[thomyorkie]

You may want to consider the possibility that you have generalized anxiety disorder. The symptoms are vast, constantly changing, and often different from person to person. Some of the things you've described like PVCs, digestive issues, muscle weakness, and obsessive thoughts are quite common symptoms. The best way I know how to manage this without pharmaceuticals is cold showers, believe it or not.

[Nav_Panel]

I developed something like this health anxiety starting back in April, after a severe bout of flu/some unknown and moderately severe viral illness coinciding with a bacterial skin infection. I had a very tough couple of months where I would worry about every minor physical "deviation" that I noticed. I also had constant heart palpitations, which caused more anxiety, thus triggering more palpitations. I'd spend upwards of a half hour at a time on Google, looking up symptoms and trying to figure out whether my headache was due to a common cold or a brain condition...

One thing that personally helped me recover mentally was weightlifting. Part of what helped was that I could relatively easily attribute any random (and benign) ache/pain that I might otherwise worry about to "oh, well, I just lifted recently, so my body's repairing/sore/etc" as opposed to some serious condition I found on Google. Sticking with caffeine even though I was worried about palpitations also helped me through some form of "exposure therapy," where I eventually (re)learned that caffeine is safe to consume.

Talking with my therapist helped. As did consciously reminding myself that, for a lot of rare or potentially deadly conditions, the symptoms would be much more severe than I'm experiencing, and that some symptoms (fast heartrate is a big one) can be attributed to anxiety alone.

For example, last night while lying in bed, I felt a sudden twitching on the left side of my chest at about twice my resting heart rate. I instantly jumped to the conclusion that it was my heart having rapid contractions, which triggered a burst of anxiety, but when I stopped and thought about it (the twitching seemed to be intermittent and didn't feel internal like a heart problem might, it felt external), I successfully convinced myself that it was my muscle twitching -- a totally benign occurrence. Maybe I was dehydrated.

Basically, I was able to help myself by using logic and trying to match the severity of my personal diagnosis with the severity of the symptom I was experiencing. I imagine this wouldn't be possible if I suddenly had symptoms as severe as GP, but it can help me stem these threads of anxiety before the anxiety itself causes more issues than the original problem.

[amelius]

> Sticking with caffeine even though I was worried about palpitations also helped me through some form of "exposure therapy," where I eventually (re)learned that caffeine is safe to consume.

However, it is a well-known fact that caffeine and anxiety don't blend very well. Be careful.

[Nav_Panel]

Yeah, that's true for sure. If I feel extra anxious for whatever reason (happens from time to time), I'll skip my cup or two that day. And if I have more than two cups in a day, bad things tend to happen. But I was at a point for a while where drinking a cup of decaf would make me extremely anxious (or having a green tea, I swear, even the tiniest bit of caffeine would set my heart pounding), so I'm extremely glad to be past that.