My Heart, My Fear, and the Power of the Mind

[lumberjim]

so.....and this might be long and out of character......but.....

About 5 or 6 weeks ago, I was driving home and experienced a tightening in my chest. kind of like a stitch that you get in your ribs when you bend funny and breathe wrong at the wrong time, ya know? It was right in the middle, and felt 'exterior.' I had just eaten a large hoagie after being famished. I attributed it to gas, as I woke jinx up that night with an exceptionally strong emmission. But then, like 3 or 4 days later it happened again. same basic circumstances. but it was a bit more uncomfortable and longer lasting. I told jinx about it this time, and she stayed up with me for a bit....it went away, and I fell asleep. Again, i was awakend in the wee hours by a powerful urge to purge, so I figured it was gastric, but it nagged at me. About a week later, on a tuesday night, I experienced some more (much milder) discomfort, but this time I had not overeaten. I mentioned it to jinx, and told her about the first occurance, because I had been thinking about it a good deal, and was slightly worried. I wouldn't allow my self to say the words 'heart attack' until then. Jinx told me she had been worrying about it too.

Later that night, I partook rather heavily of a particular herbal form of entertainment. within a few minutes, I began to experience waves of rising panic. I would go goggle eyed, and imagine that I was seeing my last sights. I got a little dizzy, and heard my heart thumping in my ears, sure that I was going into cardiac arrest, and was going to leave my family that night. I rode through a couple of these waves without saying anything, trying to determine if I was just scaring myself, or if there was an actual event taking place. Afraid to tell jinx, because I didn;t want to panic her. yet, not wanting to waste time if an ambulance was indeed needed.

~ as I write this, and relive it, my shoudlers keep riding up in tension, and I have to consciously relax them~

After about 30 minutes, we went to bed, but I just lay there with my heart pumping, and feeling like I was hyperventilating ( it's like a head rush in your entire body). Another half hour, and I coudn;t take it anymore, so I told jinx thatr my heart wouldn't calm down. I could feel it pounding the inside of my chest with my hand on the outside. she could feel it against her chest as she hugged me. That calmed me a bit, but I have never been so afraid in all my life. It was like that feeling you get when you almost go over backward in a chair.....but in 1-2 minute waves instead of 3-4 second flashes. ( I know Stephen Wright has a joke about feeling like that all of the time......but that shit's not funny anymore) In retrospect, it felt like how I felt when my son was born, and I could see that his 2nd and 3rd fingers were fused. I was so scared by the rush of 'what else could be wrong?!' fear that i got naseaus.

I alternated sitting on the edge of the bed, standing, and lying back down as the waves came and went. I can still see the radiator under my bedroom window that I was looking at when the panic was at it's worst, and I had pretty much convinced myself that I was dying right there and then. I can see the rafters in my ceiling that I focused on while the wave passed. fuck! After another half hour of jinx staring at me wide eyed, and talking about whether or not to wake the kids and call an ambulance, I got dressed just in case. We went down stairs, and I paced back anad forth for a while. ( mind you, this whole time, I had not felt a bit of pain in my chest, just my heart pounding nonstop)

I;ve never had a heart attack, and was never particularly afraid of having one for that matter, but I had somehow talked myself into it's inevitability. After bit, we went into the living room, and turned on the TV. I watched George Carlin ,and tried to take my mind off of my beating heart. have you ever tried to NOT think about something?

Here...try this: Take control of your breathing. pay attention....close attention to the oxygen needs of your body, and try to breathe 'manually' within about 45 seconds, you;ll be all fucked up, and will have a hard time NOT thinking about it, and letting your body take control back from your mind.....

eventually, I had calmed down, my heart stopped freaking out, and we went back up to bed ( about 3 hours after I first began to lose my shit)

The next morning, we went to the emergency room, and told them all about it. They took my blood pressure first....very good. ok, now into the room for a consult with a Dr. She ordered a chest xray, an EKG, and blood tests. It took about 4 hours for all of that, and the last hour of waiting for them to analyze the results was brutal, but she came into the room and said, " your fine. all of it looks fine. Follow up with your doctor, quit smoking. but your fine. you didn;t have a heart attack."

