Hello everyone, 23 year old male. I'm just going to write down a bit of my background before my question. I was rushed to the ER in the beginning of March because all of a sudden I got trouble breathing, my heart was pounding, I got dizzy and I felt like I was going to faint. At the ER they measured my blood pressure, pulse, took a blood test to check for troponine and salts and also a short EKG. The cardiologist told me that there was nothing wrong with me and sent me home. The following week I wore an EKG for 24 hours and after that they could conclude that there's absolutely nothing wrong with my heart. I've also done a few EKGs before and one after the ER visit, so I'm not worried that I might die anymore, I trust the doctors' judgement. I've been taking anti-depressive(SSRI) and anxiety relieving medicines for almost two months now, and I can clearly say that my mental state has improved a lot. I used to cry on a daily basis before and get panic attacks all the time, because I actually thought there was something wrong with my heart the first two weeks.
For some reason my medicines don't seem to relieve the pain whatsoever though, which is problematic since I have very debilitating symptoms, I can't go to classes or do anything that requires physical strength. I've always had stomach problems for as long as I can remember, frequent heartburns, long periods of almost constant nausea and stomach pains. Doctors have suspected that I have a reflux disease before. I've also been having these symptoms lately. So I was wondering if the physical part of my illness could be from GERD? I'm certain that I have experienced panic attacks, but seeing as how my anxiety medicines don't relieve the pain I think there might be a physical problem that causes my pain, which consequently caused my panic attacks.
The symptoms I experience frequently are, chest pain(especially around the heart, but sometimes on the right side as well), upper back pain, heart palpitations, stomach pain, epigastric pain(pain just below where the ribs meet in the middle of the chest), sore throat, blood taste when burping after not having eaten anything for a while, trouble swallowing some things(like pills getting stuck when swallowing them), I can feel food scrape against my esophagus on the way down to the stomach in an uncomfortable way, the bottom of my esophagus feels ice cold when I drink fluids, extreme lethargy and I've been having yellow stool as of lately. I also have asthma which I developed two years ago just out of the blue, never had any trouble with breathing before. Does what I describe sound like anything you have experienced or something that could be caused by GERD? I'm seeing a doctor next week, but I'm curious if anyone else has had these kinds of problems. I'm not 100% certain that it's not anxiety related, but I don't get it why the medicines aren't helping.
Thanks in advance!
Post Edited (Zodiac) : 4/25/2012 6:28:55 PM (GMT-6)