Every time my leg hurts, I always think the worse: deep vein thrombosis. That is a blood clot that will clog a vein, and that has the risk of dislodging itself from the vein in the leg, travelling up the vein and into your lungs, causing shortness of breath, and in the worst case scenario pulmonary embolism (PE) and possibly death.

It can happen. Just ask Serena Williams.

It happened to her.

I’ve feared a serious case of leg blood clot about three times since January 2010. One of the reasons why you would get a clot in your leg is, as in Serena’s case, if you hit your leg and cause a nice bruise, if you cut your leg, or if you have surgery and are immobile in bed for a few days. Not to mention the fact that if you have a clotting disorder you are at higher risk for this to happen to you.

Well, in 2010 I had to have hernia surgery, and when I came home from the hospital, out of nowhere, my left shin started hurting and it was sore to the touch. It didn’t take much googling to find out that I could be at risk for a clot, and I started to freak out.

When my hypochondria rears its ugly head on me, I’m usually able to keep it quiet for a day or two. I’m able to tell myself that it could just be that, my health anxiety scaring the life out of me. But after a few days have passed and the symptoms still persist, then I need to go see a doctor to avoid going crazy, and panicky.

The quick and simple test to rule out a blood clot is a sonogram. They scan your leg up and down, and the other leg just to make you feel better. You can actually hear the blood flow going swoosh, swoosh, swoosh, and it feels so good to hear it swooshing away without any clot blockage. Sometimes I really wish I had a sonogram machine at home, because it would pretty much eradicate any fear of leg clot, but the cost is ridiculously expensive (anywhere between $4,000 and $150,000!).

So in 2010 I had no blood clot in my leg, and I guess that pain in my leg was related to something else, or had no reason to be at all, it just was.

Later in August 2011, at the height of a very stressful time in my life, my left calf started burning. Again, my first thought was DVT. I tried to rationalize it by going over anything that might have caused it, and I was pretty sure it was related to stress plus a new pair of shoes I had been wearing. This explanation was enough to put my mind at ease for a couple of days, but when the pain wouldn’t stop and my ankle started to look a little swollen, I decided to go to the local urgent care facility. Except they didn’t have a sonogram machine. So I had to go to the closest ER. What I sometimes don’t understand is the process behind evaluating a patient in these medical places. Let me explain: when the nurse at the urgent care was checking me out, I told her that my calf hurt and that I was worried about a blood clot. She responded that usually when there is a clot the leg is swollen, hot and possibly red. I had none of those symptoms, yet they didn’t send me home. I guess it’s a way of protecting themselves. But I’ve also read that you don’t need to show any symptoms, and you could still be having the clot. Which is great, because then we could be having a blood clot anytime and not know it!!! Just what an hypochondriac wants to hear!

Anyway, I went to the ER, they did the sonogram, everything was fine. Except my husband, who by this time was figuring out that his wife had a serious health anxiety issue. And who from this moment forward always ruled out any of my symptoms as anxiety (I better not get a real heart attack, because he won’t drive me to the ER!)  ;)

My legs have been fine, until yesterday. This time is my upper left leg bothering me, for no apparent reason. So I think blood clot, once again. But I’m starting to wear even myself out. How many times can I fear a symptom only to find out it’s nothing? Sure the symptom is not always the same, it knows well enough that it needs to change somewhat if it wants to keep my attention, but still… so right now I sit and type this, while my leg is trying to get my attention. I can almost make myself more aware of it just by focus my thinking on it. And I try to rationalize it. Maybe I walked too much, maybe I pulled a muscle, or maybe, just as I was reading about it yesterday, it can just be a symptom of anxiety. Yes, leg cramps can be a symptom of anxiety, and the more I focus on it, the more it does feel like a cramp more than any other kind of pain. Plus, it’s not a pain I can pinpoint to one spot, as it moves up and down my leg, and right now I can almost feel it on my lower back as well, which really convinces me that it’s a “walking” pain, aggravated by thought, anxiety and tension.

So I will try to work this out without a sonogram this time, unless something else pops up (hopefully not), or if this pain persists for too long. But if experience has any value, this will turn out to be nothing, just like all the other times.

ps. While researching the subject, I’ve found one person that has really had DVT and makes fun about it! How polar opposite from me!

Because there must be something wrong.

One doesn’t wake up and feel the way I feel every day and then there is nothing wrong with him/her. Or maybe there isn’t, but to reach this conclusion, one must first investigate.

And that’s where phone calls and numerous trips to various doctors come in the picture. If there is one thing that I am is thorough. But all jokes aside, medical testing is really an important step in the fight against panic.

There is no point in trying to calm yourself down from scary palpitations if in the back of your mind you are worrying about maybe having a heart attack. If you don’t know in which shape your heart is at the moment, how can you say with all certainty that it’s not your heart but just panic? You can’t. I mean you can tell yourself that you’re not having a heart attack, but will you believe yourself? I wouldn’t. At least not until a cardiologist has taken a listen and a good look at it and told me that my heart is healthy. Then it will be much easier for me to calm myself down and convince myself that I’m not having a heart attack.

But it could very well be my lungs!

Off to the pulmonologist I go…

Even the great Claire Weekes always suggested that before reading any further into her books one needed to have seen a doctor(s) to make sure her problem was just “nerves”.

So let’s go through my visits as I list them here, until the day I finally feel confident that there is nothing physical that is causing me fatigue and dizziness and this overall feeling of blah that I am hating so much. And don’t worry, this won’t take long, as I have already seen some doctors, and schedule the remaining ones to see them very soon.