I was a little embarrased, ( still am, actually) but also relieved. So why did I panic like that? was the P*t THAT strong? well, jinx had more than I did, and was ok. ( If a bit freaked out by my psychotic episode)

Anyway, even after that experience, 4 days later, I smoked again for the first time, and again, wound up focusing on my accelerating heart beat. it took me another 3 hours of (solitary, this time) listening to my heart, and going for a walk, and doing whatever I could to take my mind off of it, to decide that I can;t smoke that shit anymore. what the fuck?!

since that time, I have not felt 'right' for an entire day. my left arm has felt numb, periodically, I've had miniature feelings of impending doom, cold sweats that I have attributed to low blood sugar......I'm all fucked up. I was starting to feel okay for a while, and then 2 fridays ago, I had some actual pains in my chest.....again on the surface, and probably lungs from too many cigarrettes, or muscular from being all bunched the fuck up all the damn time, but each twinge was punctuated by that falling off the chair feeling. I was out that night with friends, and suffered with it silently through dinner so that I wouldn't ruin the evening. Rum and Coke eventually loosened me up enough to make it stop.

I think it's been about 5 weeks since that night, and I keep waiting to feel 'normal' again. I'm pretty sure that it's anxiety, but I have not yet been able to master it. I focus on staying physically relaxed, but continuously have to consciously relax my shoulders. I need to quit smoking, but when I don;t have one for a while, i get all jittery, and start getting tense again. Excercise helps, i think, but I work so goddamn much.......
ah fuck. I just need to excercise more, i think.

but i wanted to tell you guys about this because you're all fucked up too, and I thought someone might have conquered this motherfucker before.

[wolf]

I've known other folks that got the panicky feeling from weed after many years of happy use.

I think mother nature is trying to tell you you've grown up a little bit.

Oh, and get your doctor to send you for an ultrasound of your gall bladder.

You're not stoned, it could be stones, though.

Coupla things that you said are part of the symptom cluster.

[lookout123]

or you may be like more than a few people who i know who, after many years in sales, suddenly start developing anziety issues and work up to panic attacks. no shit, jim. you may want to think along those lines even if you don't think you are more stressed than usual. constant stress about performance that is usually released by the herb doesn't really go away and it will build and build until...

just an idea from another life long sales guy.

last month i stayed awake for 4 days. literally. no chemical assistance. i just couldn't close my eyes. at all. that really sucked. turns out i was stressed about landing a new client and didn't realize how focused i was on it.

[Undertoad]

Yes, this is absolutely classic anxiety / panic. I've had it. I can help.

Panic can produce any symptom - and every symptom. It is worsened by longer periods of stress.

After long periods of stress, your nerves literally become more responsive as they expect the "fight or flight" response. Once your nerves are sensitized in this way, they react to things that you normally wouldn't react to - some first fear - and then you listen in to the symptoms and react to them. You may be inadvertently conditioned to fear the fear, in a way.

If it's not chronic, it's something you can either address through drugs, talk therapy, a combination of the two, or coping techniques. For the short term, some docs will prescribe Xanax, Ativan or some similar type of drug which interrupts the anxiety reaction and can basically shut it off. The effect of having your anxiety completely shut off is pretty powerful, and so a lot of people get hooked on these. They put me flat out to sleep, so I can't take them.

The short-term drugs should not be ruled out completely out of bias, as they will permit you to continue your life more normally.

For a quick coping technique, the trick in panic reactions is to sort of Zen through it. You now know you've been looked at for serious heart problems. You don't have a heart problem, you have adrenaline. You are healthy, your problem is an illogical response to stress.

Knowing this may be a big help to begin. You know when it starts that it's not a serious problem; it's just a "spell". It *will* go away; your body will only produce adrenaline for so long. But at the same time, you can't FIGHT the symptoms. The trick is to know that they are there but harmless, meaningless. To be distracted with other things.

Having a condition that you can only make worse by fighting it is truly a zen experience. This is the chinese fiinger trap of life; fight it and it only gets worse. Fight it regularly, and you condition yourself even more for stress. A minimum of people fight it so hard they wind up having a worse time of it. Luckily this is something the psych docs really understand well at this point. Don't suffer with this one, even your GP might be able to help if s/he's familiar with the condition.

[lumberjim]

thanks.

I really don't want to take any drugs, but thanks for the tips on coping with it. sounds right. i'm afraid of the fear and what it does to me physiologically.

[Undertoad]

Ok, one important thing is to remember that there really is nothing wrong with your body. Your heart may beat, but it really doesn't matter; it's made to do that, and it won't be hurt by just beating hard. In fact if you were a runner, you might make your heart do that every day for an hour.

