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From: Trish
... what's really wrong with me. I have had low blood pressure all my life, suffered with anxiety on and off from the ripe age of 17. Two years ago I suffered from what I thought to be a TIA, transient ischemic attack, or precursor to a stroke. I will never forget that day, because I was vibrant, feeling good, and then BAM, something just went "wrong". First pressure in my stomach, then to my left arm, then the panic attack that triggered the fight or flight response that kicked in filling me with adrenaline, not knowing what came first, or why. I was scared out of my wits, and my significant other thought I was dieing. A 911 call, hospital visit(s) and many follow up doc visits rendered no positive results of anything. MRIs, EKGs, EEGs, stress tests, thinking MS a possibility and everything else under the sun, until I heard 3 other people I WORK with experienced similar symptoms all within one week. I started thinking, could it be a virus? Nearly 2 years to the day of my first "attack" I had another experience, yesterday, while driving to work. I nearly passed out 3 times. A wave of pulling sensations in my stomach, my throat, and then my head, darkness, but still conscious. Numbness in my hands and arms for days prior to this, and then a major strange bowel movement the night before. Ativan to help me sleep just one week prior because I kept waking up with the fight or flight response. Starting in my abdomen, creeping through my extremities, legs, arms, head, feeling as if I couldn't move, paralyzed and then realizing a major heart palpation made me say "BREATHE".
I urge anyone with these symptoms to write to me please. I am tired of thinking I am going to die in my sleep, and I refuse to go to another conventional doctor. They all think I'm nuts! It wasn't until I phoned an "on call doctor" yesterday when I mentioned the explosive bowel movement and weird stomach virus I THOUGHT I had for weeks, that I learned vaso-vagal is brought on by such an episode. Why aren't doctors telling us this? Why are we being led to believe we are crazy, it's pyschological, brought on by panic attacks? Why isn't someone stepping up to the plate and telling us, this is REAL? That panic attacks are actually BROUGHT ON by this very real episode and not the other way around? When we don't know why these things happen, our brains manufacture reasons of their own, and the spiral begins. I am a healthy 44 year old woman with loads of stress just like all of you, and I'm sick and tired of being swept under the rug, test after gd test, to be FINALLY TOLD BY AN ALL CALL DOCTOR that a simple VIRUS can bring this on. Guess what? We're all gonna die sometime, but NOT TODAY!
Good luck, feet up, drink good red wine, see a chiropractor or acupuncturist, but don't waste your time with conventional medicine because by the time they figure out the process of elimination, we'll already have killed ourselves trying to figure it out on our own.
Best to you, all of you.
Trish