30 something male who’s very active. 

So on Monday I experienced my first, and hopefully only, panic/anxiety attack. Honestly not sure if there is a difference so apologies in advance for my ignorance if there is. 

For months I’ve been working insane hours, 70+ per week, and I was managing well… or so I thought. After a 3 day weekend in which I had to work in order to meet deadlines my wife and I got into a rather insignificant argument. About 5 minutes in it hit me like a freight train. Heart rate climbed first then it’s a bit of a blur in terms of the order of things. My chest tightened, breathing became shallow, sweaty everything, couldn’t sit still, chest muscle cramps which felt like electrical shocks pulsing every few seconds. 

I told my wife I had to step away because of all the above and went downstairs to try and calmly breath. After 5-10 mins things weren’t getting better and it seemed everything was snowballing in the wrong direction. I turned on a light hearted movie to try and distract myself, but it didn’t work. Tried deep breathing. Didn’t work. Maybe after another 10-15 mins the worst of it subsided slightly, but I decided to chew some asprin Because I thought I may be having early signs of a heart attack. 

Being in my 30s and an avid gym goer i eventually convinced myself that there’s no way it can be a heart attack, which in hindsight was really dumb (spoiler alert it wasn’t one, but still). I managed to get to sleep after a few hours of complete dread questioning is this going to be me forever. 

Woke up the next day and my left side of my chest felt like someone had reached in with a blender and went hog wild in there. Fast forward a few days and that pain was still there all the while I had anxiety about the potential that I did experience some sort of cardiac arrest. Few days of more worry and I made the executive decision to go to the Er for some tests. 

Hospital ran an ekg, bloods, x ray, bp and X-ray. My BP was in the 160s when I first arrived! They took me back and I told the dr what happened. Hooked me up to an iv for a while then came back and said everything looks fine. I can’t tell you the weight that was lifted off my shoulders when I was told it was just stress. Instantly the chest pain subsided and a day later I feel “normal”. 

I guess my advice to any first timers is don’t freaking wait. If you think you may have had a cardiac episode go get it checked out. In hindsight by me waiting it out I was only making it worse. Whatever is making you worry, address it, don’t hide or that worry will manifest into more anxiety and you’ll be worse off. 

Hope this helps even one person and they can learn from my mistakes in ignoring your concerns and sources of stress.