LonelyTraveler
08-06-2006, 09:59 PM
Hi everyone
First of all, we live in a neighborhood where there are quite a few bats. These bats often hunt insects out by the street lamps at night. Secondly, bats really creep me out (for all kinds of reasons) and thirdly, I have suffered for much of my life with hypochondria, GAD and panic disorder and am on numerous meds. Put all of these things together and you have one very bat-phobic guy with a run-a-way imagination!.
Anyway, last night I decided to take a walk and so I put my jacket on, pulled up and tied the hood around my head and proceeded to walk as far as the first street lamp until I became aware of these things darting around about 100 feet up in the sky. I knew right away they were bats and that they were probably just catching insects that were attracted by the light. I immediately panicked and ran as fast as I could back home and about 15 minutes later, went to bed thinking nothing of it except perhaps "gee, those bats sure did freak me out!".
Even though my little experience was nothing to get in a huge twist over, in the back of my mind, I just knew that in the coming days, I would begin to obssess over this and dream up all kinds of horrible possabilities but since these bats were much further up in the air and not even close to me (like the one a year ago - see story at bottom), I was pretty sure that I would'nt being calling 911 or freaking out about the whole thing.
Well, I woke up feeling fine this morning but then soon I found myself looking all over my body to see if perhaps I had been "bitten". Of course, I knew I had'nt been. Then, I started to play the whole walk over and over again in my mind like a video and drove myself nuts with that for awhile as I painstakingly analyzed every minute detail. Then I started looking at various parts of my body again. At one point, I was sitting at the computer and just happened to be rubbing my nose when I felt a small scab which I picked off. Of course, I am always getting scrapes and cuts from my numerous animals and from doing various things around the property, etc so I thought nothing of it at first but as time went on (and quite predictably), I began obssessing about it and soon found myself looking in the mirror. What I saw was a small cut on the tip of my nose where the scab had been.
Now, I've seen quite a few pictures of bat bites (from a previous obssession a year ago) and the mark on my nose did'nt look anything like a bat bite (your average bat bite consists of 2 small holes approximately one centimeter apart or less). Moreover, I had my wits about me and was fully aware of my surroundings. If a bat had swooped down and bitten me on the nose, I would have been fully aware of it and in a state of panic. I would have SEEN it. I would have FELT the pain from the bite. I would have immediately become aware of a small furry animal hovering in front of my face. I would have clearly remembered it since my very life might depend on it!. Also, I can't think of any mammal whose bite consists of a single hole or cut and it definately was'nt a scratch mark. All of these events, had they occurred, would have stuck out in my mind like a sore thumb too. Still, the panic, anxiety and adrenilin were flowing and I continued to obssess while at the same time, attempt to reason with myself (tough to do with a major hypochondriac like me).
So now here I am. I have taken Ativan, Xanax, Atenolol and even an Atarax to try and get myself calmed down but the meds are only having a minimal affect. Every time I had a "scary thought" or a "what if", I could feel the rush of adrenilin go up through me and my heart would start racing like crazy. The Atenolol helped with that (somewhat). The other meds, I took to try and get rid of the awful anxiety. Just now as I typed this last sentence, I had a feeling go through my head like a dizzy/electrical/buzzing sensation (very scary!).
Anyway, I guess that's all I have to say for now. I am really feeling scared, anxious, depressed and insecure - not so much because of the bats but because I know I'll be obssessing about this for months now and driving myself nuts.
Ok, now for the promised "story at bottom". This is not the first time something like this has happened. A little over a year ago, I was taking another late-night walk and had a bat fly right over and in front of me ("dive-bombing"). I spent months and months, reading about bats, reading about diseases, contacting bat experts by email, calling the CDC, going in and out of the ER and bascially got to the point where I felt like I was going to go insane. At that time, I also had a cut on my finger that I had'nt noticed before (not that I had even bothered to look) so I went through all kinds of thoughts and feelings and spent much of my time "symptom-surfing" and that only made me panic more. Another time (before these last two incidents) I saw bats flying around the same street lamp but it did'nt bother me at all and many years before that, we discovered a bat hidden in a sheet we had hung out on the line to dry and I was actually VERY close to that particular bat and I never obssessed over it so I guess my anxiety has only grown worse over the years so that the things I once used to just laugh off years ago are now huge "issues" with me.
