OreNoNamaeWaKibou
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User ID: 2377
OreNoNamaeWaKibou
11mo ago
I hadn't heard of hyperventilation syndrome. I will look into this further in addition to trying to treat my anxiety. Thank you for your reply.
OreNoNamaeWaKibou
11mo ago
Thankfully nothing this drastic happened to me, though something like chronic fatigue syndrome might be something to look into. Thank you.
OreNoNamaeWaKibou
11mo ago
Thank you for the reply. I am definitely naturally more neurotic than the average person. I wasn't really all that anxious when this first happened. I cant tell if it's because of certain symptoms that I have anxiety or if anxiety is most of these. It's definitely a route to consider trying to improve. I'll see if I can't find some CBT program online for anxiety. Thanks again.
OreNoNamaeWaKibou
11mo ago
Thank you for the reply. I was going through a stressful time at work and home when this initially happened. Like you suggested, I have figured out things that I enjoy to do that don't flair my symptoms. It's just difficult being unable to do some normal activities.
OreNoNamaeWaKibou
11mo ago
Looking for some guidance on a wide swath of symptoms I’ve been experiencing.
Warning, wall of text. TLDR at the bottom. Throwaway for privacy.
I'm a male in my early 30s. Prior to the experience I'm about to describe, I was in fairly good shape, not overweight. I ran about 12 miles (about 20 km) a week and did light weight lifting. I don't drink, I don't smoke or take any kind of illegal drugs. I take daily meds for allergies.
Two years ago, while I was on my computer playing a game, I suddenly began to experience what I could only call a "headache". It felt like an intense strain just behind my forehead / eyes. It would last only about a few seconds, then fade briefly until another would come on, maybe 15-30 seconds later. These grew in intensity and I began feeling like I was going to faint, though I never did. I unsuccessfully tried to resolve the headaches by drinking orange juice because I thought I might have had low blood sugar, even though I had eaten a fair bit a couple hours before.
I went to the hospital but decided not to go in, as it felt that the headaches were decreasing in strength. They did eventually decrease but were still happening infrequently later in the night, so I decided to go back to the hospital. There, they did blood work and performed a brain scan, both normal. I had also complained of chills and shaking, so they thought I just had a random tremor and sent me home to get a good night's rest.
I wake up the next stay, still dealing with the intermittent headache. These continue for a week, though much less intense and eventually petered out. I would, however, continue to be plagued by other strange symptoms.
In the following weeks I would start to notice that my heart rate would increase much more than normal for doing even light walking around outside for a few minutes. After it increased, it would take much more time to decrease than normal. As I mentioned above, I used to run for a few miles every few days, and when I would stop, my heart rate would rapidly return to my base of ~70.
Other miscellaneous symptoms that appeared in the few months following this initial episode:
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Heart palpitations. These were so strong they would keep me up at night. I saw cardiologist and after an EKG, Holter monitor, and echocardiogram they could see nothing wrong.
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Awful acid reflux. I would later be diagnosed with GERD and a hiatal hernia.
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Feeling my pulse all throughout my upper body. Laying on my side at night I could feel it in my ribs. If I got nervous, I could feel it in the middle of my stomach, down from where the sternum is.
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I also felt like I had trouble breathing occasionally. It wasn't the case that I was gasping for air, it just felt like my diaphragm was weak and I couldn't get a full breath in. Saw a pulmonologist and my allergist, neither could find problems with my lungs or breathing power.
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Spasms in my diaphragm, sometimes strong enough to make me gasp. They feel like a light punch to the stomach. One time it was so strong it felt like my whole stomach had dropped.
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I would have very little appetite occasionally. This I believe has to do with me being nervous / excited, for example, when I would play a video game. Usually, getting in a nervous / excited state would flair all my symptoms. I would get diaphragm spasms and my heart rate would rise and take a while to come down. I felt like I was in fight or flight long after stopping playing.
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Chills
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Twitches all over my body, including thighs, hands, even my lips
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Occasional pains in my chest, arms and legs that feels like a brief pin prick in the sense that feels like it's localized to a small area
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General malaise
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Overall weakness
Some of these dissipated to varying degrees as I basically cut all activity out of my life (exciting video games / working out / hanging out with friends). I've kept this up for the past two years, taking some opportunities to indulge in some of these normal activities. I found that doing so would cause some of my symptoms to flair. I tried resuming exercise but found that I would get headaches and dizziness later in the night or a day after working out.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago, after a day of walking around in the relatively high heat for the spring, I come home, go to sit down, and have a brief spasm in my diaphragm where it feels like I can't breathe. My heart starts to race (180bpm+) and doesn't stop even after 20 minutes. I'm taken to the hospital and they diagnose me with a Potassium deficiency. I wasn't vomiting and didn't have diarrhea. I was dehydrated though and I had been sweating a bit. I had a blood test a week later and my potassium was 3.9, within the sufficient range. Prior to the initial incident 2 years ago, I had a pretty strict diet and did intermittent fasting. I think I would have been lucky to get 100% of the daily intake of potassium. I wasn't eating many fruits or vegetables or other potassium rich foods.
