GAD or HA?

[Khadijah]

Hi all I pray you are well

I have been battling with the way I feel for around 6 monthes now, and it has slowly got worse. I read online about panic attacks and they don't quite sound what I feel like (sudden chest pains etc) but I shall post here and see if anyone has any insight

I have obsessive thoughts of death. I can't shift this feeling in my head that I'll have a heart attack or heart failure. It's never really anything else, mainly heart related. I don't have a reason for feeling like this, no chest pains or anything.
During the day time when I'm with others, the thought will come to my mind 'what If I die?' 'what if I have a heart attack right now?', then the thought goes away after some effort. Maybe because I'm busy and don't have chance to dwell on it.
At night, this is when it all starts.  when I get into bed the thought comes again, but because it's quiet and I'm alone, I can't shift the thought.
Then I start to panic, deep breathing, crying, shaking, and a 'butterfly' feeling in my chest like nervousness (palpitations?), that's the worst part of it.
I can feel like this for hours on end. Last night was until 4am. And I am still feeling the 'butterflys' in chest now the next afternoon and feel I keep taking deeper breaths still, I'm curled up in a ball

I am feeling more stressed in my life at the moment, and I suffer with a underactive thyroid so not sure if this is playing a role.

Does anyone else feel this way

[kconnors]

Hello Khadijah,

Thank you for sharing your experience with us . . . now, I am not a professional, but I do have experience with thyroid and yes, thyroid has an impact and can cause symptoms such as you describe . . . because these symptoms have been about 6 months in the making, I would suspect that your thyroid is playing a role. You need to consider doing a couple of things:  (1) you need to see a doctor with respect to your thyroid as there is medicine such as Synthroid that will compensate for an underactive thyroid. It may take a bit of testing to find out what the right amount of meds are to compensate for your underactive thyroid, but eventually you and your doctor will find the right balance. For example, based on blood work, your doctor may prescribe a certain dosage. After about 2-4 weeks, you should see a difference. If not, your doctor may have to adjust your prescription. (2) because of your symptoms, you seem to be developing health anxieties . . . .until my thyroid was adjusted, I had the same thoughts and these triggered anxiety and most definitely I lived with that "butterfly" feeling for years (my thyroid would move between over and underactive and it took a while to figure out that it was really my thyroid ---  a long, long time). In order to avoid having these symptoms get too far entrenched in your way of thinking, perhaps you might consider seeing a therapist for some guidance into developing strategies or join a community-based group if one exists. You need to find out what triggers happen to cause the symptoms because they may not all be caused by a thyroid deficiency. In the meantime, you may want to listen to a free tape that helped me manage my butterflies . . . it is tape #6 and can be found at http://www.selftherapy.org/stop-anxiety-panic-attacks.php   . . . .it is free to play online and, in the beginning, I used it 3-4 times a day and now I try to listen to it at least once a day but I sometimes miss because I am having a great day . . .

My last suggestion is for you to return here and post as often as you like and let us know how you are doing . . . .we may not have solutions for you, but we certainly are here to support you and try to help you to uncurl from being curled up in a ball . . .take care, kc

[Khadijah]

Thank you so much for your wonderful reply and I am sorry to hear you suffer with anxiety too

I am on levothyroxine, but I stopped taking them a few monthes ago (silly me) when I started again, that's when the anxiety started.
So I think I may have gone over active or something, I will get blood results on Monday.

I will be super shocked to know thyroid can make me have thoughts convincing me that I will die of a heart attack! The doc never told me this when I was diagnosed.. he made out it wasn't an issue and wouldn't effect my life at all!

I will check that link now and I hope it works some what :)

Thank you again!

[kconnors]

Hi Khadijah,

Thanks for your thoughts on my anxiety . . .it's a long journey, but I have learned quite a bit about myself although I would have preferred a different type of learning experience 

A lot of times doctors do not tell you about what * may * happen because in 99% of the cases, folks with underactive thyroid take the meds and all is fine. For some of us, though, we have what I guess is a bit of sensitivity to the meds. For example: when I first started to take levothyroxine (which is Synthroid), I was on .125 mcg and at this level I started having all the symptoms of overactive thyroid . . . .rapid heartbeat, sweats, anxiousness/anxiety, insomnia, difficult time focusing. So, I went to .100 mcg and still had the same symptoms to a lesser degree. Finally, I went to .088 mcgs which did me just fine until a couple of months ago. After about 12 years on .088 mcgs, I went up to .100 mcgs and I am still fine. For some people, it takes some tweaking to get the right amount. Because it often takes up to 6 weeks for the body to adjust to changes in meds, it can be a frustrating process. Often doctors will look at blood results and determine how much Synthroid. I am fortunate as I have a doctor who not only looks at blood work results, but asks me how I feel and he takes that into consideration.

The other thing is that for some people, myself included, I had antibodies to both Graves and Hashimoto (over and underactive) and was cycling between the two which means that sometimes it takes a bit longer to determine the right regimen for the medicine. In my case, meds were not going to be able to control the swings between the two extremes and I had radioactive iodine treatment which forced my thyroid into a state of underactivity. However, at times, in the beginning, my thyroid would produce thyroid hormone which means that this in combination with the Synthroid was actually putting too much hormone into my body and causing me symptoms of being overactive. Eventually, we got things straightened out but bloodwork alone has to be considered in the context of how you are feeling.