Anyway, thanks for allowing me to share, LT
First of all, we live in a neighborhood where there are quite a few bats. These bats often hunt insects out by the street lamps at night. Secondly, bats really creep me out (for all kinds of reasons) and thirdly, I have suffered for much of my life with hypochondria, GAD and panic disorder and am on numerous meds. Put all of these things together and you have one very bat-phobic guy with a run-a-way imagination!.
Anyway, last night I decided to take a walk and so I put my jacket on, pulled up and tied the hood around my head and proceeded to walk as far as the first street lamp until I became aware of these things darting around about 100 feet up in the sky. I knew right away they were bats and that they were probably just catching insects that were attracted by the light. I immediately panicked and ran as fast as I could back home and about 15 minutes later, went to bed thinking nothing of it except perhaps "gee, those bats sure did freak me out!".
Even though my little experience was nothing to get in a huge twist over, in the back of my mind, I just knew that in the coming days, I would begin to obssess over this and dream up all kinds of horrible possabilities but since these bats were much further up in the air and not even close to me (like the one a year ago - see story at bottom), I was pretty sure that I would'nt being calling 911 or freaking out about the whole thing.
Well, I woke up feeling fine this morning but then soon I found myself looking all over my body to see if perhaps I had been "bitten". Of course, I knew I had'nt been. Then, I started to play the whole walk over and over again in my mind like a video and drove myself nuts with that for awhile as I painstakingly analyzed every minute detail. Then I started looking at various parts of my body again. At one point, I was sitting at the computer and just happened to be rubbing my nose when I felt a small scab which I picked off. Of course, I am always getting scrapes and cuts from my numerous animals and from doing various things around the property, etc so I thought nothing of it at first but as time went on (and quite predictably), I began obssessing about it and soon found myself looking in the mirror. What I saw was a small cut on the tip of my nose where the scab had been.
Now, I've seen quite a few pictures of bat bites (from a previous obssession a year ago) and the mark on my nose did'nt look anything like a bat bite (your average bat bite consists of 2 small holes approximately one centimeter apart or less). Moreover, I had my wits about me and was fully aware of my surroundings. If a bat had swooped down and bitten me on the nose, I would have been fully aware of it and in a state of panic. I would have SEEN it. I would have FELT the pain from the bite. I would have immediately become aware of a small furry animal hovering in front of my face. I would have clearly remembered it since my very life might depend on it!. Also, I can't think of any mammal whose bite consists of a single hole or cut and it definately was'nt a scratch mark. All of these events, had they occurred, would have stuck out in my mind like a sore thumb too. Still, the panic, anxiety and adrenilin were flowing and I continued to obssess while at the same time, attempt to reason with myself (tough to do with a major hypochondriac like me).
So now here I am. I have taken Ativan, Xanax, Atenolol and even an Atarax to try and get myself calmed down but the meds are only having a minimal affect. Every time I had a "scary thought" or a "what if", I could feel the rush of adrenilin go up through me and my heart would start racing like crazy. The Atenolol helped with that (somewhat). The other meds, I took to try and get rid of the awful anxiety. Just now as I typed this last sentence, I had a feeling go through my head like a dizzy/electrical/buzzing sensation (very scary!).
Anyway, I guess that's all I have to say for now. I am really feeling scared, anxious, depressed and insecure - not so much because of the bats but because I know I'll be obssessing about this for months now and driving myself nuts.
Ok, now for the promised "story at bottom". This is not the first time something like this has happened. A little over a year ago, I was taking another late-night walk and had a bat fly right over and in front of me ("dive-bombing"). I spent months and months, reading about bats, reading about diseases, contacting bat experts by email, calling the CDC, going in and out of the ER and bascially got to the point where I felt like I was going to go insane. At that time, I also had a cut on my finger that I had'nt noticed before (not that I had even bothered to look) so I went through all kinds of thoughts and feelings and spent much of my time "symptom-surfing" and that only made me panic more. Another time (before these last two incidents) I saw bats flying around the same street lamp but it did'nt bother me at all and many years before that, we discovered a bat hidden in a sheet we had hung out on the line to dry and I was actually VERY close to that particular bat and I never obssessed over it so I guess my anxiety has only grown worse over the years so that the things I once used to just laugh off years ago are now huge "issues" with me.