Neurologist:

Everything seems fine here. EEG tests have confirmed good working nerves and MRI of the brain was clean.

Ophthalmologist:

Healthy eyes. Optical nerve healthy. Retina healthy. Any visual disturbances I’ve been complaining of shouldn’t be of neurological nature, but due to either anxiety or getting older. I also probably need reading glasses. Yay! Not.

Cardiologist:

EKG was good. Doc thinks it’s only anxiety. Heart seems to be doing ok. I still need to call him for Echo results.

Ob/Gyn:

Not great news here, but I hope not horrible neither. I have a cyst we need to keep an eye on, and I surprise myself at the fact that I have not freaked out over this yet (they’ve told me not to worry, it’s somewhat normal). Another appointment in 8 weeks.

Endocrinologist:

Will see him soon.

Urologist:

Will see him soon. I know there is an infection there that needs to be cured.

Pulmonologist:

Will see him soon.

I’m am not ashamed by the long list of doctors I want to see. If this is what’s going to help me in my battle against panic, and in general, to feel better, then, I’m actually proud of myself.

What is the opposite, anyway? Someone that never goes to doctors, no matter the symptoms, only to discover one day that a little prevention would have saved him/her much more testing and money, and who knows, even his/her life.

I rather prevent.

Did you know Munch suffered from anxiety?

I thought this would be an easy post to write, but looking back, a lot of the memories are fuzzy and I’ve never had the best memory to begin with, so I’ll do the best I can, and I’ll try to keep it short.

The one thing I’ll always remember is my first panic attack. It happened on December 10th, 1996. What’s sad is that now I’m trying to remember the date of the first time I had sex, and I can’t. I think it was April… but I digress…

It was December when I first experienced the horror of panic. I was alone on a subway train. I suddenly felt hot, a rush of heat, like a hot flash, except I was 23. Then palpitations followed. I guess if I were a different person I would have discarded the symptoms and gone on with my day…

Really?!? Which person can do that?

So I did what I think most people in my situation would have done: I freaked out. I got up from my seat and took my coat off. My mind started racing and I figured I was having a heart attack. I got off the train at the next stop. It didn’t help that I was already pretty far from home. It didn’t help that it was 11PM. Nothing really helped but somehow I managed to calm myself down, get back on the train and get to my final destination (work).

Today I know that we are so much stronger in the beginning because we haven’t been beat up over and over by panic throughout the years.

Back to December 1996. When I got home after work that day I was still pretty shaken, because I had no idea what I had experienced. What had happened to me?

My luck was that 1996 was the year the internet went viral, the year AOL started their unlimited internet access plans, the year the internet became the internet for a lot of people, me included. So I went on the internet and it literally took me a few hours to learn about Anxiety and Panic, and to figure out I had a panic attack. I can’t believe I was able to find so much information, and even a panic message board, even back then, at the “beginning of the internet”!

Reading about anxiety and panic helped so much, right away. Knowing I wasn’t going to die of a heart attack made me so much stronger and totally confident that I had this thing beat and that I wouldn’t have to deal with it ever again. I started reading the message board regularly and it helped to know that other people experience the same thing all over the world.

Until someone on the message board wrote a reply to me that went something like this:

“Don’t fool yourself. Once you get panic, it never really goes away.”

Needless to say, I found that reply very harsh and bitter. I replied to that poster telling her that it wasn’t really necessary to bring me down like that, especially when I was doing pretty ok. But today, looking back, I understand that comment better. Yes, I still think it was bitter, but I can understand where she was coming from.

After having dealt with panic since 1996, and today being 2011 and still dealing with it, I have to say that lady knew what she was talking about. Or, that lady totally jinxed me and made me feel like I could never beat this thing.

That first bout of panic lasted I don’t know how long, maybe a year or two and it peaked inside of a beautiful penthouse restaurant that I was soooo looking forward to go to, and then I had to rush through my meal, have them doggy bag most of it so that I could RUN out of that restaurant and get back outside where I felt immediately better. And worse. At the same time.

That was the episode that made me go to the doctor asking for the “magic pill”. Make this go away, please!

I was given Xanax, and it has helped on and off over the years. I would never take more than 0.25 mgs of it, and most of the time I would split that pill in half and take 0.125 mgs, which has made a few doctors since then laugh at me, and other few tell me that I was under-medicating myself. I didn’t care. It worked most of the time, and in the beginning it really was a miracle drug for me. I wish I could say the same today.

With the help of Xanax, and some changes to my routine, I was able to cope and do most everything the same way I did “before” panic.

I was ok until I got sick with Lupus in 1999. Great! Now I couldn’t discard every other symptom as “anxiety” but I had to “make sure” that it wasn’t Lupus. It kind of got a bit complicated.

Personal problems, relationship problems, health problems. My anxiety spiked once again and now I was depending on my father to take me to work, wait downstairs while I worked for 8 hours, and then take me home. Fortunately it was Summer and my father had nothing else better to do.

That was also the time my doctor tried to put me on anti-depressants, and with horrible results. I tried Zoloft (I couldn’t sleep), I tried Effexor (it made the blood in my veins feel cold), I tried Celexa (I got a rash), I tried Paxil and when it looked like it worked better than the others, I stuck with it.

Fortunately this phase didn’t last too long. Fortunately I lost that job, in good terms, and I could stay at home for a year or so, to recover from the Lupus and from the Anxiety attacks.

The Paxil made me feel less anxious, but also less alive. I couldn’t cry, not even if I wanted to, not even watching all those tear-jerkers commercials about daddy working away from home and finding pasta in his pocket put there by his daughter. Nothing made me cry. Oh, and nothing made me orgasm anymore, either. So once I was on it for about 6 months, I figured I wanted to feel again, and I decided to get off Paxil. HOLY. CRAP.

Getting off Paxil was horrible. I felt just like all those movie characters withdrawing from drugs I used to watch on TV, and I actually used them as inspiration, telling myself that if they could do it, so could I. But did I tell you it was horrible??? And I was doing it the right way, weaning myself off slowly, not cold turkey or anything. But I spenT a few days, if not weeks, in bed, feeling zapped, feeling like I was “falling” even if I was on the floor already, I still felt like I was “falling” somewhere lower than the floor. It was unreal, but I made it to the other side. And swore off anti-depressants as bad, bad, bad drugs and told myself I would never take them again (they never helped me, anyway).

In 2002 I had a stint or two in the hospital, more for Lupus reasons, but still, I was in a bad place mentally, too, you know, so young and yet so broken already.

But I managed to pick myself up from the floor, yet once again, and when I felt a little better I started looking for a job.

I got the job almost too soon, but I needed it. I had been paying $600 a month for Cobra health coverage, without a job. Which means I paid it with my credit cards. I needed a job and I needed to pay back some bills. This is what kept me going.

My first day going to the new job I panicked on the train. The only reason I kept going was telling myself I had bills to pay. I made it to the job, and I still work there today.

2004 was a good year. I got to travel for work and ended up panicking in my hotel in London, at 11 PM and calling people back here in the States to help me through it. But hey, I went to London! I did it. But I think I did panic a bit every night before going to sleep, thinking about how far I was from home.

I also went back to Italy in 2006, again for work. Again, I had to make sure I had some props to help me with the situation, like having my father meet me in the city I was going to and stay with me a few days until I got to know more people and felt more stable. By the way, my father didn’t mind, since at the time he was already in Italy and it turned out to be a nice vacation for him.

Looking back, I wasn’t so bad at all in 2006. I was able to get on a plane to Italy by myself (granted I knew my dad was at the other end of the flight), I spent 2 weeks there alone or so, I panicked badly only once, and then came back home ok. Well, I did panic on the plane back, and took a Xanax, which sometimes has “more anxiety” as a side effect, which really sucks. So I took the Xanax while I was panicking on the plane and panicked even more! So I spent the last two or three hours before we landed in a fetal position on the seat, hyperventilating and just waiting to get home. But I  did it!

Today things are different from then, from all the other times. I am still trying to figure out what’s different. I did have a baby in 2009. That could be one “different” factor. All I know is that today, July 23 2011, as I am writing this, I have a hard time going to the corner store without panicking. I work three days a week and it has been a torture to get myself there and back. I have called 911 twice in three months, the last time two days ago. I ended up in the hospital and discharged with an anxiety diagnosis.

Things have been going down hill since the baby was born. I think back and I remember having almost no anxiety during the pregnancy (must be the good hormones), and I wasn’t taking any Xanax or any other medication. But as soon as I had the baby, I started freaking out in the hospital, pretty much every night (now I really hate night time).

I got home and I was ok for many months, even if I had a lot of help from my mother. She was basically by my side almost every day, and when she took a day off, I would usually spend it in bed with the baby, because I felt safer that way.

I am not sure when it started to get worse, but it started with physical symptoms, like fatigue and palpitations. I was always tired. I blamed the Lupus for a while, and my Lupus doctor blamed the “new mother” syndrome. He kept telling me it was normal to feel this tired.

But I felt like I was going to pass out on the baby, and that made me worry about not being able to take care of her. I felt like this for months, but I kept going. I wondered if it was post partum depression, but I didn’t feel depressed, just tired.

Until my body couldn’t handle the worrying and the stress, and I had my new “first” panic attack while driving back from a work assignment. I had to stop on the side of the road and wait until I felt better. I knew I was having a panic attack. I managed. And then I made it home again. This was back in July 2010.  And it has been going down hill since then.

In August we went on a short trip to Boston and I didn’t feel like myself, and got all worried about having an allergic reaction to oysters, you can read all about it here. Since then, the food allergy fear has stuck like white on rice! I used to love going out to restaurants, now… it’s a torture eating anything out of the norm.

I feel the same way about medicine. When I started taking Xanax again, a few months ago I was terrified I was going to get an allergic reaction, and it didn’t matter how many times I told myself that I had taken the pill before, it just didn’t.

Sure enough, I had to take a new antibiotic and freaked out at the side effect and ended up in the hospital in May.

So today I had a horrible headache and I haven’t taken anything because I only take Motrin for my headaches, and freaking Motrin had to have a “secret recall” and I can’t find those pills at the local drug store (the pharmacist told me it’s taking them a long time to resume production or something along those lines). I have Advil at home and I know that Ibuprofen is Ibuprofen in Motrin just as in Advil, but today, more than ever, I’m just not in the mood to pop a pill that I know will throw me in a panic. Because I always take Motrin and I haven’t taken an Advil in a long time. See, the coating on the Advil is different from the Motrin, and that’s what could maybe cause a reaction. That’s how my brain thinks these days, and I have to stop from thinking like this otherwise… I don’t know.

