn't stop the attacks from coming, but if you can recognise when they are about to start, the thing to do is take a deep breath.

Thank you so much for responding. It does make me feel better to let it out. It is just so frustrating and I do not want to feel this way anymore. I really appreciate you taking the time to respond to me.

 

[JohnnyD]

I feel the same way whenever I have a panic attack... defeated. After it is over and I either have gone to the emergency room or at least made a big spectacle is when the embarrassment starts. At that point I can realize that my body started overreacting and my mind followed suit. The trick is to keep your mind in check when your body starts with these symptoms.

Not sure if you had anything that triggered your feelings that something might be wrong with your heart but sometimes that is something to explore. I had experienced panic attacks before but they really happened more often after my dad had a minor heart procedure. Even though it was minor and everything is fine now, it caused me to worry about my heart. I became terrified all the time, even if was just some mild heartburn. I eventually, through medication and talking through it was able to realize that these attacks were not warranted. But to do this I had to change my whole perspective on the way I did things.

Before this I was always a very pessimistic person. At the time I thought this type of thinking would help me to not be let down if something didn't go as planned. However, I eventually learned that this pessimistic thinking also caused my mind to think the worst of everything. Once I made a conscious effort to make positive thinking a priority it helped a lot. I was able to think more clearly and distinguish better between what was reality and what I was just creating in my head.

Just remember that you are not alone!

 

[Kristin]

I feel the same way whenever I have a panic attack... defeated. After it is over and I either have gone to the emergency room or at least made a big spectacle is when the embarrassment starts. At that point I can realize that my body started overreacting and my mind followed suit. The trick is to keep your mind in check when your body starts with these symptoms.

Not sure if you had anything that triggered your feelings that something might be wrong with your heart but sometimes that is something to explore. I had experienced panic attacks before but they really happened more often after my dad had a minor heart procedure. Even though it was minor and everything is fine now, it caused me to worry about my heart. I became terrified all the time, even if was just some mild heartburn. I eventually, through medication and talking through it was able to realize that these attacks were not warranted. But to do this I had to change my whole perspective on the way I did things.

Before this I was always a very pessimistic person. At the time I thought this type of thinking would help me to not be let down if something didn't go as planned. However, I eventually learned that this pessimistic thinking also caused my mind to think the worst of everything. Once I made a conscious effort to make positive thinking a priority it helped a lot. I was able to think more clearly and distinguish better between what was reality and what I was just creating in my head.

Just remember that you are not alone!

Thank you so much for responding and knowing that we are not alone in the way that we feel. You know, my dad did have open heart surgery and had many complications from that surgery. I started having panic attacks before that, but I have to say that I do think about that more often now. Do you feel "not yourself" for days after the incident? I still am having a little bit of dizziness and some chest "tightness", but no where near how I felt on Friday. I also drank some wine yesterday and I think alcohol makes it worse for me no matter if it is one glass or three. I hope you are having a great day. Again, thank you for making my day a little brighter.

 

[JohnnyD]

Thank you so much for responding and knowing that we are not alone in the way that we feel. You know, my dad did have open heart surgery and had many complications from that surgery. I started having panic attacks before that, but I have to say that I do think about that more often now. Do you feel "not yourself" for days after the incident? I still am having a little bit of dizziness and some chest "tightness", but no where near how I felt on Friday. I also drank some wine yesterday and I think alcohol makes it worse for me no matter if it is one glass or three. I hope you are having a great day. Again, thank you for making my day a little brighter.

Yea, sometimes it takes me quite some time before I "feel right". It usually depends on how big the panic attack was. The more I can convince myself that most of my worries are just in my head really helps to minimize the attack. I really have to focus on staying "present" though so that my mind does not go into auto pilot and do whatever it pleases.

I don't really drink much anymore for that exact reason. It seems like a great idea until the effects of the alcohol take over.

I'm glad I could help your day! I'm here if you need me

 

[janemariesayed]

Thank you so much for responding. It does make me feel better to let it out. It is just so frustrating and I do not want to feel this way anymore. I really appreciate you taking the time to respond to me.

Hey you are welcome Kristin! We are all a friendly bunch on here, you can come on here and let it out anytime. We are here for you.