Anyway, thanks for allowing me to share, LT
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jjules
08-06-2006, 11:22 PM
Hey Lonely Traveler, OMG you should really consider a writing career! I am not making fun of you at all! I know bats are creepy (I've had to battle a few in my life) but trust me they are more freaked about you than you are of them. You really shouldn't obcess (sp?) about them they do alot of great things like you said eat insects (west nilers). Yeah we do all probaly have phobias of some sort I know I do like spiders in my hair but that really doesn't happen. Hope you are having a bat free night and seriously you could be a great writer I think you have Steven King potential. Take care my friend, Jules;)
tnmomofive
08-07-2006, 12:40 AM
I always thought you could be a writter too! Bats are really more afraid of us then us them.I dont like reading of how bad your feeling but I do like reading it....if that makes sense.
LonelyTraveler
08-07-2006, 11:11 AM
Thank you for the very kind words and compliments. I actually find writing to be a bit boring but I'm being honest when I say that I get the "you should have been a writer" comment a lot from people. In fact, it's either "you should have been a writer" or "you've got such beautiful brown hair...I wish mine was that thick"...lol.
Just a few things I wanted to add to my experience the other day...
I also remember running home so hard and fast that I felt as if I was riding a horse at full gallup (I mean, I was really "boookin' it!), then getting home and washing my hands in bleach, throwing my "contaminated" jacket in the laundry and finally thinking to myself upon arriving home that I had even less "exposure" to these bats than I did with the one I ran into a year ago and yet I still knew that somehow, this would turn into a huge non-stop worry for me in the coming months. To sum it all up, I thought "here we go again!".
So I feel like I've just come back from some bio-hazard lab and am just sitting around waiting to die. Ain't anxiety great?:rolleyes:
So has anyone else here gone through a similar experience and then obssessed over it or had loads of anxiety?. jjules - I'd love to hear your story (battling bats) if you feel comfortable to share it with me.
- Regards, LT
Just a few things I wanted to add to my experience the other day...
I also remember running home so hard and fast that I felt as if I was riding a horse at full gallup (I mean, I was really "boookin' it!), then getting home and washing my hands in bleach, throwing my "contaminated" jacket in the laundry and finally thinking to myself upon arriving home that I had even less "exposure" to these bats than I did with the one I ran into a year ago and yet I still knew that somehow, this would turn into a huge non-stop worry for me in the coming months. To sum it all up, I thought "here we go again!".
So I feel like I've just come back from some bio-hazard lab and am just sitting around waiting to die. Ain't anxiety great?:rolleyes:
So has anyone else here gone through a similar experience and then obssessed over it or had loads of anxiety?. jjules - I'd love to hear your story (battling bats) if you feel comfortable to share it with me.
- Regards, LT
LonelyTraveler
08-08-2006, 05:48 AM
First of all, thank you very much for the many wonderful and uplifting replies!. I always appreciate talking to you people and I feel very safe and comfortable here. Anxiety sure can play some wicked and terrible mind games where you've got two opposing sides - one offering proof that nothing happened and everything is going to be ok and the other (sinister) side trying for all it's worth to plant seeds of doubt in your mind and scare you to death...aaaahhhh!!
I'd just like to provide an update on my situation and I am sorry I did'nt get back here to respond sooner but my anxiety has been going through the roof lately. In fact, even the meds I have been taking have had very little effect and so, being at my wit's end yesterday afternoon and freaking out to the point of feeling like I was going to go insane at any minute, I finally broke down out of desparation and decided to self-medicate with alcohol (which I realize now was a big no-no!). Anyway, the alcohol did decrease my level of anxiety by about 80% (after I'd had about 8 beers).
Then, that evening, after the alcohol began to wear off, I had severe rebound anxiety along with the terrible anxiety I had already been experiencing and it was so bad that my whole head felt like it was floating right off of my shoulders like a balloon. I got very spacy and dizzy too along with all kinds of other creepy sensations. It was a bizarre and frightening feeling to say the least!. I then realized that I had made a HUGE mistake by drinking and would be paying a heavy price for it.
