Heart problem or anxiety problem? (21 years old, BP 170/110)

By Anonymous December 13, 2015 - 4:32pm

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I am 21 years old. For the past months I started seriously paying attention to my health due to some scary factors. Before I write anything I do have to say that I am overweight: 190 lbs. 5"4', I work at church, so I volunteer a lot, sometimes pull all nighters, I do stress out sometimes, but I have learned not to especially handling big events for over 1000 people.

Everything started around 6 months ago (June): I was not feeling well more and more often with every week - blamed it on lack of sleep. In July, I started becoming exhausted even more often, only with headaches and from time to time tingling (almost numb) feeling in my left foot, minor chest discomfort, lack of concentration. I never really connected these symptoms, and blamed it all on different stuff. I had Blood Pressure problems (4 years prior) before and simply refused to believe that I have them again. Sometime in the middle of July I was very tired and had hard time understanding and speaking all day, so I ended up going to my parents house, my mom saw the way I talk to her and took my blood pressure, which ended up being 175/110, she freaked out and wanted to take me to ER, I refused. She gave me dad's BP medicine and it all calmed down in 1 hour. In August-September things started getting worse, I switched my job and changed other things in my life just so that I can become more productive, nothing worked. I noticed that it became a lot harder for me to plan, to understand, to solve problems, to express myself - I literally felt like I was degrading mind wise - everyone around me noticed that I became less responsible and organized and thought I just burned out. Tingling, almost numb, feeling spread to my left foot, left arm, left side of the face (it appeared from time to time), headaches now more often, vision went down, chest discomfort more frequent, slept a lot, but felt like didn't get any rest. End of Sep. super high BP happens again. I stayed home. Finally accepted the fact that this is most likely blood pressure, decided to buy a monitor to see what is happening. In October, kept monitoring and it was around 140/90 everyday, heart beat between 80-95. I started eating more often (before did only once a day and not a lot), more fruits, less salty foods, more water, more walking, trying to regulate sleep. Brain activity started coming back to normal, took dads medicine for when I couldn't stand it anymore. Beginning Nov. things got a bit worse, so far had very high blood pressure 4 time past month. Numb feeling on the left side more often, discomfort in the chest area turned into mild pain, checked my sugar for several day - it is perfect, did CBC test - everything said I am perfectly healthy. However, what scared me the most is last night. I was not feeling well, all day, but I had to organize a kids event and simply had to tell myself to suck it up and keep on going. Felt constant pressure in the back of my head and kept thinking it is a simple headache, but pain killers didn't help. By 8pm, I already couldn't understand what people are saying to me, I just wanted to go home and lay down, but kept on cleaning after an event. Kind of almost suddenly my muscles around my mouse started twitching when I was talking to people, and I was like: "ok, time to go home." Asked my sister with a permit to drive instead of me, because I simply couldn't see well, which at first I thought was simple tiredness. Came to my parents house, and it hit me (like I couldn't realize it earlier) maybe it is my blood pressure! We measured it and it was 175/110, my mom told me to go to ER, I refused again. She gave me my dads pill, spasm reliever and some Valerian root, 30 min later BP started going down. During the night (I normally never wake up) kept waking up like 20 times. Today all day mild chest pain on and off and numbness on the left side for the past hour.

Now, I understand that I am not living a healthy life style, I am trying to change, but it is not like it will happen over night. Some people tell me that this is only because of stress, but I know when it is stress BP goes up almost instantly and I feel like throwing up, but the rest of the time it is more of slow fade. I am just very scared of a stroke or something similar. I just now got insurance, but it will go in affect only in January. Also it has been on my mind for the past 2 month so much that it feels like I am paranoid, I just want to find out what is wrong and keep on leaving. PLEASE HELP ME TO UNDERSTAND and give me an advice, do I go to the doctor immediately or can it wait until January?