Acorn

Thank you everyone. I really appreciate your responses. Ihadcancer - how terrifying. But how wonderful you beat the odds! Thanks for the information about meds. I'm counting down the days until my doctor's appointment... although not holding out much hope of any solutions. Have you had any noticeable side effects from taking the Klonopin? My friend is on Citalopram and doesn't seem to have any side effects? She stopped it once, cold turkey, but then completely flipped out - s****de attempts, self harming, wild, uncontrollable emotions. Terrifying. This was obviously related to the sudden withdrawal of the drug. I'm almost as scared of taking drugs as I am of all the diseases and illness I imagine I've got! Pathetic! Thank you for bringing up the idea of the menopause. Yes, it could be that. I might not know when I go through it because I have the hormonal coil fitted and that can sometimes shield the wearer from the effects of menopause. It was fabulous to hear about your aunt who is 80! Scleroderma scares me too, of course, but it's wonderful to hear how well she's doing. Yes, the Crest diagnosis could have caused anxiety, but these days it seems like everything to do with health matters causes me anxiety. Perhaps it will become less so when my children are older and not so dependent? Who knows. Naynay - this morning I had a sudden aching, clenching pain on the left side of my chest right where my heart is. it was terrifying! I hurried over to my phone ready to make that emergency call to say I was having a heart attack... but didn't quite need to. My knees went weak, my heart was pounding and my palms went sweaty. Fear, fear, fear. The pain was preceded by a dull ache, but then went away, so I didn't make the call. But now I have that dull ache back again. it fades and disappears and then comes back. Weird. But I want to tell you that as soon as the pain calmed down, I rushed upstairs and change into my gym clothes. Exercise ALWAYS makes me feel better, and I know it's ESSENTIAL for a healthy heart. I try and do a brisk 30 minutes walk up an incline (on the gym treadmill) twice per week. I know it should be more often (3 or 4 times per week) but it's all I can manage at the moment. I would advise you, don't lie around in bed! That's much more likely to cause ill health than exercising. Your heart needs exercise to function well. bin_tenn - how have you managed to make the intrusive thoughts decrease? I am in the full grip of them at the moment. It's horrible The minute I open my eyes at 3:30am to get up and go to the loo: DEATH BY HEART ATTACK enters my mind. The very second I close my eyes to go to sleep at night HEART ATTACK STROKE KIDS DYING SUFFERING AND HORROR hits my mind. I hate it!! I don't want to think any of these things, but it's almost as if I have no control. I'm constantly standing over myself wagging a finger and telling myself not to be so damn stupid, trying to combat the blackness. The thing is... I'm essentially probably very healthy. I eat very well, exercise regularly, and don't have any stress (apart from the whole hypochondria thing). But because I have Crest syndrome and had a severe lack of essential food ingredients for the last 35 years (no omega 3 in my diet at all until I was 35!! No haeme iron either - because of being a vegetarian from birth) I have weird symptoms. I wonder whether my body has been damaged due to lack of proper nourishment. I have so many worries and issues to think about. And it's not as if I don't have symptoms! I'm not plucking my worries from thin air. If I didn't have regular, weird chest spasms and painful chest aches (that no-one else I know experiences) I wouldn't be worried about having a heart attack. If I didn't have those brain zaps and odd black-out sensations a couple of weeks ago I wouldn't have started worrying I had a brain tumour. My anxiety is based on physical symptoms - the main one that's causing me so much worry at the moment is this deep ache and then night time tremors/spams/thuds in my heart. Why can't they just go away and leave me alone? Without symptoms my health worries would go, but sadly, I know from experience that intrusive thoughts of death (to others, myself, the environment) would still come. SIGH. I think I need a two-pronged approach: medicine for the anxiety and to allow me to sleep (if I dare take it), and an investigation into my physical heart symptoms. Ten days until my doctor's appointment....

