Too much stress bringing out physical maladies??

I am new to this posting thing. But I have too many questions with not enough answers. I have been battling Bi-polar since a teenager. To me it is nothing new. I have also seen a neurologist who said I have fibromyalgia. I am now in my early forties and all of a sudden in October of last year I was at work getting ready to go home (a lovely thought) when all of a sudden I got a warm sensation in my head, got dizzy, had a hard time breathing and new I was going to pass out. My co-workers called 911. The paramedics found my pulse going 170 and my blood pressure very high. I passed out briefly. At the hospital they did every test known to man for my heart. The cardiologist said "something was making my heart unhappy" but every test showed my heart healthy. There was only a slight irregularity on my EKG. I am now on a beta blocker, I was in the hospital for three days. Psych was called down as I had just gotten off of Lamictal (did not sit well with me) and Lyrica. Everyone seemed to scratch their heads and said you had a panic attack. Well okay fine but the few months now after that incident I have not had a day where I feel good. Everyday I have a ringing in my head. I get hot flashes and a sense of just feeling so bad. Then I get episodes that last several hours. Everything I have read about panic attacks say it lasts minutes. These things last hours. The sensations that accompany these spells are God-awful. I am beyond tired or fatigued. I am immobile. I strain to speak or even to open my eyes. Then inside my head I feel the sensation of being lifted quickly then dropped. Kind of like a roller coaster but it does not effect my stomach just my head. I feel as if something is weighing on my chest and I try to concentrate on breathing. I am totally disabled when this happens and I do not get it. All that I experience does not fit into a classic diagnosis. Could stress be this powerful to take over my body physically? I am now on EPA-DHA, a good multi, I have got a good diet and take Ambien for sleep. I have a prescription fro Xanaz as needed but no other drug. I believe this is physical but my doc and Therapist say it's stress. If that's true I should be able to have some control over it. I do not obsess over my past. I do not dwell on negative thoughts. I have hope for the future and a beautiful family. These physical symptoms are just wrecking my life as I know it. Has anyone experienced anything like this?
Thank you kindly,
Jojuli

Hello welcome to Psych central. Stress is very debilitating when you have Fibromyalgia. A good diet and exercise are vital to someone with Fibromyalgia. There are many good diet planners on the americal Diabetes Association website that may be beneficial for you to keep the overload off of your adrenal system. Take care Soidhonia

Okay something you said hit a nail on the head. Adrenals. I have had blood tests done that say I have very low adrenals. Could this be an adrenal issue heightened by firbromyalia? My Therapist recommended a Nutritional Medicine consultant but as far as exercise, I used to run 10 miles a day and now making my bed sends me into an overwhelming fatigue. How would one get on an exercise regime with feelings of immobility? There's got to be a way. Here are my stress factors.
1). I lost my husband in a car wreck. He died while we had a 6 month old and an 18 month old. It has been 8 years and I have raised them all by myself. I had to leave my home and move in with my parents at the time.
2). I immediately found myself in a Wrongful death suit. He was hit by a 16 year old head on while the kid was fumbling for his cell phone.
3). 6 months later my dearest sister was diagnosed with breast cancer, she died 6 months later (One year and one week after my husband)
4). A year later my youngest child begins showing signs of something wrong and is diagnosed with sensory dysfunction and complex partial seizures.
5). My father has a massive heart attack. He dies but is brought back to life. We still have him to enjoy. I now have both parents living with me.
6). A couple years later my mother has a heart attack and has triple bypass surgery
7). My youngest has a reaction to her seizure medication and decides to try and kill herself, at 8, I had to take her to the emergency room and they keep her for over a week. I wasn't allowed to see her but for only 2 hours a day. She begged me to take her home and I couldn't or the doctors said they would commit her over my wishes.
That's when I started having these awful sensations and was told my adrenals are shot.
To me the above is what life has dealt me. I do not feel sorry for myself and I have tried to make the best out of what I have. As bad as things are they can always get worse and I choose to thank God for what I do have, not what I do not have. With this mentality I feel I should not be overcome by stress. But my body is rebelling and not listening to my mind. I have an appt with the nutritional consultant. And I will try to educate myself more on adrenal function and fibromyalgia. I have got to me missing a puzzle piece somewhere. Thank you for your input, it has helped.
Jojuli

The adrenals are in charge of your stress "system" and if they're stressed too much they get "shot." The adrenals are "physical" too so a problem with them is a physical malady.

