Hi all,
I guess I'm a long time sufferer from health anxiety/somatization, but I really have a very very hard time believing what I am going through is all unrelated to my somatic health. In the past month my life has been turned upside down again - I feel ill, although sometimes it is hard for me to specify what exactly is bothering me. I just feel ill like when you are feverish and all you want to do is stay in bed.
At other times, I had to come home from work because I get rapid hearbeats, dizziness, lightheadedness, a sensation that I am going to faint, tremors, incredible nausea, in reaction to which I start to tense my abdominal muscles (I suffer from emetophobia), I have trouble breathing (cannot control or make a steady rhythm of my breath for hours on end), have horrible palpitations (I have recorded puls of over 140) etc. Thing is, this does not last say 15 min - 30 min, but hours on end, sometimes even day after day with periods of relative diminishing of symptoms, although they easily reappear. I feel I cannot cope with this anymore, it is ruining my life.
I am also very irritable after weeks of feeling this ill and although I long for help and reassurance in a way, I also tend to have absolutely no patience with my soon to be husband and my mom, who is always very supportive.
I went to my GP, to a neurologist, a cardiologist who did an EKG and Holter monitoring for 24h, I had blood drown which showed only elevated calcium and elevated iron, but the rest were normal values.
Can these symptoms which take over my life really be just anxiety?
