Confession: I Think I’m A Hypochondriac

And it's really taken a toll on my mental health. For about 6-8 months, I've been paranoid about having a heart attack, and it's beginning to effect my sleep.

Let me start by saying I knew two guys, (one was a pretty good friend) who died at 31 from heart related issues. One I know for sure was Aortic Dissection, which was what John Ritter died from. I expressed this concern to a doctor a while back and she told me that aortic dissection was more common in larger, more tall and broad men because it takes a lot of work for the heart to pump through their bodies.

For me, I've gained some weight over the past few years and though I love working in radio, it's a job that's fairly sedentary and comes with free donuts. I don't have many overt physical symptoms that would indicate I have anything wrong with my heart, but over the last few weeks I have felt an occasional pinching feeling where my heart is and it sends me into a panic when I notice this feeling.

Because of Covid-19, I've tried to stay away from making a doctors visit because I don't want to unnecessarily expose myself (or others, potentially) by going to a doctor, but it's to a point where I've been losing a lot of sleep over this, so I found a doctor at St. Luke's and made an appointment for next week. I'm hoping a physical and maybe a doctor listening to my heart will help calm my nerves over this thing. Or, if there is an issue, we can do something about it.

I'm 100 percent certain the doctor will tell me I need to drop some weight so I'm trying to get ahead on that, but sometimes I do think I'm a little crazy, at 33 years old, being so paranoid about my heart, to a point where I'm losing sleep and getting major anxiety about it. I also don't want to wish this upon myself.

So, if there's anyone else out there that deