Anxiety or Health Issue?

Recently I have had some episodes of what feels like maybe anxiety but what might also be something more serious. Basically, what is happening is I wake up with what I can only describe as a "fluttering" feeling my my chest, almost as if I'd had too much sugar or caffeine  However, since I'm just waking up in the morning I know its not from too much sugar or caffeine. Anyway, along with this feeling in my chest is some nausea and feeling hot and/or sweating - even after taking a shower.

The first time it happened was about a week ago and that day was the morning I was going to give notice at work (I got a new job, more about that later). Anyway, I tried to just let it go and started off on my way to work but the feelings continued and so I took an anxiety med. The med helped a little but not enough and made me tired so I ended up calling in sick to work.

These feelings happened again this weekend -- Saturday and Sunday morning. On Saturday I was up earlier than I normally would be on a Saturday because I was playing in a touch football tournament. Again, I chalked it up to anxiety because my wife was away and I was driving with a friend to the event. But my friend knows about my anxiety and so I pressed on.

Sunday morning though I felt it again -- less so than the previous two times, but still on some level. I had slept in on Sunday and had no reason to be feeling any kind of anxiety so I started to get a little concerned. I did some research on my symptoms and found that they could be associated with an arrhythmia.

Now, it should be noted that I was diagnosed as having a slow heart beat when I was young and have had one my entire life. One type of arrhythmia is a slow heart rate. Additionally, these kind of feelings can be caused by anxiety; however, these kind of heart issues can also cause anxiety so its a chicken or the egg kind of thing.

I'm planning to go see a cardiologist and will report back his/her findings.

Dream Log

In therapy yesterday I told me therapist about strange dreams that I have had over the past two weeks. (She was on vacation last week so it had been two weeks since I last saw her.) Her feeling was that my psyche is trying to work out a lot of issues that I have conflicting emotions about and so that explains some of my dreams.


I've decided that I'm going to try to write more regularly on this blog and part of that is going to be chronicling dreams that I think are of interest as far as my anxiety.


So on to last nights dream.. I was in the town I grew up in and, as is the case in many of my dreams, I was having difficulty with my legs. Basically, they felt tired and heavy and I was able to walk but not very quickly - or what would be consider a normal pace. I was also leaning forward as if to use my upper body to help push myself forward. I then went into a place to get food - it was a buffet type place, similar to where I often eat lunch when I am at work. In the dream the buffet place had a seating area and that is where the cash register was also, but they were closing up the seating area so I was trying to finishing pick my food quickly so I could get in to pay for it. However, the dinning room / register closed before I got there. And because I was rushing I some how wound up with two plastic containers - one inside the other. So I exit the buffet area and figure I guess I don't have to pay for my food since the register is closed and so I start to leave. Then I pass these three girls I went to grade school with - they are sisters - and their Dad is with them but he is in a wheelchair. Now what was weird was that they were all still young in the dream - as when we went to grade school - but their Dad was older, and as I mentioned in a wheel chair. I said brief hello's to them and then continued out the door but then I realized that the plastic container I was carrying was empty -- and I only had one, not the one inside the other one. It was as if I had dropped the container with the food in it. So I went back into the food place - and again my legs were tired and heavy so I could not move very quickly - and as I walked in I saw my food container on the floor and a janitor guy was about the sweep it up and throw it out. I called out to him to stop but before I could get his attention he hit it with his mop and it flipped over and all the food spilled out. Then I woke up..


I'm not sure how interested any of you will be in my dreams but I want to post them to my blog so I have a record of them and I can share them with my therapist later.

Steps

I've finally signed up again for the mindfulness and meditation workshop that I blew off earlier this year. It starts on September 14th and runs 8 weeks. The classes are 7:00-9:00pm so it will be a total of 16 hours.


On Tuesday when I got to my therapy session I am planning to work with my therapist to semi-induce an anxiety attack and then talk through what I'm feeling, etc. with my therapist. I read an interesting article on the Psychology Today website about this approach (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/emotional-connection/201107/the-truth-about-anxiety-0). The idea being that when an anxiety attack comes on rather than trying to get out of the situation and stop the anxiety, you "turn into" the anxiety and try to deal with it head on.


I'm excited but also nervous about doing this. However, Pam will be home so I will have her to help me post-therapy session if I'm still in an anxious state when I get home.

End of Day 2

I spoke to my boss over the phone today and he was very understanding and supportive of my anxiety issues which was a nice relief. My old boss knew about my issues but I don't believe he had let anyone know so when he changed positions and I started reporting to the new boss I wasn't sure who knew what.

I still feel bad about not getting to the office, and I realize that I have to be at the office for meetings, etc. unless its a pre-arranged "work from home" day. I get more stressed from the potential repercussions of the anxiety.

It is ironic that I would feel more comfortable if I had the car to drive too and from work since my anxiety started out as a driving anxiety. I guess I could consider my anxiety "travel" anxiety.. Getting from here to there is stressful.. Crowded buses or subways, traffic, planes.. even elevators (although not so much recently). Basically if it moves me from point A to point B it causes me anxiety.

I wonder why that is? I should talk to my therapist about that more. I had always thought it was the fear of feeling trapped -- or not in control. Hmmm.

So I ended up having a productive day work wise and then I watched some TV and the start of the Mets game (they are playing on the west coast so it was a late start.) But now its 11:05pm and I'm a bit wired. I know if I try to go to sleep I'll just toss and turn and so I'm sitting at my computer writing this blog post, trying to decide what to do next.

Anxiety, Day 2

I'm working from home again today.. Even though I really should have gone to the office. I had borrowed a friends iPad and he is leaving today (he lives in Virginia) so now I have to mail it back to him. My boss is also coming to the office today and wants to chat about the next phase of a project I've been working on. I sent him an e-mail and told him about my anxiety. So now that's out there.

I'm not sure whats going on with me these days. I made sure I got a good nights sleep last night -- well made as "sure" as I could. I went to bed early, etc. I felt like I slept okay, although I did have this strange dream. In the dream I had apparently been in a car accident -- I was hit head on and then another car hit me from behind and flipped the car. I apparently ended up being in a coma for a few months. I know this because when I woke up (in the dream) baseball season was over and football season was on. Then people told me about the accident, etc.

I woke up with a headache on the right side of my head too. Normally, when I have sinus issues I'll get a headache on the left side of my head so having it on the right was odd. It almost felt like a hangover but all I drank last night was ginger ale.

The other "pressing" reason to go to the office today - or at least into the city - is to pick up my prescription refill since I took my last pills Thursday night. I think I'll be okay for a few days without them. I am going to encourage my wife to come home early on Sunday so she can drive me into NYC to pick up my meds.

Thats the other thing about the anxiety -- I've been driving myself to work but when Pam is away with the car I don't have that option. In theory being in a cab should feel the same as driving myself, but it doesn't. I don't have the same amount of control when someone else is driving.

I'm really not sure how to proceed from here as far as my therapy, my meds, etc.

I so fear having an anxiety attack that I get anxious thinking about it that it prevents me from even trying. I guess if I could find some way of inducing a panic attack in a controlled environmental I could learn how to cope with them and then the anticipation of having one wouldn't be so bad.

Anxiety Now

I'm home alone and I had a mild anxiety attack this morning. I think there were many factors involved in triggering the attack. Firstly, I didn't sleep well last night -- I had a lot of weird dreams, including some strange "where am I" / "How did I get here" type dreams. Pam is away too -- with the car -- and so my normal routine of driving to work is not an option. I took a cab to work on Tuesday but worked from home yesterday and so I'm working from home again today. I think the other part of the trigger was I have a dentist appointment scheduled for this afternoon (which I've now cancelled). The appointment was to have a post implanted in my jaw to eventually support a fake tooth. I was definitely nervous about the whole procedure and how I would feel after it and so I wasn't looking forward to going. And again, not having Pam here always ramps up my overall anxiety level.


I took my "as needed" meds to help calm myself down and then told my work supervisor about my anxiety.I think he was aware of my anxiety but since he is my new supervisor I wasn't 100% sure.


I'm trying not too think too much about tomorrow -- I "have" to get into the city at some point because I borrowed a co-workers iPad and he is leaving tomorrow (he isn't normally in our NYC office) and I also have to go to Duane Reade and pick up my daily meds. I'm thinking that I could make the trip this evening when no one is in the office and traffic will be light. I can drop off the iPad and e-mail my co-worker about where I left it and then go to Duane Reade and then take a cab home again.


I hate that I feel this way, especially when Pam is away, because I don't want her to feel like she can't go away. Of course, not having the car makes it harder -- being in a cab makes me feel like I have less control, although you'd think that, on some level, having a person in the cab with me (the driver) would make me feel better. However, the drivers typically are on their cell phones (even though they aren't supposed to be) and even then, don't seem to speak much english.


Okay.. I guess I should actually starting working now..

Sad

I've been putting off this post for a while because I was still working on my reaction to some sad news.

I found out that other day that someone I knew had died. He was a doctor - a chiropractor - that I knew because I had been a patient of his from 2003-2006. He was only 35, so I'm older than he is. I guessed that we were around the same age. He was such a good guy. He died of hantavirus..such a rare thing to die from. He left behind a wife and three children.

I was really effected by learning of his death because I read about how he was cleaning the basement of the house he and his wife owned and that the virus he died of probably came from mouse droppings in the basement. When I was his patient I remember him speaking fondly of the "old" house he and his wife had bought. The work they had put into it. His oldest child is five - I remember him telling me about his wife being pregnant and how excited he was about the pending birth of his first child.

He was a great doctor and after almost three years of treatment I stopped seeing him because my back felt better. And it still feels good. I've had other problems with my upper back and I've moved from one place to another and so I see a different chiropractor when I need too. But the problems he helped me with - my lower back - I had suffered with off and on for almost 8 years before I found him. He treated me, and after 8 years of suffering he "cured" me. It took almost 3 years but he did it and I felt great. And now he is gone.

I was almost sick to my stomach when I read the story about him. It was "news" because it was such an unusual way for someone to die. But it should have been news because this young man, only 35 years old, died. Whatever the reason, whatever the cause, it should be brought to the attention of the general public. Good people shouldn't die.. but they do. I know that there are many brave and heroic men and women who have died in Iraq or Afghanistan or who died in countless other wars, and I know that often their deaths go unnoticed or unaccounted for by the general public. And those deaths are no less important, but this death, really struck me. Maybe because I knew him, maybe because we had a lot in common -- our age, our attempts to start our own businesses, other things.

I'm so sad thinking about him being gone, and that doesn't even include when I think about the wife and children he left behind.

And I guess on some level, this sad story helps me put things in perspective too. I have my anxiety, I worry about getting stuck on a subway or an elevator, but the reality of this sad news makes me realize that my life is pretty good, and being stuck in some scarey place, for minutes or even hours, doesn't compare to the pain his famiyl must feel.