What I think may have happened with you (and I am not a professional) is that you stopped taking the meds which caused your body to readjust and, who knows, perhaps your thyroid started to produce more hormone; then, you started the meds again at the same level and you may have a sensitivity to the drug and it might be causing you to have the symptoms of too much hormone. The reason why I think you feel that you are having a heart attack is that too much of the thryoid hormone will speed up all your processes from metabolism to the sensation of rapid heart beat, etc. but this only happens in a small percentage of people and for that reason your doctor probably did not tell you.

My recommendation is that perhaps you start with a new run of blood work (Free T3, T4, and TSH --- really need all of them although a lot of family docs don't believe all of them are necessary) or ask your doctor to show you and explain your current set of results on Monday, figure out the meds level, keep a journal of how you feel and what you are doing, if the symptoms of anxiety do not go away, then ask the doctor to start you on a lower dose (this may take about 4 weeks to determine so don't get frustrated unless your symptoms are really acute). But, bottom line is that you are not alone . . . I've been there and it is an ugly place but once I got stabilized on Synthroid, I was able to focus on the real triggers of my anxiety and, really, there is a process but it worked for me . . . won't lie and say that it is easy and I won't lie and tell you that I don't have episodes of anxiety, but their intensity and frequency have lessened considerably.

Bottomline: your doctor was just doing what all doctors do and Synthroid, when at the appropriate level, will only enable you to live a fuller life and it usually is not an issue, but you still need to be your own advocate . . . . let us know how things go for you . . .. take care, KC

[Khadijah]

Thank you for your very detailed and helpful reply!

I started taking my meds again, still feeling anxious and after about 2 weeks I had bloods done and my levels were normal. So it seems it can't be thyroid related unless it is a reaction to the medication. Incase of this, I am asking doctor to change my tablets to see if that makes any difference. Worth a try I suppose.
I don't get symptoms to indicate over active or anything of that sort. My main issue is constant obsessive thoughts. Then, when I get a symptom I freak out even more. My brain is making me believe that I will soon have a heart attack/clot/failure and die. People do not get brain warnings 5 months before lol... so I am telling myself my brain is lying but it is so hard!

How do you live with the anxious thoughts?

[kconnors]

Hi,

For me, this does sound like anxiety . . . in the beginning, it was overwhelming for me until I started to take apart the anxious thoughts . . . then I realized I had what I call anxiety brain and reality brain . . . if I used reality brain to look at the thought and break it into parts, then I began to figure out that the thought was not very likely. For example: when I had a rapid heartbeat (before I knew it was thyroid related), anxiety brain would go into overdrive and my blood pressure and pulse would increase and I imagined that I was having or going to have a heart which only increased anxiety and blood pressure, etc. On one occasion I ended up in ER. On intake, my blood pressure was something like 190/100 with a pulse zooming around 95. I was put in an examining room and waited with a nurse for about 5-7 minutes for an ER doctor. When my blood pressure and pulse were taken it was 125/70 or so and a pulse of around 65. They ran all sorts of blood work, etc. and released me about 6 hours later. I used reality brain to figure out that while there was medical help within easy reach, the anxiety was dispelled but once on my own, anxiety brain kicked back in and started telling me it was all a "trick". Eventually, I used reality brain to say . . . . look, you were checked over and there is no physical issue with you that was heart related so either there is another type of physical issue or there is some trigger in your life that is causing the anxiety. From there, we discovered my issue with thyroid and while I was awaiting treatment, they gave me beta blockers. Once the rapid heartbeat subsided, reality brain was strengthened to see my trigger (not knowing what was causing the symptoms) to see the symptoms as manageable. So, while awaiting treatment, I started eating properly, walking, using mindfulness to say to anxiety brain . . .look, back off, reality brain knows what is causing the symptom; thank you for putting me on alert but I no longer need your input. So, when I was flooded with anxiety, I would break off little pieces and in my mind stretch it out until it became so thin that it disappeared. Coincidentally, around this time, I saw a rerun of a Star Trek episode with Captain Janeway when she encounters a clown representing fear (which for me is the equivalent of anxiety). I always remembered a line that went something like the captain saying "I've known fear. It's a very healthy thing, most of the time. You warn us of danger, remind us of our limits, protect us from carelessness. I've learned to trust fear. but like all fear, you eventually disappear." So, I guess, when anxiety hits, I break off pieces, stretch them thinly using my reality brain until they eventual disappear and reality takes over. 

I think that because anxiety is so individual in a lot of ways, that a person just has to keep on trying new tactics to manage it until you hit on a set that is meaningful to you ., . . . I cannot say that I enjoy the process, but I do feel a sense of achievement when my strategies work for me. . . .and they do not always work because life events occur and change with different players and different types of circumstances which means that I have to create new strategies . . . but, I would say, for me, I'm pretty good 90-95% of the time which is a vast improvement of my prior existence of living 24/7/365 with anxiety creating a vortex of unmanageable thoughts and emotions . . .

Don't know if this helps, but think about the activities and thoughts that will help you to disassemble your anxiety which, in turn, may make it easier to development management techniques and to dispel the anxiety . . . .chat with you soon, take care, kc