The problem is I don’t know how to stop it. Nothing has worked so far, not that I have done much about it, other than going to therapy once a week. That’s not helping. I’m getting worse by the minute, and that’s scary.

Xanax is not helping either, and after having that horrible panic attack and taking a Xanax to calm myself down, and ending up in the hospital because the Xanax probably made it worse, I’ve decided that Xanax is not cutting it this time. It’s not helping and it’s actually making things worse. So I’ve started weaning myself off of it. Which means twice a day I now take a 0.25 mgs pill, I split it in half, and then bite a piece off that half! Pathetic I know, but I don’t want to get withdrawals effects from it.

Since at least three or four months back I’ve become very dependent on my fiance to wait for me at work so that we can go back home together. I have been able to take the bus to work, but I’ve already had plenty of panic attacks on it. Not a fun way to start the day.

I can’t take the train, not in these conditions. But I do take it with my fiance when he waits for me. Otherwise, the bus it is for me. But I still panic, less than if I were on the train, but I still do. The main difference in taking the bus, is that I can talk on the phone if I need to. I can call my mother, my fiance, anybody, to distract myself for a little and make it to work. My fiance works with me, and that is the only reason that today I still have my job. If he weren’t there, I would have had to take some major time off while trying to get better.

Going back to these new attacks, after July 2010, I had another big panic attack in February 2011 and since then I have been getting them more regularly. And lately, since May, I’ve been really bad, feeling like I can’t manage them like I used to. And this is making me feel scared and depressed. And this is why I am writing this blog, to look for an answer, to look for help, to help me understand why I can’t get better.

This wasn’t so brief, but I hope you made it to the end. Thanks for reading.

When you first experience a panic attack you think: “Oh my God! I am dying”

Then when you realize you are still alive, your second thought is: “Ok, I didn’t die that time, what can I do so that I won’t die on the next episode?”

Obviously you think that there is something wrong somewhere in your body, possibly in your heart or in your head, because without a physical cause it is so difficult to understand and justify a panic attack.

If I were completely healthy, I wouldn’t feel like this.

And so begins the quest, in search of the responsible party for this malaise.

One of the biggest player in a panic attack game is the heart. Palpitations almost always accompany every attacks, so one of the biggest fear is that there is something wrong with the heart and we better get it checked out before we get a heart attack (that’s what a panic attacks feels to many new sufferers).

So we first see a Cardiologist.

I’ve seen a cardiologist many times over the years, and pretty much every time I’ve been told that my heart is healthy. But if I let 6 months to 1 year pass, the next time I get symptoms I still go back to the doctor, just to make sure. On this last visit, for the first time I had a less than stellar diagnosis: my heart has PVCs (premature ventricular contractions) and it is also “out of shape”. This of course explains why I’ve been feeling so wiped out so often this past year, but the reason why my heart is so out of shape at 37 is still one of the questions I need answered. Maybe it’s because I don’t do any kind of exercise? Possibly. So add that (exercise) to my “to do” list.

When we realize that the heart is not the cause, or at least, is not going to fail us during one of these attacks, our attention shifts to the next most important part of our body: the brain. If we are not having a heart attack, now we need to make sure we don’t have a brain tumor.

The fact that we feel dizzy, unstable, afraid without any reasons, and considering it is not the heart’s fault we feel so queasy, then it’s normal to feel that these panics must be caused by the other big organ in our body, the one that controls all of our emotions, the one that must be somehow damaged.

And how can the brain be damaged? But a brain tumor, of course.

So now we need to convince our primary doctor to let us see a Neurologist.

The neurologist is important because it can prescribe an MRI of the brain, so much needed and helpful in diagnosing anything wrong with the brain. The scary part about the neurologist visit, is that before you can get the MRI prescription, you might have to have some other tests done, and let me tell you about these “other” tests called EMG (electromyogram) of the legs and the arms… they are not fun! They basically shock your muscles and nerves to test their reaction, and they also stick little needles in your skin to test even further.

Because I suffer from Lupus before I suffer with panic attacks, I almost get a free card in and out of doctors’ offices.

What I mean is that if I didn’t have Lupus, I probably would have a much harder time getting doctors to perform or prescribe certain tests for me, but as soon as I say “I have Lupus, and I would like to make sure it hasn’t damaged my heart, brain, kidneys, eyes, stomach, muscles, skin, feet, bones, hair, teeth, etc.” then those tests became that much more accessible to me.  Which is good and bad at the same time. Good because I got the MRI prescription. Bad because I had to endure the EMG test on my legs (ouch!) and on my arms (ouch! ouch!) in case the Lupus had damaged my nerves.

Fortunately, I passed the EMG test. No substantial nerve damage, just a pinched nerve on my right elbow. And the MRI came back with no brain tumor in it.

So basically, between the two big doctors’ visit I had PVCs, a lazy heart, and a bum elbow. No clues as to what might be causing my new panic attacks, yet.

After someone with panic sees both the cardiologist and the neurologist and finds no answers, or at least no reasons why the palpitations and the dizziness should be cause for alarm, two things can happen:

1) The person almost instantly feels better, and in many cases, the panic either disappears or it is much better tolerated. I’ve seen this happen more with people having panic attacks for the first time.

2) If the person is more of a veteran of panic (me!), he/she needs to delve deeper before finding any kind of relief.

