I am at a loss...
I am just not sure what's going on with me. I'm not here to be diagnosed because, trust me, I have spent the past few months in and out of doctors trying to find out exactly what's going on. I want to share my experience with you guys because I was almost 98% certain that I had HF, and now, after the tests I've recently had done, I'm not sure anymore.
I do have a cardiologist appointment next week, and they might find something my PCP didn't.
To clearly lay out what's been going on:
I am a 27-year-old male, 5'11", and about 195 pounds.
I have been experiencing these symptoms with varying degrees of severity:
- Oxygen hunger
- Shortness of breath
- Mild edema in my legs
- Cold feet
- Cold fingers
- Constant fatigue
- Brain fog
- Lack of motivation/drive/happiness
- In certain positions, when I pick something slightly heavy up, I experience a mild but noticeable pain in the center of my chest
- Things that shouldn't wind me tend to leave me breathing more heavily than they should
I'm sure there are other symptoms I'm forgetting, but these are the ones coming to mind right now.
After all the research I've done, I had convinced myself that I had HF. Maybe it's ridiculous for me to come to that conclusion, but I had prepared myself to receive that information. I was absolutely terrified that I would have tests done and they would tell me that I did have it, so after doing a lot of soul-searching and thinking, my mind became convinced that was the issue. I was at peace with it. I figured this would be my new normal, and I would live my life fixing my diet, getting exercise, and taking the medication they would inevitably give me.
However, after the test results I just received, I'm now in a state of confusion rather than relief.
As I stated before, I have been going to my PCP religiously (also going to the hospital when the shortness of breath got so bad that I couldn't work my job), and they gave me EKGs, which were normal. I have had chest X-rays and CT scans. All normal. All the blood tests they gave me at the hospital were normal as well.
My blood pressure was elevated, but this is typical for me because I get severely anxious when having my BP checked, though it was nothing too concerning. I just had a BNP test done at my PCP, and these were the results:
- Sugar was normal
- Anemia was normal
- Thyroid was normal
- My potassium was 5.3, and they want me to come back in a few days to check it again
And lastly, the one I was anticipating the most:
My HF test came back negative.
These symptoms I'm having don't appear to be just anxiety-related. It's very difficult to fully describe, but I have been experiencing pretty severe anxiety since I was 20. It all stems from the first panic attack I ever experienced, and ever since then, my anxiety has pretty much taken hold of my life.
I know what anxiety symptoms feel like, and I have managed to treat them fairly well. Sometimes it gets worse, and sometimes it gets better, but these symptoms I've been experiencing are all fairly new.
I know I should feel some sort of relief, but I just don't know what to think anymore. I felt like everything I was experiencing would at least be explainable and treatable. I thought if the HF test came back positive, we would have a clear plan of attack, but now I don't even know how to treat this because no one can tell me what it is.
I'm sorry if this isn't the right place to post this. I don't want to impose my problems on anyone in this community since you're all dealing with your own issues, and I entirely empathize with that.
I'm just lost.