How can I defeat my anxiety about medical tests and surgery?

So happy I came across you. What an inspiration you are. How very uplifting. Thank you! So validating.

I was blind sided in December 2019 with a congenital heart condition that turned out to be severe and complex. Even for Mayo! I was misdiagnosed for 7 years prior with altitude sickness. Ended up having major open heart surgery. The condition is not curable, but Mayo fixed the issue that was inevitably going to end my life. The OHS caused an arrhythmia that then went misdiagnosed for 2 years. Had a cardiac ablation to fix the arrhythmia in June 2023. The OHS was April 2021.

All of the above traumatized me. I already had PTSD prior. This only added to the anxiety monster.

Since the OHS, the pain has not left me. Now that I'm cleared cardiac wise, I have been addressing the chronic pain caused from them splitting my chest open. My nerves and bones and muscles and tendons were injured from the surgery. I can no longer work.

Now I am scheduled with Mayo for them to remove the sternal wires in mid December. I also have a procedure with my neurologist end of November for what's called a Stellate Ganglion Nerve Block. So, here we go again with panic attacks over surgery and procedures. On top of the moderate to severe anxiety, I get panic attacks about trivial things or things I perceive 2 to 3 times per week. As my therapist says.... this anxiety has a mind of its own and has grown huge.

Sorry for being so long winded. I am just happy I came across you. This crazy heart and chronic pain journey has been so dark and I have slowly, but progressively turned into a person I no longer recognize. So much goes along with all of this. Isolation, defeat, depression, anxiety about having anxiety, constant fear, shame, guilt, relationship problems, self doubt, self berating, sleep issues, self esteem issues, weight issues, not being able to complete tasks, etc, etc.

How am I supposed to be able to accomplish the things I dream of when I'm in so much pain? The mental health side of it is a monster in and of itself, yeah?

With love.....
Sincerely,
Kim

Hi Big hearted
I have a major problem with same anxiety with medical issues.
When I was 5 I was brought to a hospital ER because I fell through
A french door glass panel. My arm was pretty cut up. I remember being awake and watching the Dr
Sewing my arm with black thread.
To this day I refuse any surgery
As I am petrified!
Note, in my life I had knee replacement surgery but was a general anesthesia.
Dr wants to do fushion...nope..I know what I have afraid I will be
Worse!
I take prednisone , only drug that frees me of pain.
This post is an abbreviation of the past 71 years
Dottie

Propranolol might be a useful component in treating anxiety and PTSD. Years ago I found it helpful for anxiety.

@bigheartedwarrior
Hi Kim. I'm happy to hear from you. Panic attacks are hard to deal with. You know they will sneak up on you even when you just think about a triggering thought. For me that was about spine surgery. Well sort of.... spine surgery was new territory and I found myself in the position of knowing that if I did nothing, the condition would progress and disable me, and also being afraid of the medical solution because of how I perceived it as where I had no choice. To make matters worse, I had a problem that was that misdiagnosed for a couple years, and surgeons did not want me as their patient for their fears of a poor medical outcome. I had to learn to advocate for myself in spite of all of that, and after 4 months of daily panic attacks, I asked myself why I was doing this to myself? That question is the key to my turning point where I began to question everything in relationship to the past experiences in my life that were frightening. I decided that I could change how I looked at things and by increasing my awareness, I would not loose control to fear or let my fear choose my future.

So I started a list of the major events in my life that were related to fear and why those events caused fear. I was looking for clues. I knew that I feared pain, but I had also seen other people be able to handle pain and I wondered how they could do that. I also know, that I can feel other people's pain and can visualize an experience from someone else's description. If I can physically feel someone else's pain, then I was doing that in my mind although this pain was very real and caused as much stress for me as if it was my own. I also know that fear and pain are related because fear can escalate pain and make it so much worse. These relationships are rooted in survival strategies and happen even though we are no longer running from predators, but our mind is still perceiving a danger with some stressful event.

To begin with, I would ask why does this medical problem cause guilt? A congenital heart problem is something that happens incorrectly during the development before birth. That isn't your fault at all. I learned a lot from someone I knew with a very serious congenital heart malformation and when I was struggling with my own anxiety, I read about his journey through his heart surgeries. This video says it in his own words...