Once the symptoms begin, don't sit there and listen in to them. They are alarming, and you might say oh shit here we go again, but really it's just adrenaline and other such signals tells your body to fight or flight. You have to sort of get used to it; your body has just told you there's a problem and there is no problem. You can't fight it; you just have to float on past.

Weed is thought to aggravate the condition but I personally have had panic/anxiety problems both during periods of use AND non-use. I'm different of course in that my condition is chronic. I think people are all different on this and you have to find your own road. Weed definitely causes panic amongst new users of it, but if you don't experience periods of anxiety while on it, my non-professional opinion is that it's usually a wash. Caffeine is the drug that makes people jittery and pokes their nervous system, but you don't question that because everyone does it.

Also, you didn't mention any life change that could cause stress and we know there is at least one big one.

You should measure your response to this by how much you alter your life. If you find that you are avoiding things because of it, not just occasionally but regularly, that's the point at which it's becoming something you should address harder.

[garnet]

Good advice, UT. I was having panic attacks a couple years ago due mostly to stress at my old job. My doc prescribed a low dose of Xanax, which helped immensely. Like UT said some people can get addicted to it. I'm not sure why, because for me it didn't produce any sort of "high"--it just made the panic attacks go away. But I guess everyone's different. Once my life calmed down I tapered off the stuff and haven't had a problem since. It's not a good solution for everyone, but you might ask your doc about it if things don't improve for you.

Other than that, I'd just stay away from the weed and try to live as healthy a life as possible (boring, I know). Exercise has always been a great stress reliever for me, so I'd definitely continue with that. Good luck!

[OnyxCougar]

I've heard that lots of folks who have anxiety attacks benefit from excercise DURING the attack. It redirects your focus, gives your heart a reason to be beating harder (which makes you more comfortable with it beating harder), and is generally good for you anyway.

I've never had one of these, my "over the top" stress reaction is to go lay down and cry hysterically for 2 hours, followed by a migraine.

Also, you may want to consider a weekly massage therapy. Good for the body and the stress.

[elf]

Hey... I don't want to give you more stuff to worry about, but this sounds a little too familiar to me.

Some ten years ago, my husband started having some issues with his heart. Isolated incidents that he couldn't quite explain at first, and each time, it would pass, and he would move along. Figure at twenty-something, you brush it off and move along. We didn't think 'heart condition'. Well, after awhile, the patterns to it started becoming obvious. His heart would kick him every so often, mostly when he hadn't gotten enough sleep or if he was unduly stressed. If he was stresed and lost some sleep, we knew he would have issues the next day.

So off to the doctors we went. It was hard to get them to find the problem to begin with. Sporadic issues are difficult to pin down, and I think that the Hubby's fear of hospitals actually tamped down the issues during transit. Basically, by the time he got hooked up to any machines, his heart would be treating him fine. No problem at all.

Since he was so young, the doctors would just send him on his way, (after asking him fifteen thousand times whether he did any cocaine) saying "there's nothing wrong with you". Yeah. OK. Tell me that at three in the morning when he's laying there, panting and sweating and pale as a ghost and I'm sure I'll be a widow within the next few minutes. Repeat this paragraph about fifteen times over the course of the next few years...

So finally, it got so bad we did the emergency-room thing. His heart rate was over three hundred bpm, at which point your heart isn't <i>pumping</i> blood anymore, it's <b>frothing</b> it. But they got it on record!

Turned out to be Atrial Fibrillation. It's a condition where there's extra electrical patterns in the upper part of his heart that made it go out of synch with the lower portion, then it gets all out of whack trying to catch up with itself.

The docs that originally diagnosed this condition put him on meds that masked the condition by slowing the heart rate down to lethargic...

~jeez. I see what you mean - even just recalling all this stuff still makes my breath catch in my throat~

Well, to make a long story short, there's a procedure we had done called cathater ablasion where they go in with a laser and fry the spots inside the heart that were conducting the extra electrical charges. (scar tissue isn't conductive). They didn't have to open him up for it, just stick a little camera with a laserbeam attached to it through his veins and into his heart.

Now, about two years after, his heart has been treating him.. perfectly.

Anyway. I just wanted to mention all the trials and tribulations we had gone through in order to simply get him properly diagnosed. . .