That night, I took my regular Atarax (to help me sleep) and as I lay in bed, I slept very fitfully and had one horrible nightmare after another (A guy stalking me with a knife in the dark, being in a cruel psychiatric hospital, being savagely attacked by a dog, etc). The nightmares were absolutely gruesome and the last one woke me up. As I laid there trying to get back to sleep, I began playing the nightmares I had just had over and over again in the back of my mind and each time I would do this, a huge rush of adrenilin would shoot up through me, causing my heart to race. I was also getting "goosebumps" and "tingling" up my spine just from the sheer fear and panic I was experiencing. I was also telling myself that these nighmares and fitful sleep were being caused by some horrible illness and that would only make me panic more (vicious cycle!). Then, I thought I heard a pounding sound in my head and a few minutes later, I had this "picture" come into my mind of a ball with blood dripping off of it and that's when I thought I was going to completely lose it!.
I got up from the bed at this point and RAN for my bottle of Ativan and then I heard a noise out in the living room and realized that it was my roommate who had just taken his dog out and so I told him about my horrible night, came back in here and am just now typing this.
You know, I try to reason with myself that I was definately NOT bitten by anything and even if I had been (which I really was not), there would'nt be any symptoms the very next day or two and this whole thing started because I was freaked out and panicked over the bats (I was feeling just fine before that, slept good, etc). So this whole thing must be anxiety-related (I try to convince myself). However, the thing is, can the whole combination of severe anxiety, meds and alcohol cause someone to have the kind of experience I had last night (the nightmares, sensations, the mental image of a bloody ball, pounding in the head, etc)?. Can it really get that bad?. Can you get all this even with just plain anxiety (without the meds and alcohol)?. Has anyone here ever thought they had AIDS, MS, ALS or some other disease and then gone through months of severe anxiety, panic attacks, nightmares, tingling, twitching, electrical sensations in the head and all kinds of other frightening symptoms until you thought you were going to go insane?. Would you all mind sharing your story if you feel comfortable to do so?. I would really appreciate it and it would at least let me know that I am not alone.
- Again, thank you for taking the time to respond, LT
I'd just like to provide an update on my situation and I am sorry I did'nt get back here to respond sooner but my anxiety has been going through the roof lately. In fact, even the meds I have been taking have had very little effect and so, being at my wit's end yesterday afternoon and freaking out to the point of feeling like I was going to go insane at any minute, I finally broke down out of desparation and decided to self-medicate with alcohol (which I realize now was a big no-no!). Anyway, the alcohol did decrease my level of anxiety by about 80% (after I'd had about 8 beers).
Then, that evening, after the alcohol began to wear off, I had severe rebound anxiety along with the terrible anxiety I had already been experiencing and it was so bad that my whole head felt like it was floating right off of my shoulders like a balloon. I got very spacy and dizzy too along with all kinds of other creepy sensations. It was a bizarre and frightening feeling to say the least!. I then realized that I had made a HUGE mistake by drinking and would be paying a heavy price for it.
That night, I took my regular Atarax (to help me sleep) and as I lay in bed, I slept very fitfully and had one horrible nightmare after another (A guy stalking me with a knife in the dark, being in a cruel psychiatric hospital, being savagely attacked by a dog, etc). The nightmares were absolutely gruesome and the last one woke me up. As I laid there trying to get back to sleep, I began playing the nightmares I had just had over and over again in the back of my mind and each time I would do this, a huge rush of adrenilin would shoot up through me, causing my heart to race. I was also getting "goosebumps" and "tingling" up my spine just from the sheer fear and panic I was experiencing. I was also telling myself that these nighmares and fitful sleep were being caused by some horrible illness and that would only make me panic more (vicious cycle!). Then, I thought I heard a pounding sound in my head and a few minutes later, I had this "picture" come into my mind of a ball with blood dripping off of it and that's when I thought I was going to completely lose it!.
I got up from the bed at this point and RAN for my bottle of Ativan and then I heard a noise out in the living room and realized that it was my roommate who had just taken his dog out and so I told him about my horrible night, came back in here and am just now typing this.
