What does your crash feel like?

Hi all,

I'm writing this account of my recent crash, as I would like to compare notes with others.

It started during the bad weather, something was falling down in my garden, so I pushed myself to try and fix it (which included lots of arms raised stuff). Like a fool, I had been unwell already for a while and recently pushed myself for a funeral.

When I finished in the garden, I staggered back in and went straight to bed, I then realised I could not even pick up my own drink.

So I spent the rest of the day in bed, and gradually got to the point where I could at least pick my own drink up again.

Cue Friday, I get a bit of bad news from a friend, nothing too out of the ordinary. But the next thing I knew, I was flooding with adrenaline, and from that point on, the day to day stress I usually live with became an 'impending disaster(tm)'.

Friday was probably the worst as I had trouble sleeping that night.

From Saturday onwards, I started to go between periods of feeling very calm, to panicky. In the calm periods the panic made no sense to me at all. I then read an article about a patient who had experienced panic and was measured with low blood volume + high adrenaline ( https://t.co/8KenBH1gkv )

Cue me doing as much research as I could from that point. My blood pressure monitor is kind of naff, but with my BP slightly higher than usual at one point, I took a punt that it was the adrenaline, and started dosing with Salt/Potassium water. Sure enough, my BP started to come down (I assume my body was starting to rely less on adrenaline to keep things going).

So I was on and off calm/panicky for a few days, but the odd thing is, I slept like a baby. No problems whatsover. Then I learned that Caffeine basically dumps epinephrine in your blood...
Then I realised that my panic events seemed line up very consistently with my ingestion of Caffeine.

Basically I'm curious if anyone has had a similar experience, or if what I'm saying makes sense.
 
Hi Matt,

This sound quite familiar to someone with POTS and a hyperadrenergic leaning.

Before I started taking more care I experienced all of those things you mentioned. Pulsatile tinnitus, sleep disrupted by tachycardia and hyperventilation also tended to manifest the more I pushed - the anxiety was more a physiological sense of pressure and 'speeding up' than a fixation on mental problems as you might expect.

The basics will help, stuff like: 3L of water and electrolyte mix daily, avoiding provoking symptoms by not standing/walking for prolonged periods, avoiding caffeine, controlling any tendency to over-breathe when upright. For me personally the real big help comes from taking Ivabradine, twice daily. I went off it cold-turkey for an exercise test recently and felt like I was going to have a panic attack after a couple of days!

Ryan
 
Hi! As I wrote in my introduction, I am sometimes not quite sure, if my ME/CFS diagnosis is correct or not. But I certainly have some kind of PEM and it might be interesting to hear from someone who is mildly affected. I have to differentiate between three kinds of physical activity. The first one leads to almost no problems. If I am not in a crash to begin with I can hike for hours without a problem. The second is the other extreme. Since I had an infection back in 2003 I am not able to do activities where I need a lot of energy very quick. I would guess anaerobic exercise. So for example, if I try to catch a bus and run 50 meters all energy leaves my body and my muscles are just tight, I feel horrible, nauseated, my throat feels inflamed (not like acid reflux) and this lasts for 45 to 60min. Afterwards it is okay again. It is almost like my body shuts down and I am not able to do enough to trigger PEM. The third is activity somewhere in between. For example a few years ago I tried to swim a little bit. It felt okay and I was able to swim for quite some time. But starting one day later I get a feeling of inflammation all over my body that will last pretty constantly about 10 daysevery time I try such an activity. In this state it is the only time when I really have tiredness as one of the main problems, instead of low energy, muscle aches and cognitive problems, because every movement seems to trigger a feeling of tiredness that is Hard to battle during those 10 days and I really need a lot of sleep. Also it seems that I am way more hungry in those days than usually and it seems that I am more nervous or alert and cognitive function declines.

These are only my observations related to physical activity. The daily or weekly fluctuations in my health that seem to be unrelated to physical activity are way more confusing and limiting for my daily life.

All the best,

Oliver
 
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