While I was waiting for my surgery, I challenged myself to try to lower my blood pressure. During the feelings of panic, my blood pressure would shoot up. I had a blood pressure cuff and took a reading. Then I put on my headphones and listened to inspiring music and I made sure to breathe in time to the music with slow deep breaths. I found I could lower my blood pressure by 15 points! So this became my comfort exercise as something I could do to help myself when I was stressed. This was the music I chose, a master work from the guy with the heart issue who was a very gifted musician, and knowing what he went through and that he still achieved excellence in his accomplishments and his music gave me a bit a faith that I too could do this and stop the fear in it's tracks. The beauty of this is once you establish this pattern for yourself, you can do it anytime you need it, even if you only hear the music in your head and breathe to it. That worked, and it was amazing to conquer fear and unravel it. There will be a reason behind it, and when you understand all of that, the fear looses it's power.

Kim, I do like the name you've chosen for yourself...
Big Hearted Warrior... that says to me that this is who you are and that like a warrior, you can gain control over the enemy who is in this case, fear. Make friends with your enemy and learn about it, and after that you can have peace.

Your thoughts?

Jennifer

@neri47

Hi Dottie.
I certainly can understand why this event cause so much anxiety. At 5 years old, coping with something like this is difficult. What you needed at that time was a lot of comfort. When you are a child, you don't have choices in your medical care or even understand that things will get better. These images get burned in our brains so we don't forget them. We remember these stressful events much more than the positive events in our lives. That goes back to the fight or flight response that is part of a survival instinct. Just knowing that may help deflate a bit of the hold it has on you. Practicing gratitude for the good experiences can kind of counteract the hold that negativity and fear has. You can choose what you want to think about and that has a big effect on your health.

Perhaps you could not see the glass and didn't know glass could hurt you because at 5 years old you may not have enough life experience to judge these things to avoid injury. Perhaps you needed eyeglasses and didn't know that your vision was not perfect because that is all you knew. Did you feel like you were blamed, and perhaps the cost of the broken glass was given priority over your feelings?

If you could be a parent to yourself now for that event in the past, how would you comfort that small child? I know this is highly personal, and you do not have to answer this on the forum, but thinking about it and journaling about it may be able to help. I speak to you as someone who had a traumatic event at the same age as a 5 year old who was nearsighted and didn't know she could not see well enough to avoid danger.

It is possible to heal from this.

Jennifer

Jennifer
No I was not blamed, my sister was as she was chasing me. I do not know if she pushed me. I was not comforted as it was not done in my family for anything. Very little constructive conversations . I was
A latch key kid from age 7 or so and it got worse from there. My parents were not mean or abusive
Just mentally absent.
I could write a book on how to feel invisible. Sigh..the worst part was when I got older I realized that they could not cope with my Very common issues. it haunts me daily
Thanks for even reading my post

@neri47 Hi Dottie. That is a common pattern of ignoring and not comforting a child in despair. The parents are emotionally absent as you say and may be wrapped up in their own issues. My mom went as far as to minimize my fear of doctors and dentists and ask me if I felt foolish for being afraid. I was very afraid and I passed out more times than I could tell you and she made me feel ashamed. That was my brain trying to protect me when my blood pressure was rising because of the stress from fear. The body suddenly relaxes all the blood vessels to lower pressure, and then the brain doesn't get enough oxygen to stay conscious for a few minutes until the blood pressure normalizes. It was something I could not control when I was young, but I could tell when it was going to happen.

I would encourage you to write your book about why and how. ( I wrote a manuscript about my journey through deprogramming my fear. ) It is very freeing to do that. You will gain some insights. You already have insight by realizing that your parents could not cope. Forgiving them for that will also let you grow past being caught in that child parent relationship where you had no voice. Invisible no more! Now you make decisions for yourself and do not need their parental consent. They will probably never understand or accept responsibility, but you can overcome this and metamorphose into a beautiful butterfly. Take your new wings and fly.....