You know, I try to reason with myself that I was definately NOT bitten by anything and even if I had been (which I really was not), there would'nt be any symptoms the very next day or two and this whole thing started because I was freaked out and panicked over the bats (I was feeling just fine before that, slept good, etc). So this whole thing must be anxiety-related (I try to convince myself). However, the thing is, can the whole combination of severe anxiety, meds and alcohol cause someone to have the kind of experience I had last night (the nightmares, sensations, the mental image of a bloody ball, pounding in the head, etc)?. Can it really get that bad?. Can you get all this even with just plain anxiety (without the meds and alcohol)?. Has anyone here ever thought they had AIDS, MS, ALS or some other disease and then gone through months of severe anxiety, panic attacks, nightmares, tingling, twitching, electrical sensations in the head and all kinds of other frightening symptoms until you thought you were going to go insane?. Would you all mind sharing your story if you feel comfortable to do so?. I would really appreciate it and it would at least let me know that I am not alone.
- Again, thank you for taking the time to respond, LT
tnmomofive
08-08-2006, 11:33 AM
I really do not have the time to put out my entire story but I can sum it up breifly best I can.
I was 19 years old (eventhough I believe I had panic attacks as a small child).
I fainted one day (be aware this is very uncommon with anxiety) from that point I spent an entire year in what I feel was misery.Name just bout any symptom I had it....24/7 headache,shaking,trembling,fear,24/7 derealization,heart palps,not knowing where I was once in my own home!,dizzy & lightheaded,fatigued,didnt want to leave the house,easily alerted (phone rang id jump and feel sick for hours),and many more.I thought I had a brain tumor went from doctor to doctor to doctor nothing found wrong.Was diagnosed with GAD.
Over the last 13 years ive had good years and bad ones been on meds and off meds but what helped me most was my own mind ..the power of positive thinking took a long time but it worked for me.
sorry I couldnt give the long drawn out story but id be here all day lol
thanks for letting me share and take care!
I was 19 years old (eventhough I believe I had panic attacks as a small child).
I fainted one day (be aware this is very uncommon with anxiety) from that point I spent an entire year in what I feel was misery.Name just bout any symptom I had it....24/7 headache,shaking,trembling,fear,24/7 derealization,heart palps,not knowing where I was once in my own home!,dizzy & lightheaded,fatigued,didnt want to leave the house,easily alerted (phone rang id jump and feel sick for hours),and many more.I thought I had a brain tumor went from doctor to doctor to doctor nothing found wrong.Was diagnosed with GAD.
Over the last 13 years ive had good years and bad ones been on meds and off meds but what helped me most was my own mind ..the power of positive thinking took a long time but it worked for me.
sorry I couldnt give the long drawn out story but id be here all day lol
thanks for letting me share and take care!
LonelyTraveler
08-24-2006, 11:40 PM
Thanks again for all the replies!
This is actually something that I wrote to another member (elsewhere) who was experiencing a great deal of anxiety over having had an encounter similar to mine and is based on my own personal knowledge and experience with bats and rabies. Perhaps it will help someone else with their fears...
This is actually my fourth time going through a "bat scare". Each time, I was never bitten, scratched or even brushed by a bat and yet each time I spent many months symptom-surfing and imagining all sorts of terrifying possabilities. The ER became my second home.
The thing is, I'm still alive and less than half of 1 percent of bats are carriers of rabies (that's 0.5%). Since bats are nocturnal, if this happened at night, you and I have even less to worry about. Rabid bats are also much less likely that other mammals to become aggressive because they become paralyzed and die rather quickly from the disease. By contrast, Racoons and skunks are more likely to be carriers than bats. Bat bites are also PAINFUL so you would feel a lot more then just a soft brushing.
You cannot catch rabies by petting a bat or having one brush up against you or coming into contact with feces or urine. Only a bite from an infected bat that produces an open puncture wound can cause the disease. I won't go into any specific details about the disease itself because I don't want you to be scared or suddenly get the "symptoms" but based on what you tell me, I would say that you have nothing at all to worry about but like me, your anxiety and hypochondria wants to keep analyzing and playing the "footage" over and over again in your mind.
I hope this helps provide you some level of comfort. I've learned a great deal about bats over the years and they are actually much more afraid of you than you are of them and they eat thousands of mosquitos and other pests each night. They also hunt using echolocation (like a dolphin) and have keen eyesight so a bat would easily be able to distinguish you from a mosquito or other tasty insect.
