Hello all,
I'm new here (relatively, anyway) and have a few problems that make life a wee bit difficult to deal with at times. In the "chicken or the egg" department, there is no doubt as to which came first - Panic Disorder or heart disease. I've suffered with the Panic Disorder since my early twenties. Luckily enough, I managed to if not overcome, then at least to keep at bay, the panic monster. I went from raging panics that kept me from driving on Interstate highways or speaking in public to raging panics that I waded through while driving in the heaviest traffic that L.A., Chicago, Atlanta, New Orleans, et al could dish out. I also entered a job field that required me to train on a regular basis up to two hundred people at a time in day long closed door sessions. About eight years ago, I noticed that the panic was getting worse and worse, and sought the help of a phsychiatrist, who put me on very low dosages of Xanax (.25mg) and Valium (2 mg). I was able to manage fairly well with this arrangement for a while.
Then, one day at work, I had the Mother of all panic attacks (or so I thought). One of my coworkers took me to the local hospital (a very tiny hospital in a very tiny town) where they kept me overnight, drew blood, and told me to go home and rest the next day. According to them, I had not had a heart attack, merely a very bad anxiety attack - and I desperately wanted to believe them, so never followed up with a cardiac work up, even though deep in my mind I knew that SOMETHING just "wasn't right" about this time.
Two years after this incident, I started to lose energy at an alarming pace - which I put down to the fact that I had just turned forty. Things, however, got progressively worse, and in a few months I keeled over at the local professional football game where I used to take my wife for her birthday every year. After being rushed around the corner to a major medical center from the stadium, an echocardiogram showed that the Mother of all panic attacks had, in fact, been a heart attack. The scar tissue was there to be plainly seen. A subsequent cath revealed two major arteries 97% blocked, with additional blockage in the two others. They ballooned two of the arteries, and stented two others (the LAD being one of the worst blocked).
They sent me home to recuperate, with full assurances that if I would change my lifestyle, all would be well. Two months later, I was back again for two more stents in the remaining two arteries. Once again, I assumed this latest incident to be yet another panic attack, and suffered with the angina for several days before being talked into going back. After all, I had assurances, didn't I?
The surgeon who performed the operations DID do his level best to scare me "straight" about diet and ceasing smoking, and this came through loud and strong. It has now been seven years, and I am smoke free. Heart attacks have a way of saying "Wake up!" He told me in no uncertain terms that if I should ever have a heart attack originating in the LAD he would have about five minutes to give me a five percent chance at survival.
All was pretty much well for the next two years...I was on dozens of heart meds, bp meds, and still taking the Xanax/Valium combo, and re-adjusting fairly well physically, and ekeing by emotionally. I won't say it wasn't a roller coaster, but it was one I managed to stay on. I resumed work, and life was back to normal.
That is, until two years after THAT. I was out working on some property my wife and I owned in the country on a hot May day, and needed to go into town to get some supplies. Since I was so hot and sweaty and dirty, I asked my wife to drive and I put a towel over the seat to keep the upholstry clean. I went into the hardware store, got the things on my list, joked a bit with the cashier, and we headed back out to the property. On the way there, I was once again seized with another Mother Of All Panic Attacks, and asked my wife to drive the twenty miles to our house so that I could lay down and cool off. When my foot hit the driveway getting out of the car, I knew I had just cost myself about forty five minutes of precious time in getting help. This was no panic attack.
What it was was a second heart attack...with the clot lodged in - you guessed it - the LAD. After a frantic rush to the hospital, which entailed more pain than I ever imagined the universe could hold, our local hospital was unequipped to handle the situation. They called in a Life Lift helicopter. I can remember looking up at the doctor on call and asking him if I were dying, and the look in his eyes when he couldn't answer me.
Anyway, after another agonizing 45 minutes in excrutiating pain (morphine did nothing to help) the chopper arrived to pick me up for my forty minute flight to help. According to the cardiologists who worked on me later, I coded (in effect died) eight times enroute, and was told that by all means, I should have never survived.
Four weeks later, I started cardio rehab...four weeks into the twelve week program, I decided that I just could not stay away from work any longer, and returned on a limited basis, soon back up to fifty five or sixty hour weeks.
A few months after that, I rode my motorcycle to work one morning, and noticed that for some reason, I just could not get my breath. No pain, no great concern...just felt like my chest was too full to breathe. When I mentioned it to my boss, he had a coworker drive me to the ER, where I was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. At the time, I thought "Hey - they're going to give me a shot, clear this up, and I'll be good to go". I had a LOT to learn about the sentence I'd been handed with that DX.
