u/stagedreams

This is a very long post and I apologize but I need to get everything down in one place.

For the last 10 months I’ve been struggling with a multitude of symptoms that have continued to get worse after the first few months of them presenting. They include:

Severe air hunger, chest heaviness and laboured / manual breathing that leave me unable to even go upstairs without feeling out of breath sometimes. This was the first symptom.

Heart palpitations, especially after eating.

Constant anxiety and panic attacks. Started slow but keeps getting worse. I’ve had anxiety my whole life but before this happened it was the best it’s ever been, and barely affected me at all. Either way, this feeling that I’m getting can barely be described as anxiety, it feels like incoming death when it’s at its worst.

Chest pain and squeezing

Dizziness / vertigo

Fast heart rate, constant nasal congestion, fatigue especially after eating and a bunch more. I’ve also been struggling with acid reflux for some time before any of this even happened.

I’ve probably researched whatever could possibly be wrong with me for over 100 hours since it first started. As time goes on I keep getting more weird, unexplained symptoms which have now led me here.

I’ve seen a dozen specialists and have had tons of tests done which include:

An endoscopy from a GI which came back mostly normal, apart from minimal irregularity with my LES.

Spirometry and PFT done by a pulmonologist. Initially said there was slight evidence of Reactive Airway Disease and gave 3 courses of puffers which did nothing and later told me to discontinue them because there was no point.

An echocardiogram, stress test, and a holter monitor done by a cardiologist which all came back normal other than a trivial amount of fluid around my heart. There was a few instances of weird things going on with my ECGs which were mostly just weird / high heart rate issues at rest, and palpitations. I have also seen an expert in arrhythmias (forgot the name) who cleared me for anything of the sort.

I’ve seen an ENT who performed a laryngoscopy and said my throat, vocal cords and sinuses look fine.

I’ve had blood tests, ECGs, piss tests, chest x-rays you name it. The only thing I haven’t done yet is see a neurologist.

As for medications and supplements I’m currently on Propanolol 10mg twice a day, which I’m increasing to 20mg twice a day starting today. I also take mirtazapine 15mg solely because my family doctor chalks all of this up to anxiety. She actually prescribed me a second antidepressant which I haven’t started taking yet. I also take a bunch of supplements including Iron, B12, Benfotiamine, and Magnesium glycinate. I’ve tried a bunch of other stuff like puffers, benzos, other supps, etc etc, I don’t want to keep this post going on forever.

I’ve had COVID twice but that was years ago and I was fine after I had it. The main culprit that I think could have triggered this was an absolutely terrible case of Bronchitis I had just over a year and a half ago. I was sick for 3 months and went on total of over 15 medications including multiple antibiotics, prednisone, puffers, etc. I would cough 24/7 and could barely sleep for weeks. I’d wake up during the night with laryngospasm due to mucus / acid reflux from the medication hitting my vocal cords causing them to close and spasm. I would be suffocating for a few minutes at a time and it got so bad multiple times that my parents almost called me an ambulance. I eventually recovered from the infection and was fine for a few months which is when all this started happening.

I initially thought it was a heart issue / asthma, and then it evolved into what I thought was LPR and now I’m here. It seems like the most likely cause but I don’t know.

I was the most active and healthy I’ve ever been before any of this was happening, and my anxiety was almost 0. I’ve always been very skinny and I gained a bunch of weight and was feeling good, playing sports every day and doing physical labour. I had just turned 21. Since this has happened I haven’t even touched a basketball, football or soccer ball. I haven’t jogged. I haven’t lifted anything over 15lbs. I’ve lost all my weight and I’m sitting at 115lbs at 6ft tall. I live a completely sedentary life and stay in bed most days. I barely leave the house anymore because I’m too scared.

I’m writing this post because I need a shred of hope. I’m luckily working with a cardiologist that is at least willing to hear me out and is not saying it’s anxiety, but I need some advice, some hope, some ideas or something to do. I’m so lost.

Really sorry for the long post.

TL;DR

Multitude of symptoms including air hunger, anxiety / panic attacks, chest heaviness, dizziness, acid reflux, heart palpitations, and a bunch more for the last 10 months. Have had a bunch of tests done and still can’t figure out the cause. Seeking some help, advice, or hope.

Thanks everyone

This is a very long post and I apologize but I need to get everything down in one place.

For the last 10 months I’ve been struggling with a multitude of symptoms that have continued to get worse after the first few months of them presenting. They include:

Severe air hunger, chest heaviness and laboured / manual breathing that leave me unable to even go upstairs without feeling out of breath sometimes. This was the first symptom.

Heart palpitations, especially after eating.

Constant anxiety and panic attacks. Started slow but keeps getting worse. I’ve had anxiety my whole life but before this happened it was the best it’s ever been, and barely affected me at all. Either way, this feeling that I’m getting can barely be described as anxiety, it feels like incoming death when it’s at its worst.

Chest pain and squeezing

Dizziness / vertigo

Fast heart rate, constant nasal congestion, fatigue especially after eating and a bunch more. I’ve also been struggling with acid reflux for some time before any of this even happened.

I’ve probably researched whatever could possibly be wrong with me for over 100 hours since it first started. As time goes on I keep getting more weird, unexplained symptoms which have now led me here.