It is very common to read stories about people with panic that have seen many doctors. And it is just as common reading that these doctors had found nothing wrong with them, which is very frustrating for someone carrying around a mile-long  list of new symptoms that have appeared with/after the panic attacks.

Depending on this list, then we go on to the next doctor, and the next. And we get second opinions when we just can’t believe the first one that found us healthy.

The type of doctor someone with panic attacks might go to next depends on the symptom that is most bothering him:

Stomach upset and bathroom issues will send you to a Gastroenterologist.

Any difficulty with breathing will need a Pulmonologist (lungs) opinion.

A lump in the throat can only be checked by an ENT (ear nose throat) doctor.

All those vision troubles will need a visit to the Ophtalmologist.

And when all those symptoms have been checked and no issues found, then only the brave keep on going, trying to blame their sickness on some obscure disease:

Maybe the thyroid is not working, better see an Endocrinologist.

What if I have endometriosis? The Ob/Gyn should be able to evaluate the possibility.

What if I’m deficient in some vitamins? Then I’ll go see a Nutritionist.

What if I have a chemical sensitivity? There is such a thing as an Environmental doctor, you know?

The sky is the limit.

It’s up to the individual to go as far as he needs to in order to find peace and, hopefully, some answers. I believe that if we are able to explain most, if not all, of our symptoms, then panic management becomes easier, and its defeat a possibility.

I can’t, for the life of me, eat anything new without suffering the agony of a “possible anaphylactic shock”.

You would think that being 37 years old I have already been exposed to most foods out there, and so the chance of hitting on a new food to which I would be allergic to, would be pretty slim, right? Wrong!

I fear an allergic reaction to most foods that I have not eaten in a while, with the reasoning behind it being that “you can always develop an allergy to any food later on in life“. 

And so the torture starts each time I eat “outside of the box”. For example, just yesterday I had a Subway sandwich for lunch. It had turkey, ham, maybe some bacon and cheese in it. Oh yes, and lettuce and tomatoes.

As soon as I bit into it, I started wondering if I could have an allergic reaction to one of the ingredients in the sandwich. This is how my thought process starts:

I have ham all the time, I can’t be allergic to that. But the turkey, that could cause a problem, because I never eat turkey, so technically I could be allergic to it and not know it. But I do eat it at Thanksgiving and it has never given me a problem. Hmm. But I haven’t had a Subway sandwich in years, and maybe there is something in their bread, or even on their counters that I could be allergic to…

And the torture starts.

It is worse as soon as I eat whatever it is I am eating, because the anaphylactic shock could hit me right away, and the quicker it hits you the more dangerous it is. So a few minutes after I finish my meal I feel my throat closing in. It never fails. I feel my tongue hitting my back teeth (it always hits them, but in these moments I feel it more, of course) and I wonder if it’s swelling up.

I try to calm myself down, but it never works. It doesn’t work because I can’t completely convince myself that I am not allergic to whatever I have just eaten, because there is that minuscule chance that I could be allergic to it.

It doesn’t matter what kind of food I eat. It doesn’t have to be one of those with higher allergenic problem (peanuts, shellfish, etc…), even if you can bet your house that there is no way I would try and have a peanut these days. No way. And I’ve eaten M&Ms all my life. And I know I am not allergic to them. But considering the state I am in these days, I rather avoid the sure torture I would put myself through if I had one stupid peanut.

The are probably two reasons why this has become such a big problem now (it probably started last August, in Boston): one is because I am so overly sensitized that I only need to worry about something that the panic quickly follows, and two because just like I’ve written about in the What Are You Afraid Of? post, I particularly fear anything that can kill me as quick as possible.

Back in Boston, during a nice vacation, I had the pleasure to visit the Aquarium and then enjoy a nice meal at Legal Seafood right across the street. Let me rephrase that. I enjoyed the meal up until the oysters arrived.

I’ve never been a big oysters fan, but when I was pregnant I had been invited to a birthday celebration at a Legal Seafood restaurant, where my friend had ordered pretty much everything on the menu for us to try and enjoy: lobster, crab, shrimps and all different kind of oysters!

I guess it’s because I was pregnant, but for the first time those oysters looked sooooo good to me, except I couldn’t have any because it’s not safe to eat raw fish while pregnant. So that night I had plenty of crab and lobster, but no oysters, and I promised myself that as soon as the baby popped out of my belly I was going to have an oyster fest at the closest Legal Seafood restaurant I could find!

Fast forward a year or so, and here I am in Boston, drooling while waiting for my oysters order.

As soon as the waiter left us with a dozen of the supposedly succulent mollusks, I grabbed one and even before it touched my mouth, in the fastest thought process I’ve ever had, I heavily pondered on the possibility that I could have an allergic reaction to it. The oyster made it to my mouth, but only half way through, and as I sank my teeth deep in it, I couldn’t bite all the way down. I took the oyster still in the shell out of my mouth. I quickly thought about the fact that I had one oyster years ago, when my dad forced me to try one and all I remember was that I didn’t like it much.

So technically I wasn’t allergic to oysters. Technically. But theoretically I could have developed an allergy later on, or even better, I could have developed some antibodies to that one oyster that I ate back then and now these antibodies could come out and kill me because I was having oysters again.

I put the oyster back down on the plate. I hadn’t eaten any of it, but I had some of it in my mouth for a few seconds, which in my book means I can still get an allergic reaction to it. I immediately started hyperventilating and feeling hot and dizzy. I tried to look normal in front of my family but in my mind I was sure I was about to pass out (and maybe die from the allergic shock).