- Regards, LT
This is actually something that I wrote to another member (elsewhere) who was experiencing a great deal of anxiety over having had an encounter similar to mine and is based on my own personal knowledge and experience with bats and rabies. Perhaps it will help someone else with their fears...
This is actually my fourth time going through a "bat scare". Each time, I was never bitten, scratched or even brushed by a bat and yet each time I spent many months symptom-surfing and imagining all sorts of terrifying possabilities. The ER became my second home.
The thing is, I'm still alive and less than half of 1 percent of bats are carriers of rabies (that's 0.5%). Since bats are nocturnal, if this happened at night, you and I have even less to worry about. Rabid bats are also much less likely that other mammals to become aggressive because they become paralyzed and die rather quickly from the disease. By contrast, Racoons and skunks are more likely to be carriers than bats. Bat bites are also PAINFUL so you would feel a lot more then just a soft brushing.
You cannot catch rabies by petting a bat or having one brush up against you or coming into contact with feces or urine. Only a bite from an infected bat that produces an open puncture wound can cause the disease. I won't go into any specific details about the disease itself because I don't want you to be scared or suddenly get the "symptoms" but based on what you tell me, I would say that you have nothing at all to worry about but like me, your anxiety and hypochondria wants to keep analyzing and playing the "footage" over and over again in your mind.
I hope this helps provide you some level of comfort. I've learned a great deal about bats over the years and they are actually much more afraid of you than you are of them and they eat thousands of mosquitos and other pests each night. They also hunt using echolocation (like a dolphin) and have keen eyesight so a bat would easily be able to distinguish you from a mosquito or other tasty insect.
- Regards, LT
dazedandconfused1
08-24-2006, 11:55 PM
yes i know how u feel about bats i live in a old stone farm house they get in the house i would get four a week in the house i put blankets up on the door ways in living room and at night i became a prisoner in my living room when my husband was working out of town i am teriffied of bats i was afraid to go to sleep
808Lion
08-25-2006, 06:44 AM
I really do not have the time to put out my entire story but I can sum it up breifly best I can.
I was 19 years old (eventhough I believe I had panic attacks as a small child).
I fainted one day (be aware this is very uncommon with anxiety) from that point I spent an entire year in what I feel was misery.Name just bout any symptom I had it....24/7 headache,shaking,trembling,fear,24/7 derealization,heart palps,not knowing where I was once in my own home!,dizzy & lightheaded,fatigued,didnt want to leave the house,easily alerted (phone rang id jump and feel sick for hours),and many more.I thought I had a brain tumor went from doctor to doctor to doctor nothing found wrong.Was diagnosed with GAD.
Over the last 13 years ive had good years and bad ones been on meds and off meds but what helped me most was my own mind ..the power of positive thinking took a long time but it worked for me.
sorry I couldnt give the long drawn out story but id be here all day lol
thanks for letting me share and take care!
wow... i can REALLY identify with how you felt...
although i didn't actually completely lose consciousness, i too had a couple of instances where i was very close to losing consciousness and fainting...
on one occasion, towards the end of my daughter's soccer practice, i started to feel very light-headed and basically knew if i didn't lie down right away, that i was going to collapse and end up there anyway...
so i did, asked a nearby parent for help, and within a couple of minutes had my daughter's entire soccer team and coaches all standing around me while i was trying not to pass out lying on the grass...
i could hear the coaches telling each other that they were having a hard time finding my pulse... great... that's a nice way to send my anxiety into hyper-overdrive... lol
someone had called 911 and pretty shortly an ambulance arrived...
everything was kind of blurry and hazy as far as my recollection of events go, but i remember the emt's also confirming that my blood pressure was very low as was my heartrate...
i don't remember the numbers they were listing for my bp, but i remember my hr was in the 20's...
so i went to the e.r., was watched for awhile, and eventually released being told i was ok...
"near syncope" was what they wrote me up with, which i guess is just medicalese for almost fainted... lol
before and subsequently since then increasingly, i've been dealing with and have been diagnosed since then with...
~ gad
~ panic disorder
~ hypochondriasis
~ agoraphobia
~ ocd
fun fun fun...
anyway... so while obsessing about my health and the variety of different and potentially crippling illnesses i was convinced i was dealing with, and scouring the internet for information about anxiety, etc., i became discouraged and was convinced, even though i was constantly told otherwise, that there must be something wrong with me besides just plain ole' anxiety...
