Rough Morning

Hello all,

This morning was a rough one. Woke up not feeling myself. All of a sudden my heart started pumping, I felt light headed, upset stomach and sweaty. I don't understand what's going on. My doctor just told me my blood pressure is good, my blood work and ECG came back good. Don't know why I'm still feeling this way and worrying about being sick.

He prescribed me Escitalopram about 4 days ago but it hasn't started working yet. I take .5 mg of Lorazepam and that doesn't seem to be working as well anymore either. Just sick and tired of feeling all this anxiety.

Thanks Turtle,

I feel when I'm in the heat of a panic attack, slow breathing and other techniques makes it worse as I tend to focus more on my heart beating and the overall feeling. I see a counsellor Thursday so hopefully she can show me some coping skills that work.

I also had what you're experiencing right now. Heart starts pumping hard and fast for no reason. As soon as you think something serious is going on you start to feel lightheaded and have cold sweats (palm, heel and neck). This also happened to me before. When we panic out of fear and feel threatened like we're on an actual danger our digestive system changes, sometimes it stops or slows down to save some energy for our other organs (sometimes causing us to have constipation) and sometimes it speeds up (causing us to have frequent bowel movement, sometimes with yellowish fat-like discharge and diarrhea). Before I also thought I'm having problems with my heart that causes my body to experience these weird things but just like you my ECG was also normal. I had two ECG that was normal but still I wasn't convinced by it. Everyday I thought that I was terminally ill. That's something you're NOT supposed to do in order to break the cycle. Stop thinking there's something wrong with you especially when tests come out normal. I remember when I spent the whole day/week thinking about it and spending too much time googling symptoms that only made matters worse. I felt so sick inside but the truth is I'm not sick. My mind was always telling me that there's something serious going on and it only made fear more intense that made me experience these weird things. You have to stop feeding your fears regarding your health. It's true that when you think of negative things, you'll feel negative. Start thinking positive and soon you'll find yourself feeling a lot better. Anxiety can't be defeated in a day. We have to work on it everyday. At first there will be a lot of ups and downs. But soon there will be more ups than downs. Before I thought I'll never have my normal life back but now everything seems good, not perfect but good. To stop feeling odd all we have to do is lessen our worries. It's ok to worry but not to the extent where we torture ourselves by absurd thoughts that takes the very life in us. I hope you'll get yourself to believe "everything is going to be fine". You're not alone.

Post Edited (Jojanxiety) : 10/25/2014 9:45:40 AM (GMT-6)

Also constantly checking your pulse only adds to your worries. It feeds the fear thus not helping in breaking the anxiety cycle. Before when I was having a panic attack sometimes my pulse will go up as high as 150bpm thinking my nerves will explode and die at that moment. But it never happened. I had a lot of panic attacks until I prepared myself to face it head on. I thought "you again" and even dared it to give me its best shot. I never died from it either even the worst full blown panic attack. That was also when my fear from it lessened. Sometimes when I feel an attack was going to happen I count backwards from 20-1 daring it to happen as soon as possible and hit me as hard as it can, most of the time the panic attack loses as it fails to do so or develop to a full blown panic attack. Right now you worry a lot about it. Me, when I think of it or when I feel it creeping in, I'll just tell myself "So what? you tried so many times but didn't succeed I thought you were to take my life but the truth is no matter how hard you try, you can't." This is actually based on having a lot of panic attacks before. You too can defeat this soon.

Post Edited (Jojanxiety) : 10/25/2014 7:12:50 AM (GMT-6)

Moose

This is the third post I have read today about morning anxiety! Start logging your sleeping patterns. A bad nights sleep can cause morning anxiety. Think about what you did last night... Did you have any cocktails? Did you stay up particularly late? Any arguments or fueds yesterday evening? All of this can add to or cause morning anxiety.

It's Saturday and the sun is shining (here anyway). Try to think positive and have a lovely day!

Big hugs

Cornell