In high school our marching band usually went to USU for band camp. This one particular year was hot I suppose because a flute player passed out from heat stroke. It wasn't long before more and more people started passing out. It was crazy. Some were so bad they took them to the hospital. The lobby of our dorm had become the sick ward. In an effort to combat even more people going down our director had us say a little mantra each time we got out on the field. It went like this, "I am not sick. I feel fine." I gotta say I thought it was a little crazy, but I believe there is real power in the suggestion of the mind.
This morning I went in to the E.R. I honestly believed I was going to have a heart attack. The events of the previous day started with my chest tightening up prety bad around noon. I was somewhat concerned, because I haven't had a cold, which is normally what would produce a tight chest for me. However I thought it might go away of I took some drugs. So I took Tums- nothing. I took Sudafed and nothing. I took anti-gas tablets because I thought it felt rather like a huge air bubble was trapped. Nothing happened all day. I was nervous to go to bed because I thought I might have difficulty sleeping. At about 4:00 am I finally just got ready for bed and lay down. I was major stressing at this point because I just kept thinking something serious could be wrong. You see a man in my ward recently had a heart attack, and he had similar symptoms. No sooner than I lay down my shoulders started to twinge a bit and my left arm started to numb and tingly as well as my face. My hands were shaking and I got up to check symptoms on google. Now I was really worked up and frightened so I got my husband up to take me to the E.R. On the way there my body started to shake uncontrollably.
Finally we got there, I got checked in and they did an EKG, took chest x-rays, took blood. The Dr gave me a shot of some muscle relaxer/anti-anxiety and the body shaking and numbness started to dissipate. Thankfully they ruled out heart attack and the other potentially life-threatening things. So I got to go home and I slept most of the day. I also let the Wii babysit my child- oops.
Not to say that there is nothing wrong with me, but I somehow think I escalated my symptoms by stressing about it. So tomorrow I am going to try to see my Dr. This has been a crazy day. I think I am going to take a freebie day on my points. Has any one else ever talked yourself into a sickness?
Ps sorry if there are some typos. I am on my iPod touch and I can't scroll back through to fix them.
Wow, how scary! Did they ever find out what it was? Was it an anxiety attack?
ReplyDeleteI hope you are feeling better today.
I've never really "talked myself into a sickness" but I've definitely created emotional stress to the point where I have physical pain and illness. It's frustrating.
My mom once told me that she wanted to be pregnant so badly that she really felt the symptoms of pregnancy. She'd already had 4 kids so she knew the signs pretty well. She went into the doctor for a test and nope, not pregnant.
I think this topic is hardly ever talked about but I think it's fascinating. When people say things are "in your head" I think it has a negative tone. Like your illness isn't real or something. To me it simply says it's time to work on your thinking and your body will follow.
In my Yoga class the other day we did some of what the teacher called "tapping". Where we sat on the floor and tapped different parts of our body all the while focusing on a part of us that was in pain and repeating over and over, "the pain my back" (or wherever). I thought it was completely bonkers but decided that I would give it a fair try and sure enough the pain in my back did feel a lot better when I was done! I don't know if it actually helped or if it just convinced my brain that I didn't really hurt like I thought it did. I'm also fascinated in how much our thinking and minds influence our bodies. I think our minds are more powerful than we give them credit for.
ReplyDeleteI was taking a psychology class "Brain and Behavior" last fall and we covered a lot of the chemical reactions that are created just by different types of thoughts in our brain. It was so cool!
ReplyDeleteAnyway, serotonin is the chief chemical at stake and in turn effects our blood flow, muscle growth, immune system, and our nervous system (so pretty much everything).
Everything we experience during the day effects our serotonin levels by how we react. (Ex: Irritation, excitement, fear, happiness, nervousness, anger etc. all take their individual tolls or give increase), so as disconnected as our thoughts seem from our physical bodies they are actually directly connected.
Experiencing a lot of stress over an extended period of time without recuperation can throw the serotonin out of balance. Depending on the severity and duration it can actually directly effect our blood flow and muscle functions among a long list of other symptoms.
Anyway, I'm not trying to be a doctor and I don't know if this is even the cause of what you experienced, but it's simply a point that the things "in our head" really are important physically.
I can relate to your dilemma--I have had a couple of panic attacks myself, and my husband also. The stress just builds up and it can totally affect our bodies. My husband and I found that during these, we need to find things that help us to calm down so that we can assess better what's controllable through our mindset and what's beyond our control physically. For example, after one of my pregnancies, my uterus didn't clamp back down and I kept having a lot of bleeding. I called my doctor, and he put me on a medication that would help it clamp down within 24 hours. However, he didn't tell me that I would bleed A LOT during that time, so when I started bleeding really heavily, I freaked out. I started feeling light-headed, weak, dizzy, etc., and even though I called the doctor back and talked to his nurse (she told me that the bleeding was to be expected and that as long as I didn't fill a pad every hour, I was ok and that it would progressively diminish to nothing over the next 24 hours), I was still really scared. I know that my fear made my symptoms worse, but it was really hard to get my fear under control. I didn't do so well in that situation, so when my husband had a panic attack many years later, I decided that we needed to find a way to deal better. We found that me reading conference talks out loud to him helped him calm down (reading them to himself didn't do much, but me reading them out loud was soothing for some reason). I sure hope you are able to find some answers that help you in your situation--I know they're there!
ReplyDeleteWow, I have learned so much today from all the comments and posting, this is fantastic!
ReplyDeleteI have had a couple anxiety attacks myself (Amy, I am not a doctor but based on my experiences, your's sounds like what happened with me).
I love Marilyn's suggesting about finding a coping mechanism. I actually had to have Mark give me a blessing to help me calm down and get some rest.
K, your info on Serotonin was amazing and insightful.
So much food for thought today I feel like my brain is in overdrive.
Ya, Josh (hubby) thought I might have had anxiety or overstressed. I suppose its possible, and I haven't been sleeping much. You think I would learn, here I am up late again. Ok girls, I need to get serious and go to bed on time. Grr, its hard.
ReplyDelete