Hey, my name is Steven and I am 19 years old.
Before Wednesday last week, my anxiety was minimal to none and I
had no pains or feelings of health problems until after I had a panic
attack.
It all started on Wednesday, February 16th...
I was standing at a bus stop at my school waiting for my bus while I
was talking to my mother on the phone. My mother was upset with me and
she kept saying things that me upset and stressed. During the
conversation suddenly my heart started to beat really fast. I begged her
to stop stressing me out with the things that she was saying to me and
then she got upset and hung up on me. After she hung up, my heart
continued to pound very fast, and I felt disoriented and my chest
started to hurt really bad. Later on during the attack I started to
become even more anxious because of the chest pains and I was entierely
convinced that my heart was damaged and I needed to see a doctor
immediately. I went to the hospital that night, waiting 6 hours and
during the wait, I keep experiencing several heart palpitations (beats
skipping, beats speeding up for 2 seconds). When I was finally seen by a
doctor, after an EKG and a Chest X-Ray, both of which came back normal,
they came to the conclusion that nothing was damaged.
Thursday, the next day I continued to feel random pains all over my
chest, some in the middle, some on my left, some on the right, some on
my left arm, palpitations, and I was still convinced that there was a
heart problem.
Friday, after my class, I got really nervous because my chest
randomly started getting pressured and tight, and I felt like I couldn't
breathe, this of course lead to another attack in which I felt more
chest pain, and this caused me to take the bus to a different hospital.
In this hospital, they came to the same conclusion as the first
hospital, normal EKG, normal chest X-Ray and they just gave me a bit of
Xanax. However, I didn't believe the doctors. I continued to feel sharp
chest pains even when I wasn't nervous.
That weekend, I was constantly on edge. Extremely stressed out,
migranes/headaches, fatigue, chest pains, feeling like food was stuck in
my chest, heartburn, digestive symptoms. I barely ate because whatever I
ate gave me chest pains.
Then Monday morning I felt some more chest pains on my left side,
and so I frantically convinced my mom to take me to the hospital again
(same as the second one). They gave me another EKG which came back
normal with slight premature heart beats, but nothing serious. This time
they also did a blood test to search for any blood clots, and the
doctor said the test came back 'textbook' normal. I told the doctor that
I felt like food was stuck in my chest, so he gave me a prescription
for Prilosec, thinking it was GERD.
Then Tuesday night, I got really anxious again, real bad heartburn,
chest pains, throbbing headaches. Fell asleep at 10 PM, woke up at 1:50
AM, could not go to sleep... Took some Maalox, didnt feel any better.
Avoided taking Xanax because I don't want to get addicted to them. Tried
to go to sleep but couldnt so at 5AM I took a benedryl. I started
feeling delirious and extremely weak due to the combination of various
medicines, and lack of food and 6AM I convinced my mom to take me to the
same hospital once again. EKGs came back normal again.
Now today is Thursday, as i'm typing this my chest is hurting
randomly, it comes and goes, my eyes feel pressured and I have a bad
headache, upset stomach and heartburn. This is all making me feel like I
have some disease or heart problem. I don't have health insurance at
the moment, and the only avaliable Cardiologist appointment available is
March 18th. Until then I know I am going to be extremely on edge about
suddenly having a heart attack or something, and I won't be able to
sleep.
Please help me.