(holy run-on sentence batman!!!)
one disturbing little piece of information i came across while reading about anxiety / panic was originally intended to be reassuring...
it was talking about how i don't need to worry about fainting because it's impossible to faint during a panic attack...
the website went on to say that during a panic attack, one's bp and hr become elevated, which is what makes it impossible to faint...
in order to faint, bp and hr need to drop dramatically...
ok... so since that IS in fact what happened to me, i became all the MORE convinced that what i was suffering from wasn't anxiety / panic...
several visits to the doctor later and some pretty thorough testing on the old ticker, and i guess i'm believing that it is indeed not my heart, and is anxiety / panic...
docs and therapists have explained that while rare, it isn't impossible that someone's reaction to anxiety is the opposite of what you hear about as being the common response, and that in some people, like me and you apparently, the body's response is not to elevate bp and hr, but to shut down instead...
just thought i'd share...
sorry about the novel... lol... :-)
I was 19 years old (eventhough I believe I had panic attacks as a small child).
I fainted one day (be aware this is very uncommon with anxiety) from that point I spent an entire year in what I feel was misery.Name just bout any symptom I had it....24/7 headache,shaking,trembling,fear,24/7 derealization,heart palps,not knowing where I was once in my own home!,dizzy & lightheaded,fatigued,didnt want to leave the house,easily alerted (phone rang id jump and feel sick for hours),and many more.I thought I had a brain tumor went from doctor to doctor to doctor nothing found wrong.Was diagnosed with GAD.
Over the last 13 years ive had good years and bad ones been on meds and off meds but what helped me most was my own mind ..the power of positive thinking took a long time but it worked for me.
sorry I couldnt give the long drawn out story but id be here all day lol
thanks for letting me share and take care!
wow... i can REALLY identify with how you felt...
although i didn't actually completely lose consciousness, i too had a couple of instances where i was very close to losing consciousness and fainting...
on one occasion, towards the end of my daughter's soccer practice, i started to feel very light-headed and basically knew if i didn't lie down right away, that i was going to collapse and end up there anyway...
so i did, asked a nearby parent for help, and within a couple of minutes had my daughter's entire soccer team and coaches all standing around me while i was trying not to pass out lying on the grass...
i could hear the coaches telling each other that they were having a hard time finding my pulse... great... that's a nice way to send my anxiety into hyper-overdrive... lol
someone had called 911 and pretty shortly an ambulance arrived...
everything was kind of blurry and hazy as far as my recollection of events go, but i remember the emt's also confirming that my blood pressure was very low as was my heartrate...
i don't remember the numbers they were listing for my bp, but i remember my hr was in the 20's...
so i went to the e.r., was watched for awhile, and eventually released being told i was ok...
"near syncope" was what they wrote me up with, which i guess is just medicalese for almost fainted... lol
before and subsequently since then increasingly, i've been dealing with and have been diagnosed since then with...
~ gad
~ panic disorder
~ hypochondriasis
~ agoraphobia
~ ocd
fun fun fun...
anyway... so while obsessing about my health and the variety of different and potentially crippling illnesses i was convinced i was dealing with, and scouring the internet for information about anxiety, etc., i became discouraged and was convinced, even though i was constantly told otherwise, that there must be something wrong with me besides just plain ole' anxiety...
(holy run-on sentence batman!!!)
one disturbing little piece of information i came across while reading about anxiety / panic was originally intended to be reassuring...
it was talking about how i don't need to worry about fainting because it's impossible to faint during a panic attack...
the website went on to say that during a panic attack, one's bp and hr become elevated, which is what makes it impossible to faint...
in order to faint, bp and hr need to drop dramatically...
ok... so since that IS in fact what happened to me, i became all the MORE convinced that what i was suffering from wasn't anxiety / panic...
several visits to the doctor later and some pretty thorough testing on the old ticker, and i guess i'm believing that it is indeed not my heart, and is anxiety / panic...
docs and therapists have explained that while rare, it isn't impossible that someone's reaction to anxiety is the opposite of what you hear about as being the common response, and that in some people, like me and you apparently, the body's response is not to elevate bp and hr, but to shut down instead...
just thought i'd share...
sorry about the novel... lol... :-)