About a month ago I put myself into the ER. I self-diagnose, which is what I image started the chain of events. After eating some dried apricots (which have always disagreed with me but they're delicious), I experienced the traditional gas I expect. The gas evolved into cramp-like symptoms that moved into my chest. The chest pains didn't leave for days, and hovered right on my heart. Fast forward a week, and as I lay down to sleep, my left leg and arm go frigid cold. I'm light-headed, have a fast heartbeat, and can't shake these feelings. During an all day meeting the next day, I am focused on my symptoms, and anyone I tell these symptoms to tells me it sounds like heart attack (which I knew due to my self-diagnosing ways). At the end of the day, I'm in rush hour traffic, and the panic overtakes me. I'm constantly feeling my pulse which feels erratic, I feel faint, my arm, shoulder, and chest hurt, and all I can think is, "In rush hour traffic, the ambulance won't get to me before I die". So I rush to the ER, where they find nothing wrong with me. They run a metabolite panel, blood work for signs of clotting and damage, thyroid, the works -- all clean. I visit my primary doctor, and he says it's anxiety and gives me a bail-out bottle of Xanax.
I've never had anxiety. I've been socially introverted at times, but never had major social anxiety. I'm in sales and travel on my own across the country all the time -- nothing outside of expected nerves. So understanding and dealing with the symptoms, sometimes physical, of anxiety, is completely foreign to me. Directly after my visit to the primary, I had terrible headaches, head pressure, stomach pain, muscle twitching, lightheadedness and feelings of detachment. I couldn't stop looking up these symptoms. I feared MS, food allergies, sinusitis, gallstones, potential stroke, giant cell arteritis, tons of terrible things. I saw "anxiety" and "stress" come up loads of times, but it wasn't until "hypochondria" came up that I pulled myself out of it a bit. However I still feel like I'm on high alert for anything to be wrong. My head is tingly, I still get feelings of detachment (especially in grocery stores, but I don't think it's because of a crowd), and just overall heightened nerves. For no reason. I should be fine.
Currently, I've taken the Xanax only once since I've had it (4 weeks), as I want to beat this. My issue is that I don't know what is "normal" for anxiety. I have days where I feel great, and days where I have chest tightness for NO reason. Yesterday, I was playing on the computer and my chest tightened up and I felt like my heart rate was up (not sure if it was). This persisted for hours. I also have anxiety about this being the rest of my life. I don't feel 100% anymore. I feel like there's some heavy veil over me, and I can't experience happiness like I used to. This bothers me for obvious reasons, the biggest being that I fear I won't be the husband I used to be, and my wife will suffer for it.
I have an appointment with my primary in two days to discuss these feelings. I keep a journal of my thoughts to try to rationalize something that feels irrational to me. I hope to discuss whether I need to investigate daily medications, or other paths moving forward to get back to my old self.
For those of you more well versed in anxiety, am I experiencing the norm here? What's the prognosis?
I've never had anxiety. I've been socially introverted at times, but never had major social anxiety. I'm in sales and travel on my own across the country all the time -- nothing outside of expected nerves. So understanding and dealing with the symptoms, sometimes physical, of anxiety, is completely foreign to me. Directly after my visit to the primary, I had terrible headaches, head pressure, stomach pain, muscle twitching, lightheadedness and feelings of detachment. I couldn't stop looking up these symptoms. I feared MS, food allergies, sinusitis, gallstones, potential stroke, giant cell arteritis, tons of terrible things. I saw "anxiety" and "stress" come up loads of times, but it wasn't until "hypochondria" came up that I pulled myself out of it a bit. However I still feel like I'm on high alert for anything to be wrong. My head is tingly, I still get feelings of detachment (especially in grocery stores, but I don't think it's because of a crowd), and just overall heightened nerves. For no reason. I should be fine.
Currently, I've taken the Xanax only once since I've had it (4 weeks), as I want to beat this. My issue is that I don't know what is "normal" for anxiety. I have days where I feel great, and days where I have chest tightness for NO reason. Yesterday, I was playing on the computer and my chest tightened up and I felt like my heart rate was up (not sure if it was). This persisted for hours. I also have anxiety about this being the rest of my life. I don't feel 100% anymore. I feel like there's some heavy veil over me, and I can't experience happiness like I used to. This bothers me for obvious reasons, the biggest being that I fear I won't be the husband I used to be, and my wife will suffer for it.
I have an appointment with my primary in two days to discuss these feelings. I keep a journal of my thoughts to try to rationalize something that feels irrational to me. I hope to discuss whether I need to investigate daily medications, or other paths moving forward to get back to my old self.
For those of you more well versed in anxiety, am I experiencing the norm here? What's the prognosis?