 

[rimpy]

First time posting and first time joining a forum. I feel like it always helps me to talk with others that understand what I am going through. I have had a total of three panic attacks in my life. The first two sent me to the ER because I hyperventilated and had chest pains that were so bad, I could of sworn I was having a heart attack. I had my first panic attack in 6 years the other day and I feel defeated. I was so dizzy I almost fell over at work. My chest and back were so tight it felt like every muscle was being flexed at the same time. My anxiety is both mental and physical. I get chest pains, dizziness and the feeling that I won’t wake up if I fall asleep. I can’t remember the last day that I felt completely myself and in control. Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I felt “like me”. I used to be an athlete and so strong, but now I’m overweight and feel mentally weak. Does anyone else get one little weird feeling in his/her chest and automatically think it’s a heart attack and then spiral into this crazy non-stop thought of dread? I just want to feel normal again. I’ve done therapy, medications, diets etc. and nothing seems to work for me 100%. I do yoga and work out 4-5x/week. All my blood work, EKG and physicals are normal, so why can’t I get this thought of “something is wrong with my heart” out of my head?

Thought to shared my experience with you. I can imagine how awful, stressful, ugly you name it the life can become with anxiety. I have been there with my breathing anxiety and let me tell you one thing, "DON'T WORRY, YOU ARE ALL FINE". put your hand on your heart and say "All is well". I suffered from it 5 to 6 years ago and I even recently this week I had it again because I made it up all in my mind. But first of all, most important is to know if this is really anxiety or maybe other lungs disease or other infection that cause breathing problem. If all is clear out by your doctor and you know it is anxiety then there is nothing to worry. I went to the gym last week, did some heavy arm workout and it gave me back pain next day due to some wrong postures. Now as we all know when we have upper back pain, it sometimes make breathing difficult. I am a person who is always thinking like what if this happen, what if that happen etc etc. And from here I started thinking that I am not breathing properly. This thought created extra adrenaline in my body and sends signal to brain that I am in danger. Guess what? My brain told me to breath heavy because it is not getting enough air. I started breathing deeply with my mouth and just in 2 minutes I fall into "HYPERVENTILATION STATE". Now this is not a good feeling. So I was still breathing heavy and made my hyperventilation even worse. This gave me more pain in my chest. The pain was sharp in the middle of chest. A tight feeling in the chest. I reached a stage where I thought ok that is it am gonna faint or die in few seconds because I'm not getting enough air. Then I told myself ok "All is well, All is well" I have to take control and get out of this or it will go even worse. Then I just closed my eyes, sat on couch and started breathing shallow with nose. I was holding my breath and then take it out in 7 to 8 seconds. Within next few minutes, I started to calm down and all was slowly going well. But I was not able to sleep the whole night. But slowly I am doing good and getting better. This was my story now lets talk about facts that why this all happened?

What is hyperventilation? - we all know the word "hyper" right? Hyperventilation is a condition where you start breathing fast and disturbs the natural oxygen and carbon dioxide balance inside your body. In hyperventilation, you upset the balance of these 2 gases by exhaling more than inhaling. When we think about carbon dioxide gas we think it is a waste gas but actually it plays a very important role in our body. In our body we have two type of actions. 1) conscious (which are in our control example moving your hand etc) 2) unconscious (which goes automatic like your heart or eye blinking). breathing is a unconscious type. Take an example of 1 day old child who is just born and look that child keeps on breathing automatic. Take an example of when you sleep. you keep on breathing automatic. Take an example of someone who passed out on floor after drinking lot of alcohol. Even thought that person is out and now on the floor, you can see that his body will keep on breathing automatic. The problem comes when we try to take the breathing in our control means we started controlling it and started to decide when to breath or not. When we started to control breathing we sometimes inhale more oxygen than what our body really needs. Believe me your body needs very little oxygen and your body decides automatic how much it needs. so when we inhale more oxygen than required, we have now upset/imbalance the ratio of oxygen and carbon dioxide in our body. The oxygen in our blood is converted to carbon dioxide and during hyperventilation, you have thrown out more carbon dioxide out from your body than what your body can produce. So you see? you have completely messed up the automatic natural reaction by deep breathing. And during this deep breathing and anxiety, you start to breath from the upper part of your chest/lungs which further gives a feeling of tightness in your chest and you feel like you are not getting enough air. So you again starts to breath deep and try to breath while yawning and keeps on falling yourself to the worst hyperventilation state by completing messing up the ratio of oxygen and carbon dioxide.

