Anxiety

[shadowme]

I woke up with my left arm, part of my chest and two fingers on my right hand being numb. I’ve never felt that in my life before. And it freaked me out so bad i started hyperventilating and felt like i was going to die. Has anybody else felt this? Even though i have feeling back in my arm it’s still freaking me out

[Jeff1943]

Could be the way you slept put pressure on a nerve that affects feeling in that part of the body or a blood vessel supplying that side of the body. The important thing is that the sense of feeling has returned. If it happens again see your doctor for reassurance. Absolutely no reason to freak out. Don't stress or obsess about it or get anxious about going to sleep, none of that is going to help you, quite the contrary it can cause anxiety. Accept that it happened, no need for fear about this. It will be o.k., you'll see.

[Hidden]

I've had the same thing happen with hands....sometimes feet...sometimes waking up @ night...sometimes after a short daytime nap. It may have something to do with O2 levels when you sleep..maybe your breathing speeds up or slows down and that may cause the numbness...my chiropractor thought maybe it may be breathing and a sleep study I had a few years ago showed that my breathing slowed down when I went to sleep so I don't worry about it like I used to.

You can pay a visit to the Dr. if it worries you and don't take my words as gospel cause I'm not a Dr. ...just telling my experience.

[designguy]

Hi Shadowme, here is a copy of my response to another health anxiety question:

Yes, it's quite common, especially with people who are suffering from health anxiety. Your psychiatrist is correct about your being hyper-aware of your body/physical sensations and your anxious mind blows it all totally out of proportion then you start ruminating about it and the anxious cycle continues. It's a habit and a distorted means of trying to stay in control. It's also common for people with anxiety to have it change to different types, for instance general anxiety becomes health anxiety, health anxiety becomes agoraphobia, etc...

The way to recover is to educate yourself about health anxiety, learn to accept the anxious feelings and thoughts and surrender to them. Learn to surrender to life and death and accept what you truly have real control over.

A good book to read is: "It's not all in your head" by Gordon Asmundson and Steven Taylor. Also, any books by Dr. Claire Weekes are very helpful. They're available on Amazon as a kindle and hardcopy version.

I had social anxiety disorder and health anxiety disorder for years. Once I recovered from the social anxiety, recovering from the health anxiety was much easier.

[RhondaT71]

I had that happen about a month ago and ended up going to the ER thinking I was having a heart attack. It turned out that it was caused by GERD basically acid reflux. If you are having gastrointestinal issues, burping, excessive gas, burping up food or acid and having chest pains at all it could be from that. I went to the doctor and they put me on ranitidine and I changed my diet to a diet that helps with GERD and I am not having the chest pains or any of the other symptoms anymore.