Jennifer

Medical tests and surgery fear and anxiety.. the only fear I have is the making of mistakes that result in permanent damage while undergoing tests or procedures. That’s what gives me worry.
I’ve had procedures go wrong that resulted in significant bone infections, and surgery where I’ve woken up after an out of body experience ..with an almighty slam back into my body like I’d been dropped from a multi storey building flat onto concrete, and opened my eyes to the sheet over my face, in a dark area next to a bunch of empty beds..however I did wake up hehe 😉
I do remember standing beside the staff watching over their shoulders as they worked on my body quickly, seeming to be in a bit of a flap. I felt calm, just watching, listening to their fast conversation, which included how to report what happened to their senior admin.
Anyway, when I woke up, I must’ve screamed, because a nurse ran over and she kept repeating how ‘it wasn’t possible’, when I kept saying how painful it was and I felt like I’d lost time.
That was the longest period of being adrift; there were other surgeries where I checked out for a while, and it was the same serene, peaceful watching of them as they got slightly frantic till things were back in order.
So I kind of think as long as I don’t check out for as long as I did the time I woke up with the sheet over my face in the dark corner, then it’s pretty much business as usual.
However, I have been unlucky enough to have a bit of practice with 30 operations (not counting small ops/general anaesthesia for invasive tests or procedures, of which there have been many). I guess it also comes down to a roughish youth, where physical injury was par for the course (broken bones, concussions, blood in urine come to memory), and business as usual. I counted diary entries of concussion during one year, and extrapolated it, and a conservative measure on the amount of concussions was around 500 before the age of 12 (only counting me, not my siblings). Fear simply wasn’t an option, so I don’t really fear much (as a learned response), however I do have ptsd that can create some overly active memories when I’m reminded of some of the injuries I have sustained.
And I was hit by a speeding driver and my body was thrown into oncoming traffic when I was 28, so I do have trauma from the 14 year court case to prove I was not lying about what happened, while selling everything (house etc) to afford the surgeries after losing my job due to being unable to work (that’s Aussie systemic awesomeness, at its best). That system is what gave me anxiety.
And if I ever feel anxious to undergo a major op, I put it in context of what I would do to prevent harm to anyone I care about, what I would endure to keep them from pain, and that context - in light of some of the pain I have already experienced - I can endure anything. I know I haven’t hit my limit in terms of extreme pain, and after impacting oncoming vehicles with my body at speed, I know whatever any doc decides to do while I’m laying on a table isn’t going to come close 🙂
I’ve had my fingernail removed using pliers at hospital after an infection where my hand went black, and the doc needed to cut away the dead tissue underneath, after a crush injury, all while I sat and watched..there wasn’t anywhere decent to inject local into, so he just said clench your teeth and look away - my reply was I’m watching you, and you’d better make it quick or I’ll do it myself hehe, the bravado of youth (I was 16). I had bone growths on the side of my pelvis (the hands on hips area of bone), and couldn’t afford surgery, so the surgeon - at my request - jabbed a bit of local in and cut down to the bone and removed the growths while I held the little retractor that was clamped on my skin to hold it out the way, and while I held the swab and dabbed the bleeding with the other hand, as I laid there. And the other that comes to mind is the removal of a growth in my breast that was an inch by 3 inches, adhered laying deeply in against my ribs, that the surgeon removed in his rooms while I watched him and his nurse, looking casual with my arm up behind my head like any other day at the beach (that was somewhat uncomfortable in reality - I did not enjoy seeing that procedure as it was quite deep).
The drive home after these things is always tiring and I’m always glad to park my car and head to bed afterwards - once it’s done, I’ve driven home and can relax then all is well.

Jennifer
Beautifully written!
I have tried writing, I get so anxious I have to stop. My hand actually starts to shake. It is now 7:45 am and have been awake all night reliving my childhood. I know this does me no good.
My wings are too old. I want my new wings
Dottie

Understanding the procedures can help ease anxiety. Talk to your healthcare provider about what to expect. Try relaxation techniques like deep breathing. Support from friends, family, or a therapist can also help. Remember, your healthcare team is there for you.