Posted by Vincent_QC on October 21, 2012, at 21:11:19
Hi Everyone,
I have extreme anxiety who is mainly panic, agoraphobia, somatisation disorder (a lot), social phobia, simple phobias like driving a car, being a passenger in a car or worse going on the highway, always need to stay on small roads even as a passenger, stop driving almost 2 years ago, cant stay alone at home, cant go out of the house alone even in my garden and if I do I have mainly anxiety who manifestf as chest pain, dizziness, double vision, violent headache...and one of my main somatic symptoms is heart related anxiety with obsession about my pulse rate and blood pressure, now scare of every morning I likve since I wake up every morning with tachycardia who last for hours, pounding heart beat all day long even with a low blood pressure, numbness of the left arm with hand pain, eyes pain, tinnitus, highly sensitive to noise, bright light and poor short term, memory and no cognitive abilities (cant work on my laptop, cant read for more than 10 min without feeling drained mentally and having anxiety and have chronic headache, sometimes throbbing pain but always both side on the temples and back of the head ... also afraid to go to bed at night cause I have insomnia, cant sleep cause my heart is pounding and just hear that and feel it, my intestine hurts, take forever to sleep...Right now, i'm taking 20 mg of Propranolol divided into 2 or 3 doses. I also take 7 mg of Klonolpin and.withdrawal it very slowly under my Doc supervision (0.25mg each 2 or 3 months reduction) since the Klonopin and all the benzo meds dont work for my anxiety anymore its better to reduce them.
To my dissapointment, I cant take an AD right now, im med sensitive since 2010, me who was so used to take strong dose of them with no side effect, only the usual weight gain and insomnia, and they was doing wonder for the panic and somatisation in the past, mainly the paroxetine...now a 1 mg dose of a SSRI's will lead to bad tachycardia, extreme agitation, feeling 100 times more anxious and the effect last until I stop the low dose...
I also take 3 strong centrum a day, 50 000 units of Vitamin D each day, 10 000 units of Vit A day to 30 000 units, need those high amounts cause of the gastric by pass I had and malabsorbtion from my short intestine.
I had my third surgery in less than 1 year in september cause of bowel obstructions and bile duck obstruction who happen in october 2011. I was put under a lot of stress from those surgery, had a jejunostomy and enteral feeding to help me to be back on my feet (didnt work well since I didnt gain weight or strengh) , IV fat and IV albumin treatments as well as a wound who never heal in 11 months cause of infection in a mesh I had put in my abdomen for a hernia back in 2004.
My weight goes down from 220 pounds in december 2010 to 155 pounds in October 2011 when the obstructions occur. At the time my blood tests was good (before the bile duck and bowel obstruction), no sign of malnutrition, albumin was low but its frequent for peoples who had the type of gastric by pass I had but in 1 day when the bile duck and intestinal onstruction occur all my blood tests was bad, very low albumin, anemia, name it...
I had my third surgery at the end of september this year to remove the infected mesh and repair the wound.
I never gain a lot of weight since then, this summer I return to 170 but now back to 155 pounds who is not healthy at all for me. The Doc who follow me for the gastric by pass surgery said that I should weight at least 190 pounds cause I have over 15 pounds of extra skin all over my body, who is still there and will never be remove with plastic surgery ( no more pain for me).
The Doc add 2 bootles of the Peptamen AF enteral feeding (high easy to absorb hydrolysed whey protein, high amout of fat especially omega 3 and high ratio of complex sugar with prebiotic, boosted in vitamins and minerals and taurine and carnite...). I need to drink the 2 bootles and eat regular meals and increase my strong centrum to 3 a day for the energy...so far I dont gain weight and dont have more energy. Have worse IBS with constipation cause of the Centrum I think...
I also deal with bad constipation who dont answer to all the laxatives on the market...I had a surgery for my hemmorrhoids back in 2009 and that destroy my pelvic muscle and it's now always tense and cant relax that muscle and have normal bowel movement. For now the only thing who make my bowel moves is a lot of glycerin suppositories (5 to 10) at the same time, 3 times a day, to avoid fecal impaction and another bowel or bile duck obstruction. Of course, so many suppositories make my butt hurt and its now harder and harder to use so many...the Gastro Doc want me to do some biofeedback to learn how to relax again my pelvic floor muscle but im disable from work and have no inssurance so no money for that...anyway...its adding to my anxiety and now I tend to watch everything I eat, and each time I eat I start having nausea and bad intestine pain, have heart pvc's, tachycardia after a meal, so I cant eat a lot and eat 5 to 6 small meals, im on a restrict fiber diet, low risidues foods and foods make me anxious... so its adding to my anxiety right now, with the heart who continue to act strangely and the chronic headache who is not tolerable no wonder why I feel so bad...
