Heartbeat obsession and my story

Hi everyone, I’m to this forum and new within the last few months to TMS.

In December, I started to experience what I described at the time as a pounding heartbeat. I am a high school teacher and, while I’ve had stress in my life before, this year was particularly challenging as I Was asked to teach a very high level English course. It has been stressful all year, even though it has gone well. In December, all sorts of things were coming together that were challenging and overwhelming. As I got frightened from my heartbeat, I began to feel shaky, unsteady, tingly, weak, and just wanted to rest more and more. Normal events that were tiring, scared me, and so I even had what I thought were palpitations.

I hoped that would just go away, and it did go in and out to some extent. I did notice that when distracted in an engaging setting that I didn’t notice my symptoms at all. In fact, when I was teaching, I felt the best. I continued going to the gym and doing weights and cardio and felt good at those times.

Finally, a month later, I went to the emergency room out of fear that I was going to have a heart attack. Everything was completely normal. Chest x-ray was fine, bloodwork was fine, EKG was fine. I followed up with a cardiologist who said, based on everything he could see about me he could hardly believe that I had a heart problem, but just to be sure I scheduled an echocardiogram. He also scheduled a halter monitor.

I noticed that my symptoms were typically absent as a doctors appointment came near and for a period of time after them after receiving the news that they didn’t find anything.

I went on a men’s retreat in January, which was the first time I had done something like that for myself in many many years. Ironically, I was afraid of being away from home and sleeping away from all my comforts. Leading up to it, I started developing chest pains and weird arm, pain and numbness in my left hand.

OK, trying to speed up the story here. I noticed my symptoms would begin to move around. For several days, it would be numb feet, then it would be a numb left hand. Then it would be a pain in my elbow that it would be a pain in my chest then it would be a pain in my armpit. And then it would be an obsession with my heartbeat again.

I ended up in the emergency room again after talking with people who said I must be having a heart problem. The doctor there said I was a medical mystery. Mainly because they couldn’t find anything.

My halter monitor for seven days came back perfectly normal. My echocardiogram which took hundreds of photos of my heart for an hour came back perfectly normal. My family doctor had me check on whether I was having low blood sugar and that was monitored for two weeks and it’s totally normal. He said do you think it’s stress? That’s the same thing the cardiologist said

Discovered TMS, and have plunged myself into reading everything I could find on it.

I have seen it work, but at the same time it’s really frustrating how my Brain brings the symptoms that are really hard to deal with. Sometimes I get ones that are so frustrating that I almost wish I could have the previous one.

My challenge right now is, I’m constantly aware of my heartbeat. I keep telling myself that I’ve gone through the wringer and they haven’t found anything, but it’s so hard to believe that my heart isn’t beating abnormally more. Part of me wants to check my blood pressure at home, but I also know that I fell into that trap earlier and got obsessed with constantly checking the number. Those numbers from what others have said can vary all the time in normal people and you only increase your anxiety by checking it. Still, part of me would like to know so I can say hey look see your heartbeat is normal! But shouldn’t my cardiologist in my numerous tests and visits to the emergency room have found it anyway?

The other challenge I have with TMS is there’s lots of talk of repressed emotions. I have been very conscious of my emotions and have gone to counseling and been a journaler my whole life. It seems hard to believe that that is where the stuff is coming from From, since I feel like I do a pretty good job of being self-aware and in touch with my past, and my feelings and experiences.

OK, gotta stop. If anything, I would love to know of others who have had a obsessions with things like heartbeats and how you worked past that. It’s hard for me to stay still because the only way I don’t zero in on my heartbeat is when I’m moving Or even feeling some texture like a fabric on my shirt. Sleep can sometimes be tough too, but I found some victory in that lately. But I wake up and immediately think about my heartbeat. I try to not give it any attention, but that’s hard to do when I’m spending time working on TMS stuff which naturally makes me think about my symptom and how to deal with it.

I have found others on this forum that have had somewhat similar things so that’s been helpful. Anyway, glad to be here!

