Ragged Edges

I've started to wonder if my sometimes incredibly painful heartburn might actually be masking or substituting in place of panic attacks.

Right now, I've been having really bad heartburn for about 5 hours straight now. I've got prescription heartburn (I usually just think of it as HB) meds and I've got over the counter meds, and I've taken both [twice] tonight and they're not really having any kind of effect on my overall well-being. In fact, it's getting so bad that I'm seriously considering making an appointment with my doctor tomorrow, regardless of the fact that I don't have health insurance and it'll cost an arm and a leg. It's that bad.

And now that I'm thinking about it, I've realized that the sensations I'm feeling right now are pretty close to how I feel at the height of great panic or stress.

In fact, if this pain doesn't let up soon, I fear that I might be two or three steps away from being curled up in a fetal position screaming at the moon. For me, heartburn is almost always tied in with anxiety, in addition to whatever I ate to set it off; so it makes perfect sense to me that this could soon lead to a panic attack, or it already is a panic attack.

I'm feeling really nauseated (not to be confused with nauseous - which makes other people sick); my chest feels like it's about to rip itself apart; I'm sweating; my hands are shaking; and I feel like curling into a fetal position and hiding because I feel like I'm out of control-like I'm about to go nuts. The only thing that I can see that I'm really missing for my characteristic panic attacks is my heart rate. It's too low. But then again, I'm on prescription beta blockers and that's probably what's keeping it down. But still, my heart rate has hit 80 and that's up about 8 beats from where it was a little while ago.

I just know that it's hard to focus on much of anything right now and even rereading some of my sentences I have just written is proving hard to do.

Well, writing has made me feel a bit better. I don't want you to think I'm overreacting to my situation. It is real. I'm just going to see what I can do about it.