Cardiophobia- Worst ever

[blink1147]

I've been having at least four anxiety attacks a night because I'm so terrified of my heart. I have OCD, so I have quite a few obsessions, but this is the most intense thing I've ever experienced. It's been going on now for about 7 months, and I've been to the hospital over it. I don't know if it skips beats or not, I'm to scared to hold my hand over my heart long enough to find out.
When I feel my heart beat, I'm so terrified it'll stop that I have to move around until I can't feel it anymore. But then I just go crazy that I can't feel it anymore. I have severe insomnia over it now (that's why I'm on here at 6:42 am, I haven't slept yet).
I'm not a doctor, But I'm pretty sure I have severe cardiophobia. I have visions that just pop into my head of me dying on the floor too fast for anyone to help me, and I have stress related chest pains, but somehow I always seem to forget that when I have them and I go into a panic.
It's wrecking my life, and I'm constantly in fear, so if ANYONE knows ANYTHING about getting over it without therapy (too poor) could you please send it to my profile? Or a VERY cheap insurance, maybe? That way I could just get help. Thanx

[OCDnyc]

Hey, I had that same problem. I'm 23 have had serious OCD for almost my whole life. The constant obsessions caused my heart rate to go up and even gave me chest pains. I then began obsessing about my heart beat. I couldn't stop thinking about it, and managed to convince myself that if I thought about my heart enough, it could stop. A few months ago, I was traveling on a plane, and felt my heart flutter, and thought I was going to have a heart attack. I went to see a doctor, and he gave me a stress test and everything came up normal. This gave me a lot of relief, but didn't make it go away.
There are a number of ways that combined seemed to work to make the problem go away.
1. (and I know that this is hard to do with OCD) The problem is all in your head. The heart doctor I saw told me that even though I was feeling tight around my heart it actaully had nothing to do with it. Anxiety causes tension in the area, but does not affect the heart in any bad way. Over many many years, anxiety can eventually lead to heart problems, but at our age it does absolutely nothing. You have plenty of years ahead to fix the problem.
2. Look up deep breathing. It took me a long time to get the hang of because of my obsession with my heart, but after a while I learned to take in slow deep breaths, and relax a little.
3. Excercise. This at first was really hard for me because I got my heart rate up, and couldn't sop thinking about it pounding. However, I found that if I went running while listening to music, I could ignore it. I just concentrated on the music and where I was going. Excercise releases chemicals that make you feel relaxed. Plus, once your heart slows down, you don't get as scared because you know it was really high a few hours earlier.
The other great thing about excercising is that you can figure out if the problem is a physical problem with your heart or purely mental. The heat doctor told me that if my chest pain symptoms got worse when I was running, it was a physical problem. If they stayed the same or got better, it was purely mental. This is a good way to reaffirm to yourself that the problem is all in your head.
I combined this with really making a big effort to subdue my obsessive thoughts. i personally find that reading about obsessive compulsive disorder really helps. I spend some time each day after work reading people's blogs, forums and random web sites about ocd. It ehlps convince me that the problem is all in my head.

[Pum]

Gee I saved this worry up for use over 40. I only worried about cancers and the like when I was your age as the stats are very very rare for heart stuff at 20.

I don't worry about cancer at all anymore for some reason (perhaps because I've known some people get it and it can be very treatable and at least with lots of cancers you can be "cured" compared to heart troubles).

My worry is heart failure too. It's annoying (convenient) how shortness of breath, sweating, and weakness are common to both panic/anxiety and HF.

Your heart has been tested, you're fine, the chest pains are nothing more than stress. Are you exercising?

[scaredjo]

sorry hun i forget about the insurance thing we get therapy n stuff free over here i think its cruel if you need help you should be entitled to it

by the way i had menengitis at least 5 times haha in my head that is. i dont know much about vitamins etc i take beta blockers off the doctors thats all i wont take anything else

jo jo

[blink1147]

I know, I've been there to, I've had everything you can think of, I especially worry about aneurism and heart failure, heart attacks, cancer, and for some reason meningitis. lol, I'm very obsessive-compulsive.
I heard on another forum that magnesium and potassium defeciency is the main cause of this fear, but I'm scared of medicine and I know peopkle can overdose on minerals, especially potassium because too much and too little cause the same symptoms. Does anyone know about this?
P.S. Jo, I'd love to take therapy, trust me, but I can't afford it. Can't even afford insurance, but I'm a 20 yr. old male with no kids, so I can't qualify for any of the free stuff, lol.

[scaredjo]

blink NEVER EVER google symptoms you will end up with everything under the sun, check this out i have been sufferin with health anxiety for over ten years in that time i have suffered from strokes, blood clots, brain tumours and now i have a dodgy heart lol funny though im still here, its your mind thats the problem when you believe you have an illness you can make yourself have every symptom when i was going through my stroke stage one side of my body used to tingle and go numb even though all my bloods were normal and i was totally healthy!!! i think if you put your heart (lol) into therapy it could help you
its really hard once you think there is something wrong with you to get it out of your head
dont get me wrong im not cured but i am feeling better about my symptoms everyone has bad days, i hope you start feeling better pls let me know and if you need a chat or anything feel free to pm me
jo

[misskld]

i am the same way this has been going on just over 2 months now, ive been to the hospital twice (in the middle of the night after sleeping for an hour or so) i always seemed to wake up and feel like i was dying, it was horrable.  I also had really bad chest pain and always worried about having a heart attack.  but 19 year olds dont get heart attacks.. so the doctor says.  and tammy is right ive heard from close friends of the family that you'll know if your going to have one itll be alot more then what were experiancing.  i still didnt believe it for the longest time.  the doctors had me on paxil (and still do its been just over 3 weeks now.) I have ativan for when i need it though i find that it has stopped working and i havent takin it in 2 weeks.  I couldnt sleep at all either i would stay up till 7 am and finally fall asleep but wake up every hour it wasnt very nice.  finally the docs gave me zopiclone (sleeping meds) and it worked i was so relieved that i could finally sleep in peace, i only had them for a week but i find that i fall asleep within the hour or two now and dont wake up (w/o the sleeping pills.)  i still have shortness of breathe not as bad, well actually today i had a hard time with it but it hasnt been that bad since the paxil i believe is starting to kick in.  so hang in there, the tightness of chest, the pains, the feeling of your throat closing.. it will pass.  but even if u feel the need to go to the hospital dont hesitate it cant hurt!! take care i hope you feel better soon!
-misskld