By this time, it seemed like every time I had a chest pain, I was back in the hospital for another week's worth of tests...in a two year period, I was hospitalized 27 times. My GP was furious at me because I kept refusing to file for disability and kept going back to work. It got to the point that I was very reluctant to go to the ER, because even with my cardiac history, I STILL got the sideways glances one always seems to get in the hospital when the subject of Panic Disorder comes up. I suffered through one three day incident only to have my butt chewed royally for not coming in with chest pains, then took a REALLY good chewing when I showed up after yet another two day bout at my doctor's office, where the EKG showed I was at that moment having yet a third heart attack.
I will cut this historical missive here - I know it's gone far to long already. My main reason in coming here is the confusion and dispair I have now - I have had a defibrilator implanted because my ejection fraction dropped so low because of the CHF, and have now entered the wonderful new world of Prinzmetal's Angina (coronary artery spasms) that are triggered by my panic attacks. I am about two inches shy of the end of my rope in dealing with panic AND heart disease at the same time, since they so much mimic one another.
Anyone else out there (I'm SURE there must be) who live with this combo and have anything they can share with me about hanging on to what little rope I have left?
Living with Panic Disorder and heart disease
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Thank you for your response, EM.
I did finally take (and was awarded) disability on the basis of the heart disease alone, and will readily admit it (both the heart disease and the disability) has affected my life in a very adverse fashion. But as bad as that has been, the Panic Disorder, in many ways, has been worse. I am, however, going to see the program through, and hope and pray that does help.
Once again, I do thank you for your reply.
Of that, I have no doubt. Were it not for a praying wife, a praying Mother, and two praying children, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be here right now. That is just one issue that I am struggling with. It took me years to overcome panic attacks in church - mainly using the mantra that I learned through twenty years or so of therapy that "It's only a panic attack - You Are NOT Dying" over and over again. I even got to the point where I was part of the youth ministry, and loved every second of that. Working with young people was as rewarding as anything I have ever done. Since having several episodes of telling myself "You Are NOT Dying" and then finding out I WAS dying (or at least was close to doing so) that mantra just no longer works. Even going into my church - a former place of refuge, solace, joy, happiness, "family" is something that I can no longer do. I've made the effort over and over again. And explaining my sudden departures to my fellow congregation members (they always ask out of genuine concern) is something I just cannot bring myself to do, except with those I am closest to, and they are VERY few. Being on fairly heavy doses of lasix because of fluid retention doesn't help the feeling of being so separated from the rest of the flock either. Having to disrupt classes or services every few minutes for a restroom run makes one feel very much "in the public eye". I know that prayer isn't predicated on where you are when you are praying, but fully believe that "where two or more are gathered..." and I miss this facet of my life greatly.Originally posted by Everyones Mom:
Prayer helps,
I would think not. I would also think that heart disease would be heavily linked to panic attacks as well (I can think of very little on a personal level any more traumatic than a massive MI) but I just don't see people living with the two crawling out of the woodwork with their own stories and how they manage on a daily basis.Heart disease, and depression have been linked for years, So you are definitly not alone.
All very good advice, I think. I know I don't always follow all of it (well, the nature part anyway - a place I've always dearly loved). The pet? Well, my fat cat will have no part of being neglected - about his only strict demand.Keep up with the program, find something to laugh about at least once a day, and spend some time with a pet & or out in nature if you can.
I did finally take (and was awarded) disability on the basis of the heart disease alone, and will readily admit it (both the heart disease and the disability) has affected my life in a very adverse fashion. But as bad as that has been, the Panic Disorder, in many ways, has been worse. I am, however, going to see the program through, and hope and pray that does help.Once again, I do thank you for your reply.
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I hope you are doing well. I am mid fourties and have just been diagnosed with potential heart disease. I am going for a second opinion next week. My attacks have always been like a heart attack. Now I am really worried because how do I tell the difference? I have a high stress job and work very hard to stay able to feel normal (whatever that is). Has any doctor every associated the anxiety and heart disease. I have read that the years of anxiety and stress do eventually have a physical effect. I am currently exerising and loosing some weight and watching my diet closely but have had an increase of anxiety since the potential heart problems have come up. I will keep you in my thoughts because like you, I have lots to live for and want to be here with my family.