Thursday, March 04, 2010

Chest pain Acidity Palpitation Dizziness Anxiety Insomnia Bloating

August 25th 2009. The day I felt a mild pain in the chest region. The pain is not too high or two low. I just ignored it. The next day morning after I wake up from sleep, I had same pain persisting. It troubled me a lot bothmentally and physically. The next one week time in office was horrible. I searched for chest pain in internet and got endless list of disease associated. My pain now worsened and I was watching my body very closely to monitor my heart and lung and stomach and elsewhere. I sometime felt my heartbeat. I thought I am hearing because I am keenly observing my body, fearing my chest pain. But I could not convince my mind. I am mentally blocked due to chest pain.

I visited the emergency section (in Glasgow royal infirmiry) and told about my chest pain. The doctors had ECG, x-ray, blood test and finally concluded it to be my acidity and the condition is 'heart burn'. I heard the word 'heart-burn' for first time in my life (was 24 old by then). The doctor recommended to take antacids over the counter.Even antacid is new for me. Infact medicine itself is very new to me as I visit doctor only for cold or fever or someskin allergies till my 24 years.

I had more antacids. One pack of gaviscon after every meal. Approx for 10 days and one day I started feeling dizzy. That drove me crazy. I heard my heart. This kind of episodes happened now and then and I could not figure out anything. It was like a horror movie. But I cant explain these things to others. Because it is something verynew for me and also rare thing for a 24 year old guy. My googling went high, that I read upto genetics to cancer research to stem cells to almost every individual part in the body.

One fine weekend, I felt my heart beat for more than 5 mins and was worried a lot. All of a sudden a dizzy spell. Rushed my roomies to take me to emergency section. But before going to emergency section, all the symptoms stopped.Though I had constant burping, irritation in throat and some acidity related symptoms. I explained about my dizziness and heart beats and again they took ECG and said nothing wrong. I questioned myself 'Am I a fool??' because,I could feel that something is going very wrong in my body. But the doctor says it is nothing.. how could it be possible. Then i started researching more on internet about my conditions (and I frightened myself reading dangerous articles and dreadful conditions that could happen to humanity).
Now, something striked my mind. For the past 2 years I have bloating problem (which I have not given much importance at all, as it dint gave any further problem except to shit often). I thought my bloating could have deep root in my present problems. I imagined I might have some kind of stomach or intestinal cancer and that is why my body started behaving erratically. This added more fear in me. But doctors say iam alright. :(

Then, Finally I made it again to General Practioner. Had a blood test that revealed H.Pylori in my stomach, which proved to cause high acidic stomach and which leads to bloating and so on. So now I had a sigh of relief. I thought and expected that eradicating the H.Pyroli from stomach will end the problem. But it dint. One good thing is my mental confidence increased as doctors found something wrong with me and there is some treatment. I found my stomach does not bloat any further. But still my acidity issues continued. Doctor said that you need to wait for a week or two to get your stomach back to normal.

Slowly, my conditions rolled back to problematic state. Bloating started again.Breathing difficulties and rib cage pains worsened. I started to hear sounds louder than I heard them previously. I cant bear thrilling or devilish music.(I used to listen my iPod at high volume. i all of a sudden thougth that my problem might be because of my high volume, and believe me, i stopped hearing in iPod for some days). Also the winter worsened in 2009 in UK. I felt very bad.. very very bad.I decided atleast I should go back to India and meet my parents and say all these happenings. I traveled to Indiaon Jan 10th 2010. (Aug 09 to Dec 09.. 5 months of mental and physical trauma).

I had Echo, ECG for my heart and everything came out negative (meaning it is in good condition). My doctor in India said it is mere anxiety. My actual problem was acidity due to some food and the chest pain due to acidity. But every other things like heart palpitations, dizziness are all due to my anxiety. Now I am hearing something new again 'Anxiety' ????Anxiety - hmm something new. now what is this. this is purely psychological the doctor said. Now my question is 'am i psycho'. Hmm... I could not bear all these nonsense.. I am definitely alright, i could remember things and work what I need to. So i am definitely not mad.

