Anxiety.

[Panter485]

So about 4 weeks ago I think, In the middle of the night I was on my Pc I am kind of a computer geek. And out of the blue I started sweating breathing heavily. And then my heart started racing to the point where I was just panicking.

This was probably on for about 2 hours before I woke my girlfriend up and asked her to wake her mother up so I could get a ride to the hospital. I was scared ******** excuse my language but that's the feeling I had. I was like okey so this is the night I die I thought to myself. I am 20 years of age and I have had alot of family members pass to cancer and brain tumours and such.
All of this started 4 weeks ago now I am struggling with daily anxiety like severe anxiety to the point where I can't cope and have a hard time at work or even at home just relaxing. I think every small pain and symptom is something serious and that I am seriously ill and I am going to die.

I just don't know how to cope with this. This all started out of the blue from nowhere.
I have a small depression nothing big, but I am going to see a psychiatrist to get help obviously because I can't keep living like this.
I was put on Xanax in the meantime and it has helped me so much. I can actually cope with daily activities.
But I still have that constant dread that I am sick and I am dying.
If anyone here has the same thing please enlighten me I am very new to this and this is very scary to me. And I saw this forum and I thought it might be good to vent on here and talk to other people that have this because I know I am not alone.
My whole body aches (Mostly the left part of my body like I am going to have a heart attack constantly) I get left arm pain, left leg pain all the joints ache. Under my armpit hurts. It's hard to lift stuff from time to time. But it seems like when I actually to physical labor the pain disappears briefly then it comes back when the muscles relax.
I sometimes feel like my throat closes up and then I get these HUGE thumps in the middle of my chest like someone just straight up kicked me smack in the middle of my chest and then I start breathing quite heavily before calming down.
But when the panic attacks come on I just can't cope I walk around like a maniac I try to go for walks with music to calm myself down and it usually takes and hour for the attack to pass. But it feels like I am dying every day and I feel like this is the last day on this earth. And honestly it scares me ******** I can't control these feelings at all.

I just hope I can get some answers here. Can anxiety really display heart attack symptoms, pain all over the body, jaw included and such. And I read that when you have anxiety your brain focuses on small pains that you normally wouldn't notice and you overexagurate then in a way.

Thanks for reading this if you did I am really new to this whole thing and I just feel like I need answers and help othewise I wont get anywhere. I have this constant dread of death over me and it's honestly ruining my life atm. I had to move back in with my mom because I feel the best here and i feel like I am in good hands if you know what I mean?

[Panter485]

I started doing breathing meditation and just meditating every night for 3 days now and I can say it has changed me unbelievable I've read up on health anxiety done meditation. It's helped me so much. I've been xanax free now for the whole day with close to no symptoms just a small experience at work but I worked through it with a quick breahting exercise. I can't stress this enough try meditation if you haven't if you have health anxiety or anything resembling it or even just anxiety. It's has helped me immensely just thinking differently and trying to change my own mindset about diseases and such.

[Panter485]

Just having more knowledge about what could be haunting me has helped my pshych immensely.

[Paxiled]

You don't say what your childhood demons are, but let's take what you say at face value.  If it's true you weren't suffering anxiety before whatever happened that night happened, my own opinion is it's much too soon to diagnose it as anxiety.  By the way, I don't think a psychiatrist is the best person to see, but that's just my opinion.  Psychiatrists have evolved at least in most countries to just give out meds.  They usually don't do therapy anymore.  Furthermore, they don't actually study that much psychology -- mostly, they are trained as doctors who decide for whatever reason not to practice medicine so they become drug purveyors.  Drugs often become the only way to deal with mental illness, but until very recently it used to be the first thing that happened when you started to have a problem like yours you were sent to a psychologist.  They study more psychology than any other professional, and are better able to diagnose you because they will spend more time with you than a psychiatrist.  So if you haven't decided it's time for medication, it's not time to see a psychiatrist, it's time to see a psychologist.  But before I even did that, you say this happened all of a sudden.  Anxiety seems to come on all of a sudden, but usually when you look back you see it was coming for a long time.  But when it becomes chronic, it does seem out of the blue.  But a lot of physiological conditions cause symptoms that seem like anxiety.  Doctors are very quick to label something as depression or anxiety because they're lazy and mostly after the money, but I don't know that it's true where you are, this is mostly a US thing.  But here are conditions that can cause what seems like an anxiety attack:  thyroid problems, blood sugar imbalances, grief, fear of losing a parent(a psychological problem you seem to have which can trigger anxiety that can be worked on in therapy without needing medication), nutritional imbalances such as lack of Vitamin D or B vitamins or a die-off of probiotics because of antibiotic use or lack of magnesium, food intolerance or allergy, celiac disease, looking at a computer screen too much (yes, the very lighting used in computers and the flashing images can cause anxiety attacks).  So a good doctor would eliminate all these possibilities before conducing you suddenly one day developed such an intense anxiety problem.  Now, when you have such a traumatic event happen like what happened that night, your brain can then start to expect it to keep happening, and then you do get a chronic anxiety problem, but when you know the exact trigger (for most of us, we don't), you can work on that in therapy.  It's your life, but if it were me, if the facts as presented are accurate, I would get the most thorough check-up with a doctor available and see a psychologist long before I'd go to a psychiatrist and get put on medication that can be very hard to take and stop taking.  I'd also be careful about that benzo you're on, if you take it regularly it's an addictive drug and can be very hard to stop taking.  If you do turn out to have developed an anxiety disorder that will only respond to medication, it will still be there -- drugs aren't going anywhere.  Good luck.

[Panter485]

I meant psychologist sorry, I had the wrong word in mind. I am going to a counselor to talk about what the triggers are and work through my problems. Sorry my bad!

[Panter485]

Thank you so much for the complete answer. Yes I am being very careful with the benzos only take them in emergency because they give me such a headache like I am hungover the day after and it sucks. But yeah I am seeing psychologist not a psychiatrist. Sorry about that error. I will try and work through this with minimum amount of drugs.

[Panter485]

Sorry if my english isn't spot on I half Swedish half Icelandic. And I think what triggered this is when my mom had to be rushed to the hospital twice 2 months ago roughly and I had to take care of her. Luckily it wasn't anything serious in that sense we thought she had a tumour in her brain but luckily it was only an infection in her middle ear or whatever it's called in english just displayed itself like that. But thank you for reading and if you did please enlighten me. I am person that doesn't burden anyone but myself with my own problems and I think that is my main problem and my mom going to the hospital and there are huge changes coming in my life shortly that triggered this. Could this get better with time if I go to see a psychiatrist and get help and work through this properly. All I know is I can't live like this. Luckily the Xanax does help but medication is not what I want to be taking my whole life.

[Panter485]

I can add that the doctor did an EKG on me the night I came in to the hospital at 4 AM in the middle of the night and it was all fine. I've been to 2 doctors so far saying that I got GAD and or panic disorder but I want to go to a psychiatrist to be sure. But the doctors say that I am fine health wise. I am a bit overweight but physically I am very fine. I lift and carry things on a daily bases at my job as well.

[Panter485]

I am also only 20 years of age.

[Panter485]

All and all I am very happy person always the life of the party but I know I got alot of childhood demons to deal with and I think I have to at this point. Sorry for the wall of text I just needed to vent and talk to other people with this problem.