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Panicked, heart rate elevated, high blood pressure following an illness
Early summer I experienced flu like symptoms for roughly a week and a half accompanied with stiffness in my neck. Near the end of this ordeal I visited a clinic that referred me to urgent care in the hopes of ruling out meningitis. The urgent care physician and I opted to forego a spinal tap because he felt that, if I was suffering from the more lethal bacterial form of meningitis, I would have already developed the telltale signs indicating that this was so. A couple of days later I was feeling better and, other than a couple of short fever spells, those symptoms have not resurfaced. However, I have noticed a couple of new issues.
Firstly, my blood pressure is running high. More often than not, it is within, or close to, the stage 1 hypertension range. Secondly, my heart rate now seems to spike for no apparent reason, though usually only at night. Finally, I seem to have developed a peculiar sensitivity to caffeine. Even a half cup of coffee and my heart races, and I begin to feel really weird. It becomes difficult to concentrate, and I feel panicked and very uncomfortable. Although I have now completely eliminated coffee from by diet, the feeling that I described still seems to randomly surface, but to a lesser degree. This seems to happen particularly when I am in a high stimuli area.
Otherwise, I am generally a healthy 30 year old. I had kidney stones when I was a teenager. I do smoke but less lately as it seems to exacerbate the sensation I described.
It is difficult for me to pin down the precise genesis of these issues so the assumption that they causally flow from that earlier ordeal may or may not be valid. I do think though that if these issues did not follow that week and half of being sick, they closely preceded it.
Any thoughts would be most appreciated.
Firstly, my blood pressure is running high. More often than not, it is within, or close to, the stage 1 hypertension range. Secondly, my heart rate now seems to spike for no apparent reason, though usually only at night. Finally, I seem to have developed a peculiar sensitivity to caffeine. Even a half cup of coffee and my heart races, and I begin to feel really weird. It becomes difficult to concentrate, and I feel panicked and very uncomfortable. Although I have now completely eliminated coffee from by diet, the feeling that I described still seems to randomly surface, but to a lesser degree. This seems to happen particularly when I am in a high stimuli area.
Otherwise, I am generally a healthy 30 year old. I had kidney stones when I was a teenager. I do smoke but less lately as it seems to exacerbate the sensation I described.
It is difficult for me to pin down the precise genesis of these issues so the assumption that they causally flow from that earlier ordeal may or may not be valid. I do think though that if these issues did not follow that week and half of being sick, they closely preceded it.
Any thoughts would be most appreciated.
COMMUNITY LEADER
I would cut out coffee and anything that has caffeine in it.
Also, I would see either a good internist, endocrinologists and maybe even a cardiologist to rule all major possibilities out.
Also, I would see either a good internist, endocrinologists and maybe even a cardiologist to rule all major possibilities out.
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way off the beaten track!, BC
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