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I find myself worrying about dying, and I can find symptoms out of anything, and that in itself with start a panic attack. I worry a lot about anything and everything.
Usually if that happens to me I stop my self by thinking "Do I feel as if something is terribly wrong with me?" I always come to the same conclusion beside the panic attacks I feel extremley healthy and let it go like that.
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If I get the physical side effects (heart palpitations, feeling like I'm having a heart attack or stroke), I tell myself "It's just an attack,"
Not to give handi anything to worry about,but I've often wondered would I know the difference between an attack and a heart attack.
I use Flonase as well, it works really well for me as long as I use it everyday.
I have some symptoms of OCD when I am really stressed. From what I have read, since you can't control the things in your life, you control objects. I have a thing about how the towels are folded and how the dishes are put away, crooked pictures etc. Stupid things like that. I always know I am feeling better when I can hang a picture crooked.
For some reason the hypocondria isn't an issue for me. I am more likely to go the other way, pretend there is nothing wrong but thats the family I was raised with. I have pretended most of my life that I am fine and don't have a problem with panic attacks or anxiety.
My family was the kind of people that ignored their own health and mine as well. When I was a teenager, 15 I started having pain in my right arm. I complained for a year, finally they took me to an orthopedic doctor who found that I had a bone cyst the size of a quarter. There was concern I would loose my right arm, that I had cancer etc. Being adopted there was little likelihood of finding someone to give a bone marrow donation should I have cancer. AND due to the advanced nature of the problem, the doctor felt I would die before they could even track down my birth Mother and the likelihood of finding a match with no full blooded siblings wasn't good anyway.
Even after the surgery and recovery I was in pain FAR past the time I should have been. They ignored my complaints. Finally it was time for a routine check up and they found out the bone cyst had come back only bigger this time. I had been telling them this for so long. They even took my pain medication away from me because they felt I was using it too often rather then wondering if I was in alot of pain. I remember sitting in high school, swaying back and forth like an autistic person I was in so much pain. I don't know how I got through my last two years of high school.
As a child I was always sick with respiratory problems, the doctor said he thought I had asthma. My Mother refused to fill the scripts he gave her and ignored him completely. I suffered from frequent illnesses related to untreated asthma (and had pneumonia twice, countless times been diagnoses with Bronchitis) until someone finally sorted out what was wrong when I was pregnant and got me on the right medication.
Did I mention my Mother was a nurse? Apparently I had to be missing a limb to get any attention or help. This happened over and over again as I was growing up. I learned to suck it up or seek help on my own.
Even now, after all the many doctors appointments I have had, I get so nervous when I have to go. Its the dread of needing help and no one helping me, no one listening to me that does it. I have walked that road so often, I can't take it.
I remember one night I started having the worst pain of my life in my side, I mean worse then anything I felt in child birth. I kept thinking I could deal with it, that it would go away. I fought the pain for hours until I then realized it wouldn't go away and worried that I would faint or something and my daughter would find me. It ended up that I had kidney stones. Demerol didn't even fix the pain but stupid me thought I could fight the pain. If my arm got cut off, I would probably get out the needle and thread to try and sew it back on myself.
My own Mother had a heart attack and lay in the ER demanding to be released saying she was fine. Thats just how we are.
Usually if that happens to me I stop my self by thinking "Do I feel as if something is terribly wrong with me?" I always come to the same conclusion beside the panic attacks I feel extremley healthy and let it go like that.
Not to give handi anything to worry about,but I've often wondered would I know the difference between an attack and a heart attack.
I'd like to think you'd just know.
You do get people with panic attacks who end up going to hospital because they think it's a heart attack, but what you don't hear is the other way round, you don't get people digging the garden and feeling chest pain, just thinking "oh it's probably a panic attack" and carrying on, only to keel over.
For starters it's the context isn't it? You kind of know in your head that panic is going to set in under certain circumstances. Also I believe heart attack pain is much more severe and right across the chest. I would say it also radiates down the arm, but you can cause that in panic attack pain too if you look for it!! In any case I think it should be very different as it's caused by completely different things.
I've probably told this story before on this thread but it was a way back so what the heck... I had a huge panic when I was driving myself and my boyfriend along a motorway. I was in the fast lane and suddenly went into a panic - my chest was tense and I felt like my heart was about to burst out of my chest, then my vision started to close over. So my conscious brain is going "aaaaaaaargh" - my mouth is going "I need to pull over, I'm going to pass out, oh ****, oh ****..." and I'm crying and sweating buckets - my poor boyfriend is in the passenger seat going "it's OK, pull over when you can, I'll take over" while quietly worrying about what on earth was going to happen.