My main point: <i>if you've any doubts </i>in your mind, get another dr's opinion. Don't ever be afraid to question a doctor. They do know what they're talking about, but they're certainly not infallible.

[Troubleshooter]

Or you could just do what everybody has told everybody else at one point or another on this board, get over it.

The trick is figuring out what "it" is though.

[staceyv]

Oh my god, I've been through this exact same stuff. I can't smoke weed anymore. I really, really thought I was gonna die the last time I smoked. I was with my ex and he put his head on my chest and told me I was fine to calm me down..The next day, he was like "I thought you were gonna die! Your heart was pounding so hard I thought it would beat out of your chest!" I remember saying to him "tell my family that I love them". Sooo freaky.
I started having panic attacks when I was 15. I actually called 911 in the middle of the night, because I thought I was dying. And ofcourse, everything about my health was normal.
I had one right after drinking a coke- a bad one. I think it's a sugar/caffeine related thing. stop drinking soda! seriously. You might have low blood sugar. If that's the case, don't eat a lot of sugar and eat protein with every meal.
Cut down on your caffeine intake, too.
I've had chest pains on and off for years now, although I stopped getting full blown anxiety attacks. When you feel like there's something wrong with you and you worry about having them, you'll get them even more! I am able now to talk myself out of them. I just say to myself "you know there's nothing wrong with you. If you go to the emergency room you're gonna sit there for hours for them to tell you there's nothing wrong, and you're gonna feel stupid. " Then I try to keep myself busy. Don't just go and lay down, it'll probably get worse. Last time I almost had an anxiety attack, i did the dishes.
I really truly think it's diet/nutrition and stress related. I used to eat a lot of crap- candy bars, soda, chips, subs...That's when I had the most problems. Just for one week, try eating a really healthy diet and see if it works. Protein with every meal, no sugary snacks, no soda. The day after drinking I'm always more prone to having problems, too. One more thing, that weed might have been really good stuff- too strong. But the problem is, that now that you've had a problem, even if you try weaker stuff, you're going to expect anxiety and you'll get it.
And duh, reduce the stress in your life and get enough rest.

I know all of this sounds too simple and generic, but it really works. If you don't have a medical problem, then I guarantee you that a healthier lifestyle will fix your problem.
Here's a helpful little summary. Write it down and follow it, damn it. I want a report at the end of the week.

1) no soda
2) reduce caffeine
3) eat 3 meals a day and make sure there's protein in them
4) lay off the sugar/ sweets
5) lay off booze (and weed)
6) get enough sleep
7) do stuff that you enjoy and that relaxes you- this doesn't include smoking weed and drinking.




In case of an anxiety attack:
1) tell yourself that you know for a fact that you are in good health and that it is just anxiety.
2) stop thinking about it!! Do something productive. Iron some shirts, clean your house, go online and IM someone or find a live chat or just come to the Cellar. Get into a conversation, just do something that'll take your mind off of it.
You DO have control over this. Don't let your brain fool you into thinking you don't!

[lookout123]

a word of caution here that may just be coming from my overreaction. get a second dr's opinion to rule out a medical condition. once that is done, acknowledge that it is a buildup of stress and don't try to fight it. if the attacks worsen, seek professional help in managing your stress.

one of my former employees ate a bullet today. after 2 years of fighting his panic attacks and trying to hide them from everyone, it got to be too much for him. he refused to deal with the situation and finally... well, anyway. deal with the cause (stress, or whatever) don't fall into the trap of self medicating the symptoms away.

[staceyv]

helllloooh, LJ, update, please...
I couldn't help but notice your posting in the atkins thread. Did you all of sudden stop doing the atkins and then you developed these problems?
That seems like a blood sugar thing. Maybe your body's flipping out because it got used to not having sugars, then you ate a sub with a white flour, high glycemic index bun and your body was like "WTF??" just a thought...

[Trilby]

All of the above really great advice for you LJ--I had the same thing and it was brought on by stress/anxiety too much caffeine, not enough water (dehydrated always) too much Absolut and NO exercise. I was diagnosed with Atrial Fib. No need for ablation, though. Staceyv (and everybody) really have great pointers but the best pointer is: GET a SECOND opinion!

Good luck LJ. It's important to follow-up.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Yo...knock it off, Jim....you're scaring Jinx.
You had to examine your priorities when you considered changing jobs. The priorities and decisions should be reviewed, periodically.