The time left in that restaurant was all ruined for me. I couldn’t stop anticipating the terrible thing that was about to happen to me and all I wanted to do was go back to the hotel to get on the internet to check on the symptoms and especially on the timeline of an anaphylactic shock.

As soon as we got there, I did just that, and while I was checking on the computer I started discussing the possibility of a reaction with my fiancé, who of course started looking at me as if I had three heads.

To my horror I found out that an allergic reaction could take up to 24 hours to show up. The silver lining was that the quicker you get a reaction, the more dangerous it is. So if for the first few hours you don’t get any reactions, you shouldn’t die from one if you get it later on. Don’t use this as a medical fact, I’m just relating what I got out of the hundreds of sites I consulted that evening of our “relaxing vacation”. After 24 hours I felt I was out of the danger zone, and I was able to enjoy the rest of our vacation (up until when we had lobster up in Maine…)

These days anything and everything can agitate me to no end and put me in an “anaphylactic shock” state of mind: the dentist (the anesthesia), any restaurant, medicines, beauty products, perfumes, vitamins, a spa visit (the oil the use to massage me)… I feel there is no end to the things I could be allergic to.

If you really want to know, I have had allergic reactions in the past. The one that definitely counts as real was an allergic reaction to a medicine. I developed hives on my left arm that then turned into lots of little clusters of itchy and red bumps, that then turned into crusty scabs. It wasn’t horrible but it wasn’t pleasant either. The funny part is that at that time the episode didn’t even bother or worry me that much.

Today something like that would have had me at the ER in record time.

So on my way to recovery, I’ve come to terms with the fact that I better stick with what I know, even if it means eating the same few foods for a while (and using the same shampoos, the same makeup, etc…), at least this way I won’t promote any more anxiety than I need to. I also have decided to go see an allergist, so that I can ask some questions and clarify any doubts and wrong thinking I might have. I’m also going to ask for a routine test to rule out the more common allergies (and of course you can bet I’ll ask them what happens in case of a reaction, will they give me an epipen to take home with me???)  ;)

Hopefully all this will go away soon, because I do love eating out at a restaurant every so often, and with this “condition” enjoying a meal has become very difficult.

One of the first symptom I can remember was my vision quickly shifting on the side, like I would be talking to someone and suddenly with the corner of my right eye I would notice all the vision field quickly shift an inch to the right. As if my eye had stopped working for a second and when it started again, it would pick up from a slightly changed angle.

Or, another way to look at it (pun intended) could be: as if somebody close to me had activated one of those “time stopping” machines (think Twilight Zone), and then had used me for something (maybe smacked me because I had done something wrong to her/him) and then failed to put my head in the exact same position I had it before the time stopping machine stopped time. And then she/he started time again and I see things shifted as a result.

This last opinion has not been validated by the discovery of any time stopping machines. Also the fact that it’s happened to me a few times already and that one of my friends once told me she had experienced the same thing, makes me believe there might not be a time stopping device involved, but maybe it’s just anxiety. Or maybe time stopping happens a lot more than we know.

Needless to say, vision shifting would always, and still does, freak me out.

But that’s not the only weird vision symptom I’ve experienced in my “life with anxiety”. Let me try and recall some other vision problems I’ve had in the past or I’m still experiencing on occasions:

1. Spiderweb Tunnels. If I stare at a bright background I see, what’s the best way to put it, a moving spiderweb. If I sit in front of a window and outside is a sunny day, staring at the sky causes this spiderweb to appear, as if I am moving backwards through a tunnel made out of black netting.

2. After Images. You know the game where you have to stare at an image for 30 seconds and then look at the wall and you’ll see that image reflected on the wall? The reflection is an “after image“. My problem is that many times I get after images after looking at something for a few seconds. When the after images happen more often or are more severe the visual disturbance is called Palinopsia. Anything bright makes the after image more likely to happen. The sun blinds me for minutes on end. I think sunglasses would help, but I don’t own any at the moment.

3. Visual Snow. This one is real freaky. It took me a while to figure out what it was and what was it called. Now the name makes total sense. Think of an old black and white television. Think of turning the knob and finding a channel that didn’t work or that it had static. Remember the whole screen with black and white lines and an ugly background noise? That’s what visual snow looks like. You can almost see it if you close your eyes and press hard on your eyelids. I’ve experienced the day I delivered my baby and was in the recovery room. It was dark, and when the nurse would come by to check on me I couldn’t see her face, nor her body, but her whole silhouette was made out of this visual snow. I even told her. I tried to explain to her that I couldn’t see her, and instead I saw this static TV effect, but I don’t know if she understood or even cared. Today I know what caused it then: high blood pressure. I was in the recovery room because of the high blood pressure (a risk factor for preeclampsia) so they were keeping me under supervision, and that’s why I had the visual snow (usually my blood pressure is on the low side).

4. Blurry Vision. This one is easy. A lot of people have experienced blurry vision on occasion. I wear glasses, and I used to be able to “not” wear my glasses up to a year or two ago, but today without my glasses I will have blurry vision more times than not. And it’s not only because my vision is not perfect, I get more or less blurry vision depending on my overall health status (the sicker I feel, the worse the blurry vision).

5. Floaters. I’ve had these for years, and I’ve never really let them bother me. Lately, it seems there are more than usual, but I’ll listen to the eye doctor who says: Floaters are nothing to worry about, unless you suddenly experience a whole new lot of them, which could indicate a retina detachment. So unless they multiply overnight, I shall not let them worry or bother me unnecessarily (wow, that so doesn’t sound like me!)