 

Hi @Stracksstory

Perhaps try out regularly doing what I describe in my posting here https://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/5-second-safety-technique-stop-hypervigilance-tension.33522/

 

Hello!

yes repressed emotions can play a role, but there are a variety of things that can cause chronic symptoms. You can be health anxious and fixate on pain or normal sensations and turn them chronic. But typically there’s an underlying dysfunction that is fueling the obsession. My obsession with pain following a vasectomy led me to a nightmare, but underlying that was a lot of emotional baggage- my brain seeking a distraction from the mess that was my life.

jaw pain has been my most severe symptom, and it started following me dislocating my jaw in my sleep by pushing my fist into the joint. That was its own nightmare and has taken a long time to slowly make progress. During that, being so fixated on the area and there being so much tension, I started noticing these crunching and clicking noises, which if you google says the joint is completed fucked. Several months of panic later I realized these sounds were coming from my Eustachian tubes, not my joint, and due to severe facial tension and OCD I had developed the ability to consciously open and close my Eustachian tubes and pick up on the sounds that were likely always present but now fixated on (you may notice them too when you yawn or swallow). I had to detach what these sounds implied and meant, I had to stop popping my ears because it became a conditioned response to create jaw pain in response to the sounds, I had to stop scanning my jaw. You’ve already begun but you’ll have to keep going further with detachment to the physical. It’s been a real struggle to let go of guarding my jaw, the feeling that the joint will slide out of the socket again. It’s all fear based. I know it’s tough with your symptom because in your head you’re like if I ignore this, I might die. But you’ve been cleared several times by multiple doctors. Have faith that you’re okay and can get through this.

If you don’t already I highly recommend a dedicated meditation practice.

 

Bloodmoon, I just checked it out. Thanks! I will give it a try.

 

thanks so much for sharing your story. I relate a lot. I keep going back-and-forth with thinking that my heart is beating too much, but then trying to remind myself that that is probably how my heart always beats and it’s fine, but I’m just fixated on it.

I have tried to practice telling myself “ your heart is fine. This is just anxiety.” that has made a huge difference when I’m laying in bed trying to sleep. I haven’t had as much success during my daytime, but maybe I haven’t diligently been practicing it.

 

Something that’s been helpful for me is to address the body part specifically “I love you jaw, thank you for allowing me to speak and eat, I know that together we can get through this” it helps pair a positive association and gratitude to an area of the body that we’ve had a historical negative association and a sense of dread. It also helps break me out of the ruminating thoughts related to area which are really the things fueling and amplifying the symptoms/sensations. The whole I’m fine there’s nothing wrong self talk falls short for me. It’s unwise to focus on the physical but gratitude for what the part does do for you is fine I think, gratitude in general is always a good place to start.

“thank you heart for pumping blood and keeping me alive, I love you, I know together we can get through this” etc.

 

Interesting. I have had some success with taking a confrontational approach, saying “Thanks but I’m fine. Stop moving around my body!”

But other times that has fallen flat. Maybe I should try a more positive approach.

 

I did have this and freaked out for about three weeks from memory - to the point where I got a stress echocardiogram - that came back all clear and I calmed down and stopped worrying about it (luckily that was enough for me).

That's not the first health anxiety obsession thing I've got stuck in my head - but thankfully for me a test is usually enough to get rid of it (a positive of me having high faith in doctors, which ironically sometimes is a bad thing when it comes to TMS).

I'm not sure if this helps at all but I just thought I'd share given it happened to me also

 

Thanks, Adam, for sharing. It does help knowing that others have had the same issue. It is calming to know. It’s especially helpful because I don’t have the chronic pain that seems to characterize a lot of people who discovered TMS.

 

This is OCD mate, the tms of the brain. Have you tried therapy at all?

I agree with rabscuttle.

I think theres something hidden that youre hiding from yourself and you use obsessive thoughts and health anxiety to distract you from them.

Journaling could help. When you think of a pill thats too hard to swallow, does something come up? Wish you the best mate❤️

 

oh yeah and ive had crippling ocd too and everyone told me to just let the thoughts be but i was thinking i was dying. ‘its just death’ is not s great way to soothe.

For me these things have mostly stopped when i got out of the situation that was causing these panic attacks.

 

Thanks for the challenge. I have dealt with anxiety and panic disorder for decades. I have a good therapist for that.

I suppose the panic disorder might be related, but I haven’t had these other symptoms until this year.

I have felt a lot of pressure teaching this new class, especially as I took it over from a very highly respected teacher, who is also a mentor of mine. I do feel overextended in that setting at work.

 

so, let’s say I discover that there is something underneath that I haven’t dealt with. What exactly do I do with that as it relates to my TMS symptoms? Is it mainly journaling about it to bring it up to the surface? Is it processing those emotions within myself or with someone else or a therapist?

sometimes, as I read about TMS, I don’t fully understand how that leads to lessening my symptoms. Does it just happen as I deal with something I’m struggling with? I have Howard Schubiner‘s book Unlearn your Pain. I am working through that, but I admit it is such a hefty book that it’s hard to make much progress on it unless I spend hours on it every day.