Hyperventilation is not dangerous but it is going to give you a very severe discomfort feeling. Hyperventilation is caused by and cause severe anxiety. I would say never breath from your mouth but from your nose. if you breath from your mouth then try to learn breathing with nose because then you inhale very little oxygen compared to when you breath with your mouth. Remember "mouth is for eating and nose is for breathing".

You might also be feeling sharp pain in middle of your chest. Why is this pain there? It is because once your have upset the balance of O2 and CO2, your blood vessels that comes out of heart starts to shrink due to presence of less CO2. When they shrink and get small, your heart has to do extra work/job to push the blood through those shrinken vessels and this results in sharp chest pain.

How to get out of hyperventilation?
first of all as I said, tell yourself all is well, all is well. close your eyes and try to calm. start taking slow breath from your tummy instead of chest. Inhale with your nose (using your tummy, means your tummy should expand like football. NOT WITH CHEST BUT TUMMY) for 5 seconds, hold it for 3 seconds and then release the air through the lips in 7 seconds . the lips gonna make slow whistling sound. keep doing it for few times. This is going to increase the carbon dioxide level in your blood which will bring you out of hyperventilation state. the moment your body builds up enough Carbon dioxide, you will feel clam and relaxed. Once you made the perfect balance of O2 and CO2 again, you will see that your sharp pain the chest will start to go away because now your vessels are open again and your heart is doing less work.

Second way is breath in paper bag. because as you will release breath (co2) in the paper bag and then when you inhale it again, you will be actually inhaling carbon dioxide instead of oxygen. so it will again increase the level of co2 in your blood and makes your calm. Don't do it more than 10 times.

OR what you can do it that you stand up, go out of home and start walking. when you walk your body will automatic start taking smaller breath and will produce enough co2. thus the level of O2 and CO2 will start getting normal.

And what you have to learn is that you should not be thinking about your breathing. Let it happen automatic. focus on other things. Do not focus on breathing. You can do this experiment right now to see the results. try to think of your breathing, try to focus on you breathing, try to control on your breathing, I bet you within next 5 minutes you will find yourself in hyperventilation state.

So again do not worry about it. you are totally fine and just do not think about breathing. and also start to learn by breathing with nose instead of mouth. (remember mouth is for eating and nose is for breathing). I hope after reading this you will find yourself more calm and relax and I hope you will get out of any anxiety or hyperventilation. I wish you very best of luck with it and I pray that you get back stronger and healthy. Again mouth is for eating and nose is for breathing and breathing is unconscious process. do not control it).

Greetings and let me know how you feel later

 

[janemariesayed]

Deep breathing really does help. I know it is hard to get the air in sometimes but keep going with it. Try to start the breathing exercise as soon as you realise an attack is about to happen, while you can still get air.

 

[Claraviolet]

When someone says something is wrong with you, it would be always there at the back of our minds. It's like a constant reminder for us that...something will go wrong always.
I can't drink more water for many reasons and when I have gone for a full body health checkup, doctor told me to drink more water if I don't want to face more difficulties at some point in life. I was a bit afraid and I drank like two liters at once...after that I was seriously sick with fever and I have never done that again.
What will go wrong, will always go wrong, there is no point in over thinking and making your present a living hell. I would suggest everyone, to not to think of 'what if's and possibilities'. It would make us think strange stuff. Even now, I can't completely get those doctor's words out of my head but I wouldn't act on an impulse now.

 

[Jenniferlynn]

Thank you so much for responding and knowing that we are not alone in the way that we feel. You know, my dad did have open heart surgery and had many complications from that surgery. I started having panic attacks before that, but I have to say that I do think about that more often now. Do you feel "not yourself" for days after the incident? I still am having a little bit of dizziness and some chest "tightness", but no where near how I felt on Friday. I also drank some wine yesterday and I think alcohol makes it worse for me no matter if it is one glass or three. I hope you are having a great day. Again, thank you for making my day a little brighter.

