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| dkersten:
There are a lot of major changes going on in my life right now, and a ton of potential stress that goes along with it. It has been impacting my health to the point where my doctor is sending me to a cardiologist. But the thing is, I don't feel like I am specifically under stress or being overly anxious, in fact most of the time I feel pretty chill. I went through a bout of depression and anxiety about 5 years ago, and it was an entirely different beast. This time around, I am only feeling it in my chest in the form of heart arrhythmia. It comes and goes, and doesn't seem to follow what I am stressing about specifically. In other words, I can be perfectly calm, watching a movie or working on a spreadsheet and it hits me. My heart starts pounding or fluttering in my chest and it feels hollow and often makes me feel like I need to cough. But as a major event is fast approaching (sorry, can't talk about it til next week), I find it getting way worse, and when I AM thinking about all the bad stuff that could come from these changes, it has gotten 10x worse. It leads me to think that this is definitely tied to the stress and anxiety. Last night my chest was going crazy, creating weird dreams that fed the anxiety. At one point I had a weird nightmare that woke me up with my heart pounding, only this multiplied with the already fluttering heart stuff and I thought my heart was going to come out of my chest it was pounding so hard. Last time I experienced that kind of heart pounding was when someone broke into my house and I was going room by room with a gun looking for them. To wake up in that state was both annoying and kind of scary. On the medical side of it, I will be doing a holter monitor for a couple days to monitor the arrhythmia and see if there is something the cardiologist can do, and I have recently had a stress test which was perfect, and in looking for a diagnosis with this current thing I have done a full pulmonary test. So I'm not looking for medical advice per se. But as I know at the very least the anxiety is contributing, my question here is if anyone has some advice for dealing with anxiety, particularly when an anxiety attack comes on. I have some ativan left over from years ago, but I am hesitant to take any since it wasn't prescribed this time, and while it can take the edge off, I don't recall it helping much when I had an anxiety attack 5 years ago. Last night I tried just focusing on the feeling that everything was going to work out fine even in the worst case scenario, but it took some time to settle down and fall into normal sleep after that. Are there any home remedies anyone recommends? Exercises you might have done that helped with this sort of thing? Anything would help. Thanks. |
| Mike A:
Do what your doctor says. Don't listen to anyone else. |
| markc74:
I've been there - no fun at all. Turns out i had a load of stress in my life that i thought i was dealing with in my stride but wasn't. Once i dealt with the stress, the anxiety attacks pretty much stopped. Changed my diet (turns out I'm gluten intolerant), got back into exercise and stopped sweating the small stuff. Also got some hypnotherapy that really seemed to make a difference. Once I'd learned to ride them out and see them for what they were (body going into fight or flight mode) it became a lot easier. Not gonna say avoid drugs because everyone's different but definitely get professional help as it's very tough to deal with on your own. Good luck :cheers: |
| dkersten:
--- Quote from: Mike A on April 07, 2017, 10:32:00 am ---Do what your doctor says. Don't listen to anyone else. --- End quote --- Oh yeah, I have a long history of heart problems in my family, so anything with my heart I take seriously, almost to the point of being a hypochondriac. But I'm more thinking along the lines of ways to relax and calm down when you know it is just stress and anxiety causing it. I've never been able to meditate, my mind is too active for it. I'm not a big drinker, but a couple beers definitely help on rough nights, although that can come around in the middle of the night and make it worse, lol. I am not into drugs, so smoking a bowl is out. Right now, exercise scares me because my heart is already doing weird things in my chest, but I can't help but think that maybe going outside and taking a vigorous walk would help. Part of the problem is I am under a strict NDA on some of the stuff, so I can't talk openly about it, even with family. Hoping when that lifts next week a lot of this anxiety will go away. Doesn't help that I just inked a deal on selling my house of 17 years, and I am going to be dumping my entire life savings into my new home, or that my youngest is graduating high school and my life as a parent of children is over, or that my son is a drug addict who is facing another felony charge AND he knocked up his girlfriend so I will now be a grandpa to boot. You know, little things like that tend to build up, lol. --- Quote from: markc74 on April 07, 2017, 11:25:48 am ---Turns out i had a load of stress in my life that i thought i was dealing with in my stride but wasn't. --- End quote --- I think this is exactly the issue.. I feel like I am taking everything in stride and not worrying about it, but then I turn off the lights and spend more time staring at darkness than getting sleep. Most of what is going on is (potentially) major life changes in the positive direction, so if anything I should just be excited and happy. Sometimes ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- doesn't make sense... |
| Mike A:
I am sorry you are facing all of this stuff all at once. Your doctor should be able to steer you to a mental health professional. They can be an enormous help. My wife saw a psychiatrist for depression. She needed medication, but he also got her into counseling. That led to her ability to deal with life more constructively. She was much happier, and eventually didn't need medication anymore. |
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