Head rush waking up

[kintao]

Hi, I have a history of health anxiety and manifestations of physical problems that get exaggerated by anxiety and then I assume the worst right away. A recent one would be my cat ran away after some moving and finally getting him and my aunt (lives with me) to the new home and 10 minutes later he got out from the stress and he’s gone again. After that I’ve been waking up dizzy and sometimes I’d feel a headrush as if blood flowed down out of my head in a cooling sensation when I wake up. I’m wondering what it could be and if it’s only stress induced or another anxiety issue. I keep assuming the worst and I have a bad problem by going to webMD first thing when I feel something wrong.

[Paxiled]

Only a doctor's exam, if anything, will tell you if the head rush and dizziness are something physical or not.  Stress isn't the same thing as anxiety.  Everyone goes through more and less stressful periods of time.  Anxiety is a problem when it's chronic, and you seem to be describing a chronic insecurity and fear.  When you find yourself Googling symptoms, it's always a problem because the same symptoms can be a sign of a thousand things and nothing at all, so it's useless -- it can be helpful when you get a diagnosis and treatment plan, but not to self-diagnose.  So I'd ask, what have you done to try to get out from under this anxiety problem?  I'd think therapy would be in order given this seems to be a long-running problem.  As for your cat, a cat that doesn't try to escape confinement is probably not a well cat. While we do like them to be confined and it's a lot better for local wildlife to do so, cats are not dogs and don't take to confinement well at all.  Cats aren't gregarious animals the way dogs are and have only one real enjoyment in life, which is to hunt.  In the wild, they basically hunt and sleep and not a whole lot else.  I say this hoping this will reduce your stress over it -- as long as you own cats you will find you can't really own a cat -- they tolerate us, but again, they're not dogs, they're not pack animals.  It's normal for them to do this and normal for you to try to prevent them from doing this.  I hope this takes some of the stress away from it.  

[kintao]

Thank you so much for the reply. I used to immediately go to the ER for every little problem but ive learned to just deal with the symptoms a while longer so I could confirm if they’re actual problems. I found a hard spot on the side of my neck that moves and when I did a deep thumb massage on the spot I got immediate relief. Iim guessing it is a tight neck knot from the stress and I don’t get much sleep. I’ll keep to that assumption before thinking of the worst over and over and see if I do any better. So far, the vertigo goes away and comes back since the knot re-tightens but massaging it gives relief.

Thank you again! You have no idea how much I appreciate the response, I don’t talk to anyone about these problems