Have you had a full physical and blood tests, etc. and there's nothing your GP can do? There's lots of "types" of stress and most of them are not under our conscious control anymore than breathing or digestion, etc. are. Daily living situations/stress are/can be "minor" if the dominoes :-) inside start toppling. While there's always more we can do to "help" ourselves, we often can't totally fix things, that's up to what's broken and how it's broken, etc. Just "reversing" bad things, eating better and exercising, for example to lose weight, are no guarantees that that will happen the way we "expect." I was watching a show on TV last night and a woman was doing everything very "right" and to the hilt to lose weight; the physical trainer had her working hard and she was, she ate right, etc. but the weight wasn't coming off as it "should". Turned out she'd had gastric bypass surgery 6 years earlier and with those, apparently there's a lot of messes up your thyroid and she had low thyroid as a result is why nothing worked even though she had to work hard just to stay "in place." She and her mother were very disappointed, were thinking if it it had been possible to know that 10 years earlier before the gastric bypass (that there was a high incident of low thyroid as a result), they might have done things differently.

Here's a good British site I found: http://www.managingstress.com/articles/physiology.htm

Good luck with finding things to help you.

{{{{{{{{{{{{{Jojuli}}}}}}}}}}}}}} Ohh HOn, I'm sorry you had to endure so much in so little time, 8 years is nothing.
We are here for you anytime, I hope you cna find out soon what is wrong.
PM me anytime~

could very well be stress, my panic attacks do the same thing, and usually mine last(or the stressed out, heart palpitation, dizzy feeling anyways) for a few hours. Ive gone to the hospital because of them because i get really bad heart skips when it happens too. But like others said i would get a full workup done first, then go from there.

I feel I don't know enough about the other physical issues to give advice, but I would like to add panic attacks don't just last minutes. Many people struggle with ones that last hours and some of mine will cause pain in my chest that lasts for days and fatigue that lasts just as long if not longer. I'm not saying that what you are having is a panic attack, but panic attacks vary a lot from person to person, thus making them hard to rule out.

I hope the doctors figure out what is wrong soon though

Hang in there

Just wanted you to know I am thinking of you and hope you can find out what the problem is so you can start feeling better.
You definitely have had a hard time of it and for this, I am sorry.
Wishing you all the best.
Hugs,
Linda

I have greatly appreciated everyone who read and responded to my situation!! Since I have been to two shrinks within a couple of months who I felt did not help. I have found an Orthomolecular Psychiatrist I will see next week. She treats bipolar, anxiety, etc. on the cellular level. She studied at Johns Hopkins University so has good credentials and she has said has treated/helped many people. My doc suggested her. I am anxious to see her. I am glad to know panic attacks, if that is what I am experiencing, do last for more than minutes. These physical symptoms last hours then suddenly break. My doc says that's when my adrenals are replenished and kick in. It is so hard though to get my friends and family to understand this. I actually cannot plan anything because I don't know how I will feel in an hour never mind a week. And my main worry are my children who are 9 and 10. When I am down and debilitated I cannot give anything of myself and they must pick up the slack. They have learned to be very independant, plus they bring me tea or put a cool rag on my head. Whatever this is, it wrenches a person's dignity unmercifully. Anyway looking forward to seeing if the psych can tell if I have certain deficiencies in my cells that can be treated with a combination of natural and pharm methods. If it is something great I will share with the world.
Thanks again
Jojuli

