Can heart attack symptoms be TMS?

Hi everyone. First off I just have to say that Dr Sarnos teachings have pretty much given me new life and brought me back from Rock bottom , especially after my failed back surgery.
Now I’m having another issue. Sometimes I’ll get discomfort/ pain in my chest area. This has happened when I’m working out but also when I’m relaxing, doing nothing in the evening. A few times accompanied by light headedeness. I did go to doctor who gave me and ekg and said I was fine and he thought it was muscoskelatel. But it has happened more often. Also I’m not in love with doctors to begin with but how is this pain only happening on the left side of my chest and is followed by dizziness?? Whenever I get it I get nervous that I’m having a heart attack but I’m still here alive and kicking.

So does anyone else have experience with this , can it be TMS??

 

Hi @cammb33 and welcome. This seems like a straightforward question, doesn't it - but it's also a little scary for one of us to answer because we don't want to treat possible heart symptoms lightly, and of course they are tricky, and we are not medical professionals here.

That being said, it's also well known that anxiety attacks frequently cause people to believe they're having a heart attack, when they are in fact perfectly healthy. I myself have had palpitations and extra heartbeats for decades, and was even put on what was probably a beta blocker in my early thirties, but I didn't take it for long, as I eventually came to the conclusion that my anxiety was causing the symptoms. This was almost thirty years "before Sarno" for me, and I'm currently 11 years "after Sarno" - and I'm still ticking.

Since you've been checked out, you could do a keyword search (upper right on your screen) for things like chest pain, palpitations, racing heart, etc, and note how often these are on people's lists of TMS symptoms that they overcame. When you do a search, be sure to switch to the results tab for "our forum only". You could choose posts only in the Success Stories subforum or see advice others have received.

 

About 15 years ago I was going through a very stressful time, and chest pain started happening to me quite a bit. One evening, I started experiencing severe chest pain, shortness of breath, nausea, and then fainted. Ended up in the ER, with nurses running around me like I was dying.

Next morning, a cardiologist checked me out thoroughly and then put on me a treadmill. At the end of my treadmill walk he melancholically concluded that he would be delighted to maintain the same speed on the treadmill, even though he was 10 years younger than me. He recommended to watch my stress levels, eat well and sleep more. My stressful situation finally resolved, I have not had heart complaints since, but eventually TMS caught up with me 7 years ago again. So, to answer your question, yes, you can have all the symptoms but no actual heart attack.

 

agreed- panic attacks by definition feel like heart attacks. And yes, it makes sense to find out if you are truly having a cardiac event.