Whenever i get panic attacks for a couple days after my body hurts like i have the flu or something. So your not alone there

 

[rimpy]

Whenever i get panic attacks for a couple days after my body hurts like i have the flu or something. So your not alone there

I am pretty much learning the way of nose breathing and I think am doing good. Nose breathing using diaphragm keeps things under control.

 

[Kristin]

I am pretty much learning the way of nose breathing and I think am doing good. Nose breathing using diaphragm keeps things under control.

I get the sick feeling for days afterward. I’ll try nose breathing exercises. Thanks!

 

[Kristin]

Thought to shared my experience with you. I can imagine how awful, stressful, ugly you name it the life can become with anxiety. I have been there with my breathing anxiety and let me tell you one thing, "DON'T WORRY, YOU ARE ALL FINE". put your hand on your heart and say "All is well". I suffered from it 5 to 6 years ago and I even recently this week I had it again because I made it up all in my mind. But first of all, most important is to know if this is really anxiety or maybe other lungs disease or other infection that cause breathing problem. If all is clear out by your doctor and you know it is anxiety then there is nothing to worry. I went to the gym last week, did some heavy arm workout and it gave me back pain next day due to some wrong postures. Now as we all know when we have upper back pain, it sometimes make breathing difficult. I am a person who is always thinking like what if this happen, what if that happen etc etc. And from here I started thinking that I am not breathing properly. This thought created extra adrenaline in my body and sends signal to brain that I am in danger. Guess what? My brain told me to breath heavy because it is not getting enough air. I started breathing deeply with my mouth and just in 2 minutes I fall into "HYPERVENTILATION STATE". Now this is not a good feeling. So I was still breathing heavy and made my hyperventilation even worse. This gave me more pain in my chest. The pain was sharp in the middle of chest. A tight feeling in the chest. I reached a stage where I thought ok that is it am gonna faint or die in few seconds because I'm not getting enough air. Then I told myself ok "All is well, All is well" I have to take control and get out of this or it will go even worse. Then I just closed my eyes, sat on couch and started breathing shallow with nose. I was holding my breath and then take it out in 7 to 8 seconds. Within next few minutes, I started to calm down and all was slowly going well. But I was not able to sleep the whole night. But slowly I am doing good and getting better. This was my story now lets talk about facts that why this all happened?

What is hyperventilation? - we all know the word "hyper" right? Hyperventilation is a condition where you start breathing fast and disturbs the natural oxygen and carbon dioxide balance inside your body. In hyperventilation, you upset the balance of these 2 gases by exhaling more than inhaling. When we think about carbon dioxide gas we think it is a waste gas but actually it plays a very important role in our body. In our body we have two type of actions. 1) conscious (which are in our control example moving your hand etc) 2) unconscious (which goes automatic like your heart or eye blinking). breathing is a unconscious type. Take an example of 1 day old child who is just born and look that child keeps on breathing automatic. Take an example of when you sleep. you keep on breathing automatic. Take an example of someone who passed out on floor after drinking lot of alcohol. Even thought that person is out and now on the floor, you can see that his body will keep on breathing automatic. The problem comes when we try to take the breathing in our control means we started controlling it and started to decide when to breath or not. When we started to control breathing we sometimes inhale more oxygen than what our body really needs. Believe me your body needs very little oxygen and your body decides automatic how much it needs. so when we inhale more oxygen than required, we have now upset/imbalance the ratio of oxygen and carbon dioxide in our body. The oxygen in our blood is converted to carbon dioxide and during hyperventilation, you have thrown out more carbon dioxide out from your body than what your body can produce. So you see? you have completely messed up the automatic natural reaction by deep breathing. And during this deep breathing and anxiety, you start to breath from the upper part of your chest/lungs which further gives a feeling of tightness in your chest and you feel like you are not getting enough air. So you again starts to breath deep and try to breath while yawning and keeps on falling yourself to the worst hyperventilation state by completing messing up the ratio of oxygen and carbon dioxide.

Hyperventilation is not dangerous but it is going to give you a very severe discomfort feeling. Hyperventilation is caused by and cause severe anxiety. I would say never breath from your mouth but from your nose. if you breath from your mouth then try to learn breathing with nose because then you inhale very little oxygen compared to when you breath with your mouth. Remember "mouth is for eating and nose is for breathing".