Hi, First time posting. Just joined. I'm now so irritated with myself and my constant fears that I specifically looked for an anxiety forum. Earlier this evening I concluded that I was either going to die very soon of a heart attack, OR, I was fast approaching mental illness. Neither is an attractive prospect. Objectively speaking, the likelihood is that neither is true. But the reality is that my thoughts tell me these are the only two possibilities for me. For about two weeks, I firmly believed I was soon going to have a stroke and die. I get a lot of headaches and have regular migraines and also lots of minor weird sensations in my brain/head - pressures, engulfing feelings, slight dizziness sometimes. After being tortured by these thoughts and losing sleep and becoming exhausted I gave myself a really good telling off. Somehow... that worked and my anxiety that I was about to die from a brain aneurysm or stroke faded and disappeared! I got one really good night's sleep and felt transformed and elated. It was bliss. (Is this how normal people live all the time? They close their eyes at night and actually, honest to God GO TO SLEEP peacefully and wake up eight hours later? Who does that? Who has this incredible skill?). But, very disappointingly, the next night I became convinced I was going to have a heart attack. I was gutted. Why do I think this? Well, because I get chest spasms in the heart area every day, several times per day and have done for years, but that night I got a bad spasm and then a lingering dull ache in my shoulder and collar bone afterwards. I read on the news today that cases of sudden death by heart attack are very frequently misdiagnosed (people sent home with paracetamol/told they're having a panic attack etc) and that women in particular are much more likely to be misdiagnosed than men. The case followed a woman who had a heart attack who was 49 and told to go home and take a paracetamol. That's only two years older than me. I DREAD switching the light out at night because as soon as I lie down on that bed and try to go to sleep, the hideous, terrifying thoughts of sudden death (my children left in agony with grief etc etc) come rushing into my head and PLAGUE me. Will I be cold to the touch when they find me? Will they cry over my dead body? These crazy thoughts are driving me crazy. I'm sick of it. I've had enough. I'm angry now. Logically, I know it's unlikely that I'm about to die of a heart attack (I eat healthily, exercise regularly, and there's no family history)... but logic has nothing to do with anxiety. The thoughts still come and torment me. I genuinely feel I might die tonight. Last night. Tomorrow night. It's horrible. I sometimes sit up in a panic and switch my phone on for some distraction. I sometimes frantically feel for a pulse because I think my heart has stopped. But I'm exhausted and want to sleep. Got to get the kids up for school in the morning. I'm getting worse as I get older, not better. I think about my death during the day. I want to write a will. I imagine how I will suffer and how my children will find me. I've taught them how to make a call on my mobile phone for that time when they'll need to dial 999 to report that I'm dying or dead. It's ridiculous and incredibly intrusive. I love life! I want to enjoy it... and most of all I want to sleep and be free of the terror of instant death by heart attack or stroke - I've done my time worrying about having cancer. That battle is temporarily won. I have no symptoms that my brain could twist and convince me that I have the disease. A mole has been removed. The trouble is, my worries about illnesses and dying aren't baseless. I've recently been diagnosed with Crest Syndrome. And as I already mentioned I have frequent headaches and migraines, pains, aches, chest spasms, and weird brain sensations. When I get ill I seem to suffer much worse than anyone else, for longer. A cold will be incredibly heavy and thick, and will last three weeks and end up in sinusitis or an upper respiratory tract infection. My IBS will cause a thrombosed hemorrhoid which will eventually cause perineal thrush. SIGH. I guess my question is, I've had enough of all this crushing anxiety (and of course I wish all my actual symptoms would go away!). I have a doctor's appointment two weeks from now. What should I say? Is there any medication for anxiety like this? How can hideous thoughts be controlled by medication? I'd rather just tell myself to SHUT UP - but it's impossible when you have physical symptoms (chest spasms). Because your worries are then not groundless. Should I take medication at all or is it just a slippery slope? What about side effects/addiction? What the hell are my chest spasms?! Ditto brain sensations? SIGH. Thanks for "listening." :*-(