I goes to the emergency , again, last september, for my heart issues... The 2 previously nights before going to the ER, I woke up in the middle of the night with bad chest pain with difficulty to breath and sweating. I was keep under close supervision at the emergency with heparine IV in case I had blood clots and had the usual tests (X-ray of the lungs, ekg, blood tests).. everything was normal... no sign of heart problem... they send me for a stress test with an echocardiography but the Doc there stop the test after only 1 minute on the treadmill cause I was dizzy and not able to walk... who is logical cause im in a deconditionning physical shape, cant do anything physical and have muscles pain all over my body, muscles spasm and a big lack of energy, even if im boosted with tons of vitamins, even if all my blood tests are good, no anemia, no vit B12 problem, cacium, magnesium, potassium, allbumin, prealbumin, everything is normal and nothing to explain why I feel so bad physically.
So they send me to the nuclear medecine departement and schedule me for a mibi persantin nuclear test for my heart, my Cardiologist was thinking that I had angina so RX a nytro pump, and. He was thinking that maybe I had an artery blockage or another heart problem. The good news are that the arteries seem to be ok, no blockage (well that test show arteries blockaage off 50% or more only), but the nuclear show a low 50% of ejection fraction capacity, of course the Cardiologist said its normal and maybe im born like this, but its not what I read on the internet....its seem to be too low and normal are 60% and more... at 40% and under its congestive heart failure...but dont have the symptoms of that anyway, no edema, no water in the lungs...
Here my questions...
Normally when someone have extreme anxiety, the level of NE and Adrenaline are high no? So why a so low dose of Propranolol lower so much my blood pressure? Why sometimes its work and why some days its doing nothing? I now seem to have reflex tachycardia with the beta blocker, is it possible? I have to call my Cardiologist this week for an appointment, we need to fix my problem. I spoke to him about the Minipress who is an alpha 1 antagonist but he said my pulse rate will be worse on it. The clonidine seem to be not a good idea for him and he dont offer a lot of other options than beta blockers for me. He talk about dysautonomia but no tests are done where I live to diagnostic that... only said the usual things like drinking salty liquid, increasing my salt intake...said that the florinef can be dangerous for me since I do panic attacks and if I have a panic atftack it can cause a stroke... what is my problem??? Too low NE level, too high??? Im totally lost...dont know what to ask for like new tests for some hormones who control the blood pressure...can someone give some advises to me???
I see a new Neurologist next friday. She ask to see the MRI of my brain I had in the begining of 2010, at the time my headache wasnt chronic or bad like now...also the headache I had was releive by 2 Ibuprofen or 1 Naproxen... now those painkillers do nothing... even worse, the NSAID'S are suppose to increase the blood pressure, and when I took them my blood pressure decrease and I feel dizzy... I dont except something new from her, will probably have to argue with her about meds I try and dont want to try again since they didnt help me even aftger 4 months at full dose...im afraid to fall on another Neurologist who only RX the usual meds like Elavil, Topamax, Lyrica, Neurontin, Tegretol, valproic acid... those meds do nothing on me, just make me more dizzy...dont know if its because I take high dose of benzo meds so its adding side effects to them...but I need a new MRI, for the neck and back...and brain also... I fear that I have intracranial hypertension since all my symptoms seem to be identical. I do 4 cure of 4 months of Acutane med between 2004 and 2007, for cystic acne, it was very effective but remember that I had a 4 months of chronic headache back in 2007 after the last Acutane cure I done. Also I took very often the Tetracycline and Minocin antibiotics, last time I took the Minocin was in 2008... those antibiotics lead to intracranial hypertension and each time I was put on those antibiotics I had several months of chronic headache... maybe thats what I have right now. It cant be tension headache since they are not pulsing or throbing and they are relive by regular painkillers, cant be migraine since the pain last more than 72 hours in a row and last all the time, cant be the arnold nerve neuralgia since I had cortison injections in the nerve at the base of my neck with no improve on the pain...have jaw pain all the time, cant chew gum, have ears pain, teeth pain but dont have bruxism since I dont gridding my teeth when I sleep... and triptan drugs dont help either, they cause vasoconstriction of blood vessels and lead to tachycardia and chestt pain on me. Ikm a lot lost and dont know what to do or ask for.
That's very hard to live like that everyday. Now fear everything, fear of going go the bed, fear of eating, fear of having another intestinal obstruction cause of the constipation, fear of getting up in the morning cause I know that I will have to face the tachycardia and chest pain, fear of being alone, fear of going out of the house even with someone, fear is everywhere and all linked to the heart symptoms, intestine and headache...
Its a long post I know but thats good to share it with you... I will maybe save some money and return see a private Psychologist....but I saw so many Psychololgist and done so many therapies that I think that I will loose my money for nothing...its all ''deja-vu'' for me, exposure dont work, talk therapy is good but the effect last 1 hour and fade away, group therapy is hard for me with the social phobia...
Well thanks to have read all of this and thanks for your help.
Oh and adrenal glands was test last year and are ok...so no adrenal fatigue or things like that in your answer please...dont want to be rude but I dont beleive those theories...
poster:Vincent_QC
thread:1029417
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20121018/msgs/1029417.html