Does anyone know whether when you get blood tests that adrenals are part of that testing? I relate big time to all you said. Same things over a period of time major stress that was never ending. Could no longer face work. Unexplained dizziness, Diagnosed with anxiety, bi-polar. Fatique where I can't function yet I had been an avid skier, biker, swimmer, exercised and kept myself healthy.Major battle to get insurance which made everything worse. Now same thing, to do anything is so tiring. I get diagnosed but then there is the day out of the blue where I am so fine and thinking so clearly, and have strengh. Work hard on something and think I will be stiff, sore etc because I am so out of shape but am fine. I have long thought its the adrenals but dismissed this as thought I have had so many blood tests. They must have tested me for this. They can never fiquire me out. I never quite fit the diagnosis. The more I don't get help the more I feel so frustrated. Yes stress does all those awful things I have been there.

I will tell you I have an Integrative physician I have been seeing for a couple of years. He works in holistic and main stream medicine. He did a blood test on me and specifically asked that my adrenals and thyroid be checked. He is the one that told me I have low adrenals. He explained that having that complicates Bi-polar especially in the manic phase as when it is over your adrenals have nothing to give and you collapse from exhaustion/depression. This doctor is the one who suggested an Orthomolecular Psychiatrist (treats patients on a cellular level) due to the fact that this new doc will do the hormone and gland test for adrenals, etc.. It is a saliva test and blood test. For some odd reason, it has only been within the last few months that I have had such extreme and severe symptoms that put me in the hospital, so I am anxious to see what this new doc comes up with. I am extremely glad to read that someone else relates to my experiences with physical symptoms. From what I am more and more understanding, just having low adrenals will make havoc on your entire system. Then add Bi-polar, Panic attacks, or Fibormyalgia and it is debilitating. Like I said in a previous email anything I can share with anyone from this new doc I will.

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froggie2 said:
Does anyone know whether when you get blood tests that adrenals are part of that testing? I relate big time to all you said.

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Froggie, ask your physician; I have an adrenal mass that was discovered when my appendix burst 3 years ago (the adrenal mass is not a problem) but that whole "system" is easily tested with blood tests but they have to specify which ones; ask your physician if you've been tested with your last test. I am having thyroid problems and they're all tied together so I've recently had tests to make sure the adrenal mass hasn't changed or other things become unbalanced.

Just wanted to let anyone who is interested about what I found out from the Orthomolecular Psychiatrist I saw last week. She was fabulous!! She is doing an adrenal test on me that measures the natural chemicals your adrenal produces by collecting saliva. Definate symptoms can happen if the adrenals make too much cortisol or not enough. She put me on Trytophan at bedtime along with Kava Kava. I am hoping this will eventually replace the Ambian and Xanax I take. Also Mega Vitamin C and Pure distilled Omega 3's. Her medical reasoning is treating the human body as a whole instead of splitting it up (like if your having heart trouble you need a cardiologist, or if it is your brain go to a neurologist) as if all these parts of your body were seperate. Example one of the first signs of lack of Vitamin C is depression. To me, I have to find out if there is a major deficiency or failure within my body's system and try and treat that rather than the symptoms with drug therapy. Her angle is instead of taking a serotonin reuptake inhibitor, say for depression. She wants to give a patient something natural for the body to produce more serotonin on it's own. Of course I am still quite open to drug therapy if this does not work. But it makes alot of sense to me and I want to try it. Natural herbs and amino acids, etc. can too have side effects like pharmacological drugs. So I am keeping myself reasonable. I am hoping this makes sense. Today I did have another panic attack, out of the blue. Started as a warm sensation, felt like blacking out and my heart fluttered around beating irregularly. I ran for a Xanax first thing for immediate relief. The Kava Kava may have made the attack a little less but I still felt the need to get immediate help because I was at work. I will let anyone know who may be interested how I feel as I go along. I really hope this works. I really have tried so many meds.
Jojuli