Although I’ve increased my potassium intake to 100% daily recommendation almost every day, I still feel malaise, weakness., still get body twitches and diaphragm spasms. I think these spasms also trigger something akin to a panic attack in me. I feel like I’m not going to be able to breathe, my heart rate increases and my hands and feet get cold.
After 2 years without answers, I’m at my wits’ end. What could be causing this? I know some of this could be caused by my hiatal hernia. I also think some of it could be cause by low potassium, though after returning to normal levels, many of these symptoms keep reoccurring. My doctor wasn’t sure about any of the symptoms I’ve mentioned here. My blood work looks fine. The cardiologist saw nothing out of the ordinary.
TLDR: Male, early 30s. Got a strange, intense headache 2 years ago. Since then, I’ve experienced a variety of symptoms including heart rate that increases quickly but returns to resting rate slowly, heart palpitations, diaphragm spasms, body twitches, malaise, and weakness. Known issues include GERD, hiatal hernia, and at least one episode of low potassium, the root cause of which is unknown. Potassium has since returned to normal and blood work looks fine. Being nervous or exerting myself flairs symptoms.
Apologies for the rambling wall of text. I really want to feel normal again. So far, my doctor and the specialists I’ve seen have not given me any actionable advice on how to do that. I'd like to thank you for reading this and would appreciate any advice the members of this forum could offer.
Wow. First off thank you for such thorough write up. I'm thankful for my doctors but none have given me this thorough of an examination of my problems.
I don't know why but it really hadn't occurred to me to question whether the RDAs were accurate/appropriate for me.
I have started using Cronometer since the beginning of this year, which would be after I changed my diet to start eating a wider variety of foods. Inputting my old diet in which I skipped breakfast and had the same lunch everyday, I was really low on a lot of vitamins and minerals depending on my dinner.
Back when this first happened, my salt intake was probably low considering my exercise level. My diet wasn't intentionally low salt but in practice it most likely was.
For the potassium RDA, I had been using whatever RDA is in Cronometer, which was 3400mg. I'll update this manually so I start using it in the future. The easiest food for me is milk. OJ and some fruits are hard because of GERD. Since learning that I had low potassium, I began drinking a bunch of milk.
I had started taking magnesium supplements before I had tried restoring my potassium. I was worried about taking too much so I eventually stopped. I think I noticed I had soft stools and assumed I must be taking too much. But on Cronometer I am getting about 50-60% of the 400mg that is recommended there, which would be an even smaller percentage of the even higher RDA numbers you stated. After looking up low magnesium, I see it causes low potassium. You would think a doctor would have mentioned that at one point. Do you have a brand of magnesium that you recommend?
My calcium intake should be good after I started having multiple cups of milk a day. I'm not supplementing K2.
Part 2:
I initially started heel drops before I had been diagnosed with a hiatal hernia but felt like it really didn't accomplish anything. I'll look into these massages further though.
Now that you mention it, I recall it being impossible for me to sleep on my left side when my symptoms were at their worst. I could feel my pulse through my left ribs.
I'll probably hold off on high doses of thiamine and maybe try as a last resort.
Part 3:
My vitamin d levels should be good. I did discover how important vitamin d was when I was initially feeling bad. Since then, I've made it a priority to get out in the sun each day for 15-20 minutes at solar noon and as much as I can handle on the weekends (I have been using dminder for a while and love it). I live in a northern latitude so the winter is limiting for vitamin D but I get a lot in the summer.
For B vitamins, I take a multivitamin that has multiple B vitamins that has worked pretty well for me I think.
My sleep is okay. I have been getting to be too late and sometimes I wake up early and can't fall back to sleep. I average around 7 hours.
I like your diet suggestion. I appreciate the point about holding off on carbs until I hit my nutrition markers. I thought for a while I had maybe just been eating too low of calories and that's why I didn't feel good so I started including some more carbs, but they were mostly empty nutrition.
There is so much to digest here. I'll be coming back to this post often. Thanks again for all your help.
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