I’ve seen a dozen specialists and have had tons of tests done which include:

An endoscopy from a GI which came back mostly normal, apart from minimal irregularity with my LES.

Spirometry and PFT done by a pulmonologist. Initially said there was slight evidence of Reactive Airway Disease and gave 3 courses of puffers which did nothing and later told me to discontinue them because there was no point.

An echocardiogram, stress test, and a holter monitor done by a cardiologist which all came back normal other than a trivial amount of fluid around my heart. There was a few instances of weird things going on with my ECGs which were mostly just weird / high heart rate issues at rest, and palpitations. I have also seen an expert in arrhythmias (forgot the name) who cleared me for anything of the sort.

I’ve seen an ENT who performed a laryngoscopy and said my throat, vocal cords and sinuses look fine.

I’ve had blood tests, ECGs, piss tests, chest x-rays you name it. The only thing I haven’t done yet is see a neurologist.

As for medications and supplements I’m currently on Propanolol 10mg twice a day, which I’m increasing to 20mg twice a day starting today. I also take mirtazapine 15mg solely because my family doctor chalks all of this up to anxiety. She actually prescribed me a second antidepressant which I haven’t started taking yet. I also take a bunch of supplements including Iron, B12, Benfotiamine, and Magnesium glycinate. I’ve tried a bunch of other stuff like puffers, benzos, other supps, etc etc, I don’t want to keep this post going on forever.

I’ve had COVID twice but that was years ago and I was fine after I had it. The main culprit that I think could have triggered this was an absolutely terrible case of Bronchitis I had just over a year and a half ago. I was sick for 3 months and went on total of over 15 medications including multiple antibiotics, prednisone, puffers, etc. I would cough 24/7 and could barely sleep for weeks. I’d wake up during the night with laryngospasm due to mucus / acid reflux from the medication hitting my vocal cords causing them to close and spasm. I would be suffocating for a few minutes at a time and it got so bad multiple times that my parents almost called me an ambulance. I eventually recovered from the infection and was fine for a few months which is when all this started happening.

I initially thought it was a heart issue / asthma, and then it evolved into what I thought was LPR and now I’m here. It seems like the most likely cause but I don’t know.

I was the most active and healthy I’ve ever been before any of this was happening, and my anxiety was almost 0. I’ve always been very skinny and I gained a bunch of weight and was feeling good, playing sports every day and doing physical labour. I had just turned 21. Since this has happened I haven’t even touched a basketball, football or soccer ball. I haven’t jogged. I haven’t lifted anything over 15lbs. I’ve lost all my weight and I’m sitting at 115lbs at 6ft tall. I live a completely sedentary life and stay in bed most days. I barely leave the house anymore because I’m too scared.

I’m writing this post because I need a shred of hope. I’m luckily working with a cardiologist that is at least willing to hear me out and is not saying it’s anxiety, but I need some advice, some hope, some ideas or something to do. I’m so lost.

Really sorry for the long post.

TL;DR

Multitude of symptoms including air hunger, anxiety / panic attacks, chest heaviness, dizziness, acid reflux, heart palpitations, and a bunch more for the last 10 months. Have had a bunch of tests done and still can’t figure out the cause. Seeking some help, advice, or hope.

Thanks everyone

Hi everyone.

For the last 9 months I’ve had a multitude of problems including air hunger / shortness of breath, chest pressure, slight reflux, and more recently in the last 3 months or so, palpitations (mostly after eating), dizziness, weakness, fatigue, anxiety, congestion, mucus in the throat and more. The main one that has severely affected me is the shortness of breath, and more recently the chest pressure and palpitations.

Around 5 or 6 months ago, closer to when this first started happening, I learned about LPR and tried the diet for just under 2 months. Even though I didn’t have a lot of the traditional symptoms like heavy reflux, mucus in the throat, globus, etc, I was desperate still wanted to try it. I was very strict on the diet in terms of what I ate which included a banana and oatmeal for breakfast, a chicken soup made with low sodium chicken broth, boiled chicken, and celery and carrots for dinner or any other meal. This is all I ate for almost 2 months, and during this time I was also taking famotidine in the morning and before bed, as well as Gaviscon advance after every meal, drinking alkaline water and sleeping elevated. One thing I will say that I did which wasn’t the best was drinking Fuze iced tea as my drink with dinner until about halfway through the diet, but after that I switched to watermelon juice as I like some type of flavoured drink when I eat.

When I did this diet I found little to no improvement in my breathing and chest pressure. Since then I’ve went back to eating normally but it feels as though I’ve been getting worse over the past few months, which is making me wonder if the diet really was doing something and I just wasn’t noticing it yet. I’m thinking of going back on the diet to see if anything improves, but before I commit to it I wanted to ask for some advice. Obviously as I mentioned the iced tea wasn’t the best choice, but would it really have negated everything else I was doing? And apart from that, I don’t know any of my food triggers, but if those foods are triggering me what else do I have left to eat? I’m feeling very hopeless and I’m not sure if this is a gastrointestinal issue at all, but I’ve tried many other solutions and had every test with no luck.

I’m going back to gastrointestinal in about a month, and I’m going to ask for some more tests other than just the endoscopy I got almost 6 months ago. But in the meantime I need to try to make some sort of progress. I’m lost. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you