6. Sparks. These freak me out. No matter when, no matter how many. I hate to see a spark of light in my vision. I always think it’s a neuron somewhere in my brain that has exploded and died, leaving me with one less neuron in the brain, and a step closer to stupid. Plus, when I get more than one in a day, I fear that it could be something neurological, like a pre-emptive strike of an epileptic attack (no, I don’t have epilepsy) or my vision about to fail me and me going blind (my eyes are pretty healthy).

7. Magic Carpet. This is what I like to call this symptom, since I have not found a real medical term for it yet. This is what happens when I sit on this one rug to play with my baby and when I look directly at the rug, the design of the rug jumps all over the place. The rug looks something like this one on the left.

8. Aisle Nightmare. When I don’t feel well going to the supermarket can be a nightmare. There is no way I could pick a new shampoo out of 20 standing in front of me without having my eyes feel like they just can’t focus on one thing at the time, and instead trying to take in all of the 20 shampoos at the same time. I feel like I constantly need to refocus, and not long after I start getting dizzy and panic.

9. Scintillating Scotoma. Also known as Optical Migraine. This is another freaky vision disturbance I experience on occasions. It doesn’t scare me anymore like it used to, but the very first time it happened it was very weird and definitely scary. A scintillating scotoma is the field of vision in one eye getting worse and worse quickly, with zig-zag like flashes on the corner of the eye. It can last from 10 minutes to 1 hour or so, and it’s pretty disturbing. It’s supposed to be a kind of migraine, and usually it doesn’t come with pain. But I’ve read a lot of different people having a lot of different symptoms with it. I usually get a bit dizzy and foggy and I feel a lot better once it passes. I’ve gotten a few of those while I was pregnant, and, once again, a fluctuation in blood pressure was to blame. There are a few different videos on YouTube trying to visually show what a scintillating scotoma looks like (from the inside), and from the variations present, it looks like not everybody sees the same exact thing. Mine is closer to this video: Scintillating Scotoma but mine is in black and white, and it obscures almost all of my eyesight on one eye.

10. Illusions. These are my latest monsters. These scare me more than all of the above put together. An illusion is when you walk in a room and feel like there is a person sitting in the corner, but when you turn to look at that person you realize it’s just a jacket thrown on the couch. My doctor put a name on these. At first I was afraid I was hallucinating, but that’s different. Hallucinations is seeing things that are not there. Illusion is thinking of seeing something when it’s really something else. My doc said illusions are a symptom of anxiety. I hate these. Hate. Hate. Hate. They really make me feel like I’m losing my mind.

The main thing to remember about anxiety and visual disturbances is that they are not dangerous.

Also, like my eye doctor said: The eyes blocks out a lot of information that is out there. To which I like to add: The anxious person makes sure that she catches all of it so that she can freak out about it.

The one positive about this is that my attention to detail is amazing. I can spot subtle differences that a “chill” person might not see. I know if there is a mosquito or a fly in the room. I’ll spot the new beauty mark on my baby the very next minute it was created. I wonder if there is a great paying job where this skill would be useful, I would totally ace the interview.  ;)

She said: “I see a lot of fears in you. You’re paralyzed by fear”

I agreed, even if it was a bit depressing hearing it from someone else, it must be so evident that I can’t keep it together these days.

But then she added: “But what are you afraid of?” 

And this question left me a bit confused, because right then and there, on two feet, I couldn’t answer her. I wanted to answer “Everything!” but that’s not true. I am not afraid of everything.

So I went home that night and kept asking myself that same question: “What am I afraid of?” All this anxiety and fears need to have a reason, a source. I would think that makes sense. So why all these fears and, most importantly “what kind of fears are these?”

I like my therapist. I’ve only seen her a few times so far, but I was comfortable and liked her from our first session. And this means a lot coming from me, since I’ve seen more therapists that I care to count, and usually my first impressions have always been right on target.

I’ve seen a lot of therapists not because I’m completely out of my mind, but because I’ve always looked for that special one, and so I’ve seen many therapists only once. I’ve given some others the chance to persuade me that they didn’t suck as much as they looked like, but boy, some therapists out there are horrible! I had one that spent most of our time together on her laptop. I would talk and she would type, read emails, bounce on her fitness ball… I kept seeing her only because she was the only one available short notice in the area (no wonder!), and I figured seeing someone, anybody, was better than seeing no one. And to an extent I still agree with that.

Back to  my current therapist, I really like her, and I am planning on holding on to her. What I like the most is that I always leave our sessions feeling a bit better and more hopeful about the future, but most importantly, I leave with one important question that makes me think. This week was the “what are you afraid of?”.

As soon as I left the session this question started taking over my brain and pushing everything else aside. I needed to focus on it and find an answer, and quickly, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to do much else that night.

What am I afraid of?

Dying!

Yes, dying is a good answer, but it’s not specific enough. Am I afraid of dying from a panic attack? No. That’s not it. I do know that the panic can’t really kill me.

But all these fears have been popping up together with all of my different symptoms, so my health and my panic are definitely married together, and not in a happy relationship.

So am I afraid for my health?

Yes!

Considering all I have been through with my Lupus and stuff, I can’t discard the health card, I just need to figure out if this is the reason why I am panicking this time.

After much thought, about the health issues, and especially the reason why I am once again panicking now at this stage in my life, these are my conclusions.

I’ve started feeling a bit off since the birth of my daughter, back in 2009.

Up until I was still pregnant with her, I had no panic symptoms, and I wasn’t taking any pills for anxiety. But they say that the pregnancy hormones could have been playing in my favor, keeping me stable and calm. But still, I didn’t have many symptoms before I got pregnant either.

So, after her birth, I started feeling a little anxious in general. After months of sleepless nights, my health (of course) started acting up. I was so fatigued I couldn’t do much anymore, but take care of the baby.

I started worrying about my health and started seeing many doctors again, to check that everything was fine. I needed to be fine, because I have a baby to take care, you know?

I still didn’t panic, I was just very anxious.

But after 18 months of this tension… bam! The panic had to come back!

So this is what I think the answer to the question is:

I have been so fatigued, so burned out that my whole body is rebelling against me. After so much tension for so long, every little thing becomes a big thing. But mainly all of these physical symptoms are what did me in, the fatigue, the sleepiness, the dizziness, these are all symptoms that have been sticking around for too long to be ignored.

These symptoms have made me doubt once again about my health, and once the “failing health” card is played, it’s hard to turn back. So how is the fear connected to the health? Simple.

There are so many ways my health can fail me that’s not even possible to list them all here, but what’s worse is that there are so many things I can control, while,  unfortunately, there are just as many that I can’t control. So while I can slowly increase my medication if my Lupus starts acting up, there is nothing I can do if my body decides to hit me with something I can’t predict nor react to quickly enough to save my life.

In a fewer words:

I am afraid of dying, by being killed by something that I can’t prevent nor stop in time

This is a big source (it might not be the only one) of my fear these days. I am afraid of dying because I have a baby that needs me and so I can’t die.

But I am not afraid of being hit by a bus, as much as I am afraid that my own health will fail me.

So what can kill you so quickly that you won’t have the time to get to the hospital? Take your pick:

Anaphylactic shock (a big one for me, I think I am allergic to everything these days, I can’t enjoy a good mean anymore!)

A blood clot

A bursting appendicitis

Tetanus

Septicemia

Incarcerated hernia

You can read more about my episodes with all of these “fast killers” all over this blog.

At least I’ve found an answer, and it might not be the only answer to the question, but at least it’s a start.

We’ll see what the next session will bring.

Because of my presently “high anxiety” state, a good day means I’ve rode the bus in to work and I was just mildly anxious. On a bad day, I will feel like I’m going to jump out at the next stop and run back home.

So this past Sunday, after having had a really bad week from hell, and taking off on Friday because I just couldn’t get out of the house, I was already freaking out about Monday morning and getting on the bus. When I shared my fears with my fiance’, he told me not to worry too much and that I was going to be fine. He really meant well, and all, but I felt that he just had no idea about the major fear involved, and how it consumed me. So I tried to explain to him better with a little story:

“See honey, to go to work I have to get on the bus every day. And getting on the bus is painful. Painful because I suffer on the bus. It’s like knowing in advance that I will suffer and there is no chance of avoiding that suffering.” But this didn’t cut it. So I kept going…

“Ok, imagine that the bathroom over there is like my bus, and that you have to pass through the bathroom to get to your work. Every day. You can’t get to work unless you go in the bathroom and stay there 45 minutes.” My fiance’ was paying attention, but not getting the fear issue, yet.

“Well,” I continued “in the bathroom there are 5 guys waiting for you to beat the crap out of you, and they will as soon as you enter the bathroom, they might mess with you gently at first, but there is a good chance that you will get a pretty good beating by the end of the 45 minutes, and it will hurt everywhere.”

Now he was kind of getting the point.

“So I am afraid right now because I am thinking about tomorrow and how I am going to get a beating in the morning before I even start my work day”

So he asked me, perplexed: So what is the solution?

“The solution is to keep getting on the bus and hope that the five guys eventually become four (with knowledge and anxiety management practice), and then three, and when you fear less and less there might be only one guy, and that is a much more fair fight for all”

To which he replied excited: Then you go and get on that bus! You must get on that bus! It’s the only way those guys will disappear!

Yes, but there is one more thing to consider, I told him. “After you get a beating day after day after day, your body will be weak. And every new beating is going to hurt more than the last. So it is best to try and get stronger before confronting 5 guys at once. And how you do that? Through anxiety management, stress management, therapy, and if needed, with the help of medication, as well.”

“Just think of Rocky. He didn’t beat his adversaries right away. He had to go down to the ground, and he was scared here and there, but with courage, training, perseverance and time, he got stronger and in the end he won.”

That’s what I have to do. I have to be like Rocky. You have to be like Rocky. Get ready. Read. Breathe. Exercise. Talk. Write. Breathe. Work out. Fall but get right back on our feet. Until, hopefully, one day, we’ll be stronger and better ready to face our fears.

Panic Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
The cuckoo hasn’t been the same since

Saturday Night Panic
A group of friends spend their Saturdays freaking out

Panic Without a Cause
Nobody knew why James always cancelled at the last minute

Panic Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
Wouldn’t you love to star in this movie?

Close Encounters of the Panic Kind
Even out of space creatures have anxiety and panic!

Dial P for Panic
This would make for a great resource for people with panic everywhere

A Streetcar Named Panic
Stella! I’m having a panic attack!

When Harry met Panic
He stopped working and his life changed dramatically

Feel free to add more titles in the comments.