While all this is going on, some other bit of my brain was quite rationally paying attention to the other cars, safely switching lanes and somehow I'm tanking along at 80 mph in full control of the car.
Looking back at that, I realised just what an emotional reaction it is - and that alone, so I'd say if you're still functioning physically it's just panic.
For starters it's the context isn't it? You kind of know in your head that panic is going to set in under certain circumstances. Also I believe heart attack pain is much more severe and right across the chest. I would say it also radiates down the arm, but you can cause that in panic attack pain too if you look for it!! In any case I think it should be very different as it's caused by completely different things.
But heart attack symptoms in woman aren't the same as a mans symptoms
The women's major symptoms prior to their heart attack included:[/br]
Unusual fatigue - 70%
Sleep disturbance - 48%
Shortness of breath - 42%
Indigestion - 39%
Anxiety - 35%
Major symptoms during the heart attack include:
I have always said to my Dr, and others, thats the issue with anxiety, how do you know whats real and whats not real?
For example, back in 1993 after I had our first child, I had a terrible pain day and night for months in my right hand side. It turned out to be nothing, and something my brain had manifested.
2 months ago I went to the doctor because I had a pain in mys side, again, I convinced myself the pain was associated to my liver, and I had liver cancer. The pain then moved to where your liver is located. I went to the dr, we did blood work and an ultrasound of all my abdominal organs -- nothing showed up. After she told me that, a few days later the pain went away. (Thats when she told me i had an under active thyroid from the blood work) Then my brain latches on to something else.
If I am busy and doing something and distracted, i feel great and dont have any weird thoughts or worries.
i KNOW my brain is powerful, i KNOW my brain can create all kinds of physical symptoms, but I think i would know if it really was a heart attack. I often say to myself, ok, the time is now xyz and if i still feel bad in an hour maybe it is something, of course, I always get through it.
BTW, my dr called yesterday, my thyroid is back in normal range, which shocked her because i am on a low low dose of synthroid, she thinks it make have been a virus that threw off the tests, so i have stopped the synthroid and will restest in 6 weeks.
I am glad your thyroid test came back normal handitak. Atleast you dont have to worry about that right now.
Your brain and mind are both very powerful things. It is like there is one side that is the rational one, and then there is the other side that wants to mess with you. And for me, it used to be a constant battle of which side was going to win. For years the bad side won. Now I wont let it. Well sometimes it wins even after I fight with it. I have always told people it is like I have this little "panic person" inside my head that at any given moment he is going to take over, and I am going to have an attack. He has gotten more and more under control, as I have dealt with this for years...So when I get the aches or shortness of breath, or chest pains, I pretty much tell myself, oh here we go again. Lets see what is going to happen now. If it is something real, I mean other than panic, you will know, as it will get worse.....that is what I always tell myself. Heart attacks dont go away, they dont lessen with time. So now I just wait and see.
Alot of these symptoms could seem like a panic attack.
Also, mystree, some women report having no pain at all, just the dizziness or light-headedness. Heart disease is a very complicated disease in women and not taken seriously enough, just as anxiety attacks are not taken seriously by many.
I think this leads to our feeling of self-consciousness and embarrassment over having this disease. We don't want others to think that our panic/anxiety attack symptoms are just in our heads. Rest assured, they are very real and can be dealt with one by one.
Also, mystree, some women report having no pain at all, just the dizziness or light-headedness. Heart disease is a very complicated disease in women and not taken seriously enough, just as anxiety attacks are not taken seriously by many.
I think this leads to our feeling of self-consciousness and embarrassment over having this disease. We don't want others to think that our panic/anxiety attack symptoms are just in our heads. Rest assured, they are very real and can be dealt with one by one.
I think I'm going to assume I would know, because otherwise I'll just create stress for myself, which in turn would make self-induced symptoms worse. I think there's a lot to be said for general optimism and trying not to worry about the unknown - I know sometimes that's easier said than done. I have a good friend who's a bit of an alarmist and I've learned to avoid talking to her when she's in that frame of mind.
My mum had angina last year, and although she didn't know to start with what it was, she knew something was wrong enough to see a doctor. As it happens it then progressed so fast that she had surgery within a couple of months and now we can't keep up with her!
I would hope I would know also,but the thought of not knowing the difference has crossed my mind.More times than not I don't worry about that and just do my best to calm myself down when I have an attack.
I think I would know too -- I think the rational part of the brain tells you when its anxiety and when its not, some how. And the poster who said you hear a lot of people going to hospital with heart probs and its actually anxiety, but you dont hear it the other way around, is right!
Besides, wouldn't we all drive ourselves crazy, because we would be having a heartattack every day if we followed the symptom guide line? You have to draw the line in the sand at some point.
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