You might also be feeling sharp pain in middle of your chest. Why is this pain there? It is because once your have upset the balance of O2 and CO2, your blood vessels that comes out of heart starts to shrink due to presence of less CO2. When they shrink and get small, your heart has to do extra work/job to push the blood through those shrinken vessels and this results in sharp chest pain.

How to get out of hyperventilation?
first of all as I said, tell yourself all is well, all is well. close your eyes and try to calm. start taking slow breath from your tummy instead of chest. Inhale with your nose (using your tummy, means your tummy should expand like football. NOT WITH CHEST BUT TUMMY) for 5 seconds, hold it for 3 seconds and then release the air through the lips in 7 seconds . the lips gonna make slow whistling sound. keep doing it for few times. This is going to increase the carbon dioxide level in your blood which will bring you out of hyperventilation state. the moment your body builds up enough Carbon dioxide, you will feel clam and relaxed. Once you made the perfect balance of O2 and CO2 again, you will see that your sharp pain the chest will start to go away because now your vessels are open again and your heart is doing less work.

Second way is breath in paper bag. because as you will release breath (co2) in the paper bag and then when you inhale it again, you will be actually inhaling carbon dioxide instead of oxygen. so it will again increase the level of co2 in your blood and makes your calm. Don't do it more than 10 times.

OR what you can do it that you stand up, go out of home and start walking. when you walk your body will automatic start taking smaller breath and will produce enough co2. thus the level of O2 and CO2 will start getting normal.

And what you have to learn is that you should not be thinking about your breathing. Let it happen automatic. focus on other things. Do not focus on breathing. You can do this experiment right now to see the results. try to think of your breathing, try to focus on you breathing, try to control on your breathing, I bet you within next 5 minutes you will find yourself in hyperventilation state.

So again do not worry about it. you are totally fine and just do not think about breathing. and also start to learn by breathing with nose instead of mouth. (remember mouth is for eating and nose is for breathing). I hope after reading this you will find yourself more calm and relax and I hope you will get out of any anxiety or hyperventilation. I wish you very best of luck with it and I pray that you get back stronger and healthy. Again mouth is for eating and nose is for breathing and breathing is unconscious process. do not control it).

Greetings and let me know how you feel later

Thank you so much for all of this amazing information. I am going to try the breathing exercises and see if that helps. Thank you, thank you!

 

[rimpy]

Thank you so much for all of this amazing information. I am going to try the breathing exercises and see if that helps. Thank you, thank you!

Hi Kristin, Hope you are doing wonderful and enjoying the sunrises and sunsets of this beautiful summer. I can imagine about the sick feeling you have mentioned and it is pretty much normal to have this feeling because you are just getting out of state of horror and thinking if you could fall back there again. i have had it to and now getting better. From all this experience I have successfully learned one thing that is there is noway that this amazing complex body will stop breathing by itself. Even in the stage of anxiety and hyperventilation, doesn't matter how bad to worse it goes, the body still is still breathing even though we ourselves are making it hard for the body. The body will keep on running, the body will keep on going, the body will keep on breathing. There is this guy from India called "Sadhguru". He is pretty spiritual guy and talks lot about anxiety, yoga, meditation etc. I was watching one of his recent talk and there was a guy in the audience. The guy asked the guru this question, "I am fearful and afraid of rejection and how can I fight this"? The guru replied,"You can not fight that does not exist". There is no such thing as fear but we make all this in our mind. So I also learned and convinced myself that there is no such thing as anxiety and hyperventilation but we make all this in our mind. IF we are capable of creating negative and fearful thoughts out of blues then why are not we capable of creating positive and righful thoughts? Ask yourself? Meanwhile if you learned slowly by breathing from your nose instead of mouth, I think you will get back to the natural cycle of breathing very fast.
If you get any free time, Please do watch this video on youtube. This is where the guy explains the role of oxygen and CO2 in our body and how it affects our system if we imbalance them.

Let me know how you are feeling now. Any if you have questions, feel free to drop here. We keep on sharing the knowledge until you are fully fit and positive and happy.

Greetings

 

[rimpy]

another video that explains about too much of mindfullness