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Anxiety or possible serious brain condition?

Hello. So, around near the end of May of this year I suffered a choking accident. Luckily, all went well as the piece of food I was choking on went down after two hours or so on its own after being in the ER. But since the event I haven't been the same..
A day after the incident I had two very vicious panic attacks in a row, each lasting up to 2 hours. I had never had panic attacks before so I went to the doctors the next day to see if everything was okay. I was diagnosed with PTSD and Anxiety due to the incident, They had also given me medication for my Panic attacks and that's about it. I had pretty frequent panic attacks for a month but never as bad as my first two. My medication helped with the Panic attacks and they gradually decreased to the point where I didn't need my meds that much anymore, only for emergency. (I would like to also note that I was also running low anyways and my doctor didn't permit refill for the medication) along with my Panic attacks I had some other physical symptoms as well..
So after the incident I barely ate or drink anything for a little more than a week. I lost about 10 pounds in a week due to that. After slowly trying to get back to normal and start to eat and drink regularly, the physical symptoms came. I felt pretty weak from my whole body (Most likely due to me not eating or drinking much from that period), my whole body would involuntarily shake at times for no apparent reason, I had this cough that didn't seem to go away, had trouble breathing sometimes.. I also felt anxious and paranoid nearly all the time and found it hard to focus on anything but my health. I was scared of what might happen to me since I didn't felt right, so I was scared to faint or sleep.. I developed a fear of sleeping shortly after the symptoms came.. I also had feelings of derealization which didn't help with my case at all. Then, one of the worst symptom came: The head feeling. At first when I began to notice it, it felt like something was draining inside my head but nothing hurt, it was just sorta uncomfortable. I felt this after waking up, and this feeling continued for about a week before it turned into the issue I have now.
Fast towards a couple weeks in and I am eating and drinking normally, I gained most of all the weight I lost and I was active. The anxiety/paranoid has definitely worsened though as I developed new symptoms such as shortness of breath, feeling faint at times and just was a nervous wreck. I started to check my pulse at least 20 times a day just to ensure that my heart was beating and I searched up my symptoms religiously whenever one of them started to come on strong. I was afraid of the worse and always thought that I might die from this unknown issue in my body. Derealization was becoming more often for me and my head felt so off. It's hard to explain but it has this weird feeling inside my brain, mainly staying at the back of my head but would sometimes would move around. The best way I could describe it is a weird dull pressure inside my head. It wasn't painful, just uncomfortable. Some days would have the pressure be stronger than others but it was always there. It didn't matter what I did, it never went away and still isn't gone..
Fast forward to the present and I still have my odd head feeling with me today somewhat getting more uncomfortable each day with no clue to why... I just started to sleep correctly but now I'm having the fear of sleep again due to this dull pressure on my head (Sleep only made it a little less noticeable but it was still very much there) I'm worried that it's something serious and could be a misdiagnosis from the doctors (I only went to the doctors in the first month about 3/4 times to assess my Anxiety and to have my throat checked out, nothing more) I have no clue why I feel with this and it's hard to find a possible cause since I don't what could be it. It does affect my focus since its hard to concentrate on anything with such an odd feeling in your head and the thoughts of possible deaths that could be caused by this.. I have not gone to the doctors again since my parents believe that it's just anxiety and that I'm overreacting, but I don't believe it's just Anxiety.
So I was wondering if anyone has the same issue or dealt with similar situation and could help me out into figuring out what it is. I don't know if this is really just anxiety or something more serious.. So please comment if you have an idea, I'm desperate. This thing has been ruining my life and I have not been able to go back to normal ever since. Some extra info that might help people find the answer is that I was supposed to go to therapy, but I was and still waiting to book an appointment for 2 months (which is the same amount of time I been dealing with this head issue) The head feeling has affect my body before by transferring that feeling into t
Different sections of the body (chest, back, legs) but only staying in those various places for a couple days, then returning back to my head. I have very often feelings of derealization time to time up and it's hard to focus without my Anxiety or paranoia flaring up.
If anyone can help me out please do.
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Avatar universal
There's nobody here who can tell you if you have a physiological something or other going on, but we have to look at the events -- you were fine, you had a very frightening experience, and then all this started.  You have seen docs, and they haven't told you anything is wrong.  If this just started out of nowhere, it would be very possibly something physiological, but everything started with anxiety following your incident.  I'm not going to tell you not to pursue doctor's evaluations, but it really does sound like you got a big scare and were probably prone to developing an anxiety problem -- you don't say what you were like when you had setbacks before this, but some of us are prone to holding onto anxious thinking and most of us aren't.  It is what it is.  I'd recommend at this point you find a psychologist who specializes in treating anxiety disorders and nip this in the bud before it becomes chronic.  All the best.
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Avatar universal
Hi friend, i had something similar happen to me and after that I started have panic attacks, anxiety and so on. I wound up in the ER several times thinking I was having heart attacks, brain tumors and bunch of other ideas that scared me.  I had MRIs', heart sonograms, stress tests, more MRIs and nothing, every time test were normal. Doctors just said it's all in your head - but it felt so real to me, I finally did a lot of research and found out it was probably all due to PTSD, anxiety, panic attacks, I did start seeing a psychologist who put me on meds but i continued to struggle, what really helped was reading books, watching videos on You tube, what really helps in my opinion is learning to stop fighting those ugly symptom/feelings and just going through them - eventually you start regaining your life back, try listening to Claire Weekes on You tube, she gives great advice on how to deal with the nervous system, usually what happens is that your nerves are weak and can easily be traumatized, i do have a family history of issues with nervous breakdown and such so i think it happens to some people more than others. Also i don't know if you believe in God but if you do try praying and asking for strength as you go through this rough time- it's as if it's a spirit of fear that torments you. You will get better with time, just believe, cry if you need to, i know i would cry with my Spouse and sometimes alone as i felt so bad and hopeless at times but thank God I'm not there anymore. Take meds if you need to, don't let anyone make you feel bad if you have to depend on meds to help you get through this, if a doctor will not help with meds then find a doctor that will prescribe meds, thank God i had a doctor that was not afraid to prescribe meds. Hope this helps.
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