Head Pressure causing anxiety....HELP!!!!

I guess I am finding I am not alone...been fighting anxiety for six months now.  I have done the emergency room several times with level 10 (OH MY GOD I"M GOING TO DIE RIGHT NOW CHEST PAIN HEART ATTACK MUSCULAR TENSION HEADACHE) panic attacks.  I quit smoking almost two years ago.  I quit drinking eight months ago ( weekend binge alcoholic only but the hangovers were too hard on me) then I gave blood at a clinic - then all hell broke loose and I haven't been to work in six months battling strange head pressure and a sort of dizzy feeling...not vertigo, just a feeling like I'm not really here...surreal is all I can say to describe this - which causes the anxiety and now to top it off, depression has set in because I am

becoming somewhat hopeless with my doctors.

I have seen the following - Cardiologists, Nose, Ear and Throat specialists, Sleep disorder studies - I have sleep apnea...

In searching for an answer to this I discovered I had atrial fibrilation, heart rythem issue that I am now taking amioderone for...a strong drug that I will be on for the next year...

I am 35

Since the pressure began after giving blood, I thought it was related.  I have always blamed it on the giving blood but wonder if anyone has felt this.

I am taking Ativan 1mg four times a day and it has been keeping the level 10 panic attacks down and CBT training has helped with the catastrophic thoughts through a pyschologist through work...somewhat...but I'm still not well and am SOOOO glad to find a community of people who I can discuss this with.  No one understands, my wife and her family included....this has been hard on our family...

What has helped...meditation...never thought I would be able to calm the thoughts that continue to shatter the peace in my brain but after six months I can deep breathe and get into a strange state of calm within five minutes...I usually fall asleep now so I have to perfect that technique.  this is temporary

Massage - a good head massage for an hour, temporary relief again

Acupuncture - have had it done a few times when the tension headaches were so bad because of the anxiety from the head pressure...

Yoga is helping too...for an ex hockey player I can't believe I'm admitting that I do yoga...but it has helped.

Walking has not helped, the pressure gets worse and I panic.

I am taking wellbutrin right now to help with the depression that has set in because I literally have no life...I've lost all my friends - mostly drinking buddies so that's not a major issue - I can't go to dinner parties, public places, malls...etc cause of the anxiety...

I used to be the loud aggressive drunk at the end of the bar telling dirty jokes and flirting with the bartender (female) and full of confidence, but now I'm afraid of going outside, it's a chore each and every time I do - it's ridiculous and I can't believe I'm writing this.

If I have to stay indoors it's not worth living like this.  PLUS - I am being bullied back to work by the psychologist and my company nurse who think it's best that to fight anxiety, they are to thrust me back into the work environment.

I am not seeing a neurologist until March!!!!  RAGING because of how slow the system works in Canada....took me four months to get all the tests back from two cardiologists. 

I have been to the nose and throat specialist who wants to do rinoplasty surgery...??? That is supposed to help my breathing but he has me on NASONEX and Breath RIGHT strips which have helped along with a CPAP...

NOTHING HAS GOTTEN RID OF THE PRESSURE IN MY HEAD>...I thought it was a tumor when I had a month of tension headaches that resulted in two emergency room visits...The catscan came out with nothing...

DESPERATE TO FIND ANSWERS

email me any time..

PRESSURE HEAD

I have deleted your email addy from this post for your own security because of email scammers.  If you want more details please feel free to email me!

Post Edited By Moderator (Annuk) : 12/28/2006 2:51:34 AM (GMT-7)

I'm another with head pressure. More so as the active part of the day goes on. No too bad after lots of sleep, but it does come back. Sounds like yours is always there. Been to the ER a few times myself without anything really found and even a couple years ago to the point of a Heartcath. Have the same problem with my doctors; they can find nothing firm. I've not taken the anxiety meds, but looking at doing that next. Yesterday it was worse then usual, but am tired of hours in an ER, but also concern something happened. Have no answers other then I'm a believer if your doc can do nothing more time to move on. Not all docs are equal and certainly there are a number of examples where a new guy had better insight.

In a sentence Head Pressure Guy... hang in there; it does get better.

I was in exactly the same situation as you in 2004. I had people tell me then it was going to take "a while" for things to get better and I freaked out. But 3 years later life is as good as before; even better actually because now I'm now taking active steps to mellow-out.

A saviour for me in the meantime was Lorazapam to help when the panics happened. Really cut the edge off of them. My skin is tingling with goose-bumps as I remember how absolutely desperate I felt. As I remember my partner coming home to find me crying and wailing in the kitchen in deperation.... I hope you don't mind that I'm sending you a hug.

Yoga is a really good step. It helped me immensely. I'm actually thinking of becoming a yoga instructor, so that I can perfect my practice. Self-hypnosis works, which I learned from a pyschologist at an anxiety clinic in Ottawa. I bought a CD of crystal bowl sounds (it'll make sense when you find it) to help calm me... Deep resonant sounds that made me vibrate, and I would feel very calm afterwards. Another trick is EMDR... and easy thing to try is this:

Cross your arms in front of you, like on a dead body at a funeral. The palms/fingers of each hand on the opposite bicep. Then start alternate tapping. Fash or slow doesn't matter. This triggers something in us that helps us calm down. It can be done anywhere, and it just looks like an odd little "habit". Try it right now... it's weird how it works in just a couple of minutes.

Lorazapam is excellent for taking the edge off panic attacks. It's very addictive though, so don't depend on it as the only cure or else your attacks and anxiety will be worse than ever. Stay away from Pot dude! (As a fellow Canadian, it's easy to get here, and it does NOT reduce anxiety!)

There is some validity to trying to get you back to work... as impossible as it seems. You need to have coping mechanisms though. My fear became just being around groups of people, and it is only by actually doing this that I was able to overcome it.

Try this self-help book which helps you rate your anxiety so you can face each one gradually in order of severity:

http://www.heretohelp.bc.ca/publications/toolkits/adtoolkit.pdf

I'm happy to say there is a way out of this, and I'm sorry to say it's not just a simple pill away. It's a journey. Your anxiety is not you, but it is a part of you. Your nervous system has become super-sensitive, and it takes a while to turn down the sensitivity again.

I'm recently having a bit of relapse, with head pressure, dizziness, some nausea... and I realize I had gotten lazy with my coping techniques (Yoga, crystal bowl CD, meditation). It has to become part of who you are, but you'll be a pretty cool, mellow dude because of it.

All the best... write some more if you need to talk.

Dan

have you ever took amitryptlyine or clonozapam, also best thing for me is hot and cold showers and making sure i get sleep. i also rub headache oils on my neck , face and temples. Ive also upped my vitamin c, calcium and magnesium and potassium and doubled my water intake.