Then heard about the anxiety and adrenalin relations and then adrenalin and sleep-related issues. Also I was not able to sleep well now. I thought it might be due to new place (since i traveled from UK to India). But my nights became sleepless and chest pain and difficult breathing and acidity and stomach bloating. Oops .. God !!! please save me... that was my mind's feeling. I never believe in god. So how come my utter those words. This is where humans seek for god. Yes, if someone has given me the answer for my problem, then i wont go for God. Now i understood how god came into picture of human's life. I thought whether all these things happenings are something related to attaining god??!!! no idea. nothing clear.

Now I also felt the importance of mind. I understood practically the link between mind and body, as I read something related to anxiety. But medical world has no answers to mind. Medicine can only say about mind related problems but cannot cure any. Then without much help I carried acid reducing tables and some sleeping pills. Came back to work in Chennai, India. It is typical in Chennai for a new person to get vomit and diarrhea in the first week. I did too.Only diarrhea. I went to nearby doctor and she prescribed some antibiotics and importantly PROBIOTICS. I read the contents of the table and to my surprise found that PROBIOTICS table is nothing but bunch of useful bacteria in stomach. After taking the PROBIOTIC pills my bloating went away completely. I felt better. Then I continued to concentrate more on the food habits. My acidity problems seemd to decreased a lot. Now I eat whatever I like. Thankgod. Then continuing my research on my heart-palpitations and sleepless-nights (though my sleep is at least 6 hours). I found that MAGNESIUM deficiency could cause noise-sensitiveness and palpitations. Especially neuron and brain related activities. I now need to try MAGNESIUM rich diet. I will research and will say the output.

From my horrible experience, I conclude(1) Until any person get into solution-less problems, he/she will not seek God truly.(2) Mind can do much harm than anyone can think. But the problem is I cannot explain how horrible I feel hearing loud noise and frightening incidents.(3) Also mind reacts very superbly. I read more medical articles and analyzed in very short period of time just because, my mind wants to find a cure. It never stops at anything till finding a convincing solution.(4) PROBIOTICS are very important. A healthy person is none but who has healthy PROBIOTIC bacteria in his stomach. These bacteria digest and help our digestive system. yet to conculde on solutions to my palpitation/noise-sensitivity/insomnia(sleepless-nights). Probably Magnesium rich diet might help. Let me check.

Also I wish everyone having similar symptoms , not to worry to much. Worrying will not solve the problem, rather it aggravates the problems due to anxiety. Don't read and blindly believe on internet articles. Take only the positive solutions and thoughts from internet. If you take negative and bad things from internet, then you are f**ked.Stop alcohol and smoking. They do more harm than any.Give lots of importance to food habits than your electronic-gadgets and vehicles and home-loans. Don't panic, test yourself and verify with what other say about your condition. Take the one who says very close to your experience. Try to define your conditions exactly and clearly, to figure-out your problem correctly.Finally Blog your experience so that someone might get help from your horrible life.
:) cheers

*****  UPDATE: FOUND THE ANSWER !!! BINGO>>> *******

ALLERGY:
      I found the main problem is my allergy for 'Rice' (especially for raw rice). From my childhood I used to eat only boiled-rice.. But once I started my career, i was always staying away from Tamilnadu and happened to eat raw-rice. I did not knew so far that this could cause so drastic effect in my life. But somehow I am happy now that I found it myself. 

  Whoever is getting the above problems should take responsibility to find the food that is causing allergy reaction for them. No one else can help! .. 

SELF DETECTION METHOD **: 
Stop your food for one/two days (fasting)... Drink plenty of water during that time.. From next day of fasting,  Try chicken-only diet for a week (if vegetarion,, try pure simple vegetable-only diet like "avarakkai" "beans" "podalangaai". This is because can survive with  simple food or little protein and water. 
 So literally no other food. 

Stop milk /milk products/ sugars / caffeine (coffee,tea, coke, etc) for a month

Now in a week you should notice considerable improvement.

After first week introduce (i.e testing) "Rice".. if you are not having any bad effects.. then Third week stop rice but introduce next item "peanuts"... if that too did not affect.. in Fourth week introduce "Wheat/Gluten"... if that too is not.. then Fifth week introduce "Milk/Milk products".. 
Mostly you should be finding you are allergic to any of above items.. If all of them are not and the problem still exist. Then it could be something due to environment like pollen/dust etc which you can consult with doctor.

** Disclaimer: This is what I did and noticed problems in rice/caffeine items. So I avoided those things and happy ever since that. Taking this is up to your own decision.