Reflux Redux

[the_andy]

Ugh, my heartburn and anxiety came back this last week. The heartburn is way way way less painful than it was before, but my anxiety doesn't give a fuck about that. All my brain wants to do it convince me I have something wrong with my chest (not all that hard to do, given that some heart arrhythmia runs in my family and my mom is having valve replacement surgery this Thursday). So, like it or not, I end up fixating on the pain in my chest and worrying, which makes my stomach upset, which makes my reflux worse, which makes the chest pain worse. So around and around we go.

I was getting seriously “lets go to the ER” anxious at work today, with weird feelings in my chest and tingling in my hands. But almost as soon as I left the office the tingling went away and my chest dropped to it's “normal” level of ache. My emotions were still a bit out of sorts for the bus ride, but I was mostly back to normal (or what passes for it these days) by the time I got home. Wrdnrd is spoiling me back to health with rice and sake and I'm feeling ok now. Yeah, yeah, alcohol isn't great for my heartburn, but A) I can deal with normal heartburn that's not coupled with horrible anxiety worry and chest tightness, and B) fuck you, I needed a drink.

Notes: isn't it great that my heartburn triggers my anxiety and my anxiety triggers tightening in my chest and tingling in my extremities? We're 95% sure my heart is fine (had an EKG and everything), but it really sucks for self diagnosis that my symptoms mimic heart attack and stroke.

I have another doctor's appointment for Wednesday. Proof that most of it is anxiety is the fact that I reliably start feeling better after making an appointment. Still, I want to cross off the remaining major things it could be and start talking in more concrete terms how to deal with this anxiety. Other than drinking it away I mean, I have expensive tastes in sake.

Comments

[laceblade]

The anxiety/reflux circle! It is teh suck.

:( to all of this.

[the_andy]

Yeah. And my brain refuses to acknowledge that it's just reflux. Nope it says, they misdiagnosed you, your heart is going to fall out any second now. Just all "plop, flop, gush" and then you're dead.

Stupid brain.

[raanve]

Is your DR appt for the anxiety specifically? You might ask about in-the-moment coping techniques that you can use to break that anxiety loop - the most basic that involves both distracting/refocusing your brain and getting your body to cooperate that I was taught is to find someplace distraction-free (bathroom works in a pinch), sit with your feet flat on the floor/good posture, and starting at your feet, tense all the muscles in your feet/whatever while breathing in & counting to 10, then think release and relax your muscles while breathing out and counting down from 10. Do this in muscle groups, moving up your body, as you're able. (This is hard for me b/c I'm terrible at figuring out/isolating muscle groups, but the extra challenge makes it more effective I think.)

This sounds so goofy, but when I was having the flavor of panic attacks that felt a lot like being about to pass out and/or DIE -- which, predictably, happened almost exclusively at work -- doing this exercise really helped to put the brakes on the physical response, and got my brain out of the deathloop and back to (mostly) where I needed it to be.

<3 Hope this helps - not meaning to give unwanted advice!

[the_andy]

Both anxiety and some of the recurrent reflux. But I think I'm mostly going to talk about anxiety.

Your coping technique sounds a lot like some of the relaxation I used to do before meditating (back when meditation and martial arts were things I had time for).

My main way of breaking the anxiety cycle, which I haven't tried at work because I don't want to talk to coworkers about it, is to just start doing pushups. Forces me to concentrate on something else and gets my heart working differently than just fluttering away.

Though we have a lot of exercise fanatics here, I could probably get away with doing a couple reps in a corner and not have to answer any detailed questions.

[raanve]

Running stairs might work, too, if stairs are a thing.

The thing that I like about this is that I could go hide someplace and do it. There aren't many places to hide in a coffee shop, so. Yeah.

Good luck at the doc! You're taking positive action, and that's half the battle, or something.

[the_andy]

Just calling the doc and making an appointment caused a lot of the anxiety to go away. It was the same when I went to the ER last year; just making the decision to go took care of 70% of the problem. Brains are crazy, man.

[rhivolution]

Oh dear. Take care, Andy, seriously.

[the_andy]

I'm feeling a billion times better today. That's one of the most aggravating parts of this, just knowing that if I can trick my brain into breaking the cycle I'll feel better, but being unable to force it into happening most of the time.