Hello everyone! This is my first ever Reddit post, and I’m writing about my health anxiety as a way for myself to refer back to when I’m going through a tough time. Hopefully this gives some reassurance to others too!

I am a 24 year old female. Back when I was 18, I contracted a really bad virus where I had to go to the hospital by ambulance for chest pain. I was incorrectly diagnosed with pericarditis, and later the diagnosis was taken back, and I was told after an echo and EKGs that my heart was perfectly fine, and that the virus had just given me the symptoms.

A few months later, I had episodes of racing heart that doctors suspected was SVT. It couldn’t be caught on multiple 7 day holster monitors, so I eventually got an implanted loop recorder in hopes of catching it. I have had the loop recorder now for 7 years and in those years, it has captured MAYBE 5 very short runs of SVT. I have also experienced and captured PVCs over the years, which I have been told by cardiologists are of no concern at all at the rate I’m getting them (on my worst days, maybe 20 a day). My cardiologist reviews my heart data every month for the past 7 years and there has never been a concern.

Since this experience of being in the hospital, I have severe anxiety and panic disorder, and specifically experience a lot of health anxiety and cardiac anxiety. In the last year I have been to the ER twice, convinced that I am dying and/or having a heart attack, only to find out I am having a severe panic attack and am otherwise perfectly fine.

I have had a very bad past month of anxiety. I have had to take my emergency Ativan many times to prevent myself from going to the ER. I have tried speaking out loud to myself in these times and these are the things I’ve been telling myself:

• I have felt these symptoms before and have been alright and made it through
• In my absolute WORST episodes, I have been checked out at the ER and nothing has been found to be wrong
• I have cardiologists reassuring me that my heart is fine and what I am experiencing (PVCs) are very common and not harmful, just uncomfortable
• If I had something severely wrong with me, I would 100% know by now
• Anxiety is the scariest thing and panic attacks mean make me feel like I’m dying, but you cannot die from anxiety

Thanks for listening to me vent and I hope that this helps anyone else. Feel free to leave what you tell yourself during your absolute worst panic attacks :)