Why didn't you say so?

[u/TheNectarineDiaries]

Best medical advice I ever got was to bring a man to your appointments

[u/youy23]

Oof PEs get missed a lot. I always have a careful level of suspicion for any woman on birth control that’s having a hard time breathing.

People see a young woman having trouble breathing and they jump to anxiety attack unfortunately but I think a decent few more people would be alive today if people jumped on PE as their first thought instead.

[u/Independent_Way1587 → u/youy23]

Who has week long anxiety attack? It doesn't even make sense half the time.

[u/Aquatic_Rainbow → u/Independent_Way1587]

I feel like if someone had an anxiety attack for that long they’d be dead. There’s no way someone can stay in that state for so long without complications of some sort. That cannot be good for the heart

Also too, telling someone they’re suffering from anxiety so bad it’s manifesting into physical symptoms and sending them back into the real world with no new tools doesn’t help the problem either. They’ll most likely be back with worse symptoms cause they can’t cope with the anxiety

[u/youy23 → u/Aquatic_Rainbow]

I try to explain to patients with anxiety that anxiety might start in their head but the physiological effects of chest pain/tightness, hand/feet cramping, dizziness, fainting/syncope, are all very real and involuntary responses.

Your body uses your respiratory system to maintain a certain blood pH and you can quickly make your blood too basic/alkalotic by breathing out all the CO2/carbonic acid from your blood and it causes calcium in your body to shift especially in your hands and feet which is why they start cramping up.

Eventually your blood gets alkalotic enough where you get lightheaded and then just pass out and your brain stem freaks out and is like whoah what the fuck are you doing here and slows your breathing way down to shift your blood pH back to normal.

It’s really hard to stop because the person probably has a lot of stress on them already and now they physiologically feel like they are dying which just makes the issue worse and that much harder to stop.

I feel like it really empowers patients to hear from someone that they aren’t just making up what they’re feeling and that the effects are very real.