valetudo

Hi all.. First of all I apologize for what's about to be a long post.

I'm a 22-year-old male with a strange but not very extensive medical history. My post today is in concerns with a few different problems I've had over the past 12 years or so. I'll try to break up the post and correlate my concerns best as possible.

Have I had panic attacks?
This question dates back to when I was about 10 years old, 5th grade. I was staying at my aunt's house with some cousins for the week and my mom had come to pick me up. Unfortunately, I can't recall if anything stressful had been going on but my aunt's house was always a busy place. We stopped by Subway on the way home, got back into the car and going down the highway heading home I black out but am still conscious in some way. I can feel what's going on. It actually felt like you would imagine a seizure feeling like. It felt like I was shaking and also felt like I was urinating on myself. My mom never noticed and I'm really not sure if I even told her at the time because it was embarrassed for whatever reason. Before I blacked out, I felt light headed and like my chest was constricting.

Sometime passes on...At school, lunch time. I'm in line, get my food, pay, walk to my table and before I even get a few bites into the meal, the same chest and head feelings hit me and I black out once again. I can't see, feel like I'm shaking, can hear my surroundings and wake up on the floor. There wasn't a teacher near when it happened but just a table full of students. They were as freaked out as I was but didn't actually see whether or not I was shaking like someone with a seizure would do. I told the teacher and she actually didn't let me call home and said it was probably something to do with my blood sugar. I tell my mom when she picks me up and we go to the doctor. We get there, they hook me up to a bunch of machines and we're there for awhile. Results were inconclusive.

That was 5th grade. Fast forward to 10th grade and I hadn't had anything like that happen again. Sitting in math class around 1pm, my scalp and abdomen start itching. A little while later I realize I'm breaking out in hives. This started in 10th grade and still happens today with no real pattern. I've had a couple allergy tests done in my life.

The pattern for the hives always changes but almost always show up in public if I haven't taken a minimum of 2 benadryl recently or hydroxyzine(which I was eventually prescribed about 2 years ago).

Before being RXed hydroxyzine(atarax/vistaril), it turns out only benadryl was the other antihistamine that worked. Before hydroxyzine, I tried Zyrtec, Zyrtec+Zantac(doctor said zantac would help with histamine release from stomach) and allegra. To my knowledge, Zyrtec and Allegra don't have sedating effects.

One summer near the ending of high school(about 18), still hadn't been given hydroxyzine I experience my first blackout episode in my room. Even though it had been around 7 or 8 years, I instantly recognized what was about to happen. Feels like my chest is being crushed, light headed and I go to my bed ASAP. The same exact experience - feels like I'm shaking, feels like I'm urinating on myself(never actually have).

At this point I'm uninsured, didn't tell anyone, and life goes fine for awhile. One day comes around and it feels like I have to go pee, I try..only a little bit trickles out. Come back to my room, get the urge to go again..same thing, only a little bit comes out. This repeats about 5 times and I'm getting nervous about having kidney stones or something. While standing at the toilet, same pre-blackout feelings hit me but it happens way too fast and I black out. Same feelings during the blackout. I wake up with a pain on my head and realized my head bounced off something.

Time goes on and nothing more happens. I'm on hydroxyzine, no hives in sight as long as I'm taking it once every day or two at 50mg.

Some days in college, in class, not too common but maybe once or twice a month I got the same pre-blackout feelings, but they weren't as intense and I would lose my concentration hard. If I focused on breathing, just zoned out from everything else and focused on one thing it seemed to help.

There were a few periodical blackouts I didn't mention that had no special circumstances but they all happened after 18 years old. There were none between 10-18.

Late May 2007 on a Sunday I'm getting abdominal pains in the afternoon that persist into the night time. Around 10:00pm I begin vomiting probably on average of twice per hour all night long while the pain continues. {REMOVED} it got to be pretty obvious what I had was appendicitis. I get to the hospital, have a CAT scan done and have appendicitis. Get the surgery, come home next day and have 40 5/500 hydrocodones. These kept me fairly sedated and pain free.

During that time I ran out of hydroxyzine and since I just developed about $17,000 in medical debt and am still uninsured I wasn't too eager to go running to the doctor for another $90 visit and $50 hydroxyzine prescription.

After the surgery, I've been feeling EXTREMELY unsettled. Sometimes it feels like my heart rate is up but I don't believe it actually is. When this is going on, it's almost impossible to concentrate - can't even sit still. This is daily. For a large portion of every day I feel like this.

So I'm wondering..could this be anxiety? Can anxiety cause hives? Since the hydroxyzine and benadryl make me drowsy and are sort of sedating, I notice the unsettled feelings go away. Zyrtec and Allegra were completely useless and to my knowledge those were the ones advertised as being non-drowsy antihistamines.

In short: Could the hydroxyzine I was prescribed for an unknown allergic reaction that caused hives possibly have kept anxiety in check? Hydroxyzine is the absolute most effective antihistamine for the hives. I seriously never saw 1 hive while on the medicine and not one itch.

After the appendectomy, the unsettled feelings are really interfering with my work{REMOVED}. Sometimes when reading a few articles or refreshing my mind with some coding tutorials, I just cannot concentrate at all. I feel trembly and really strange. I did ask my surgeon about the unsettled feelings when getting my staples removed a little while back but he didn't really give it much thought.

Do panic attacks where the person black out sound like any of the things I felt during my black out? It goes black, can sometimes still hear my surrounding, feel like there's a light electrical pulse going through my body and feels like I just urinated on myself though I never actually did.

Once again, sorry for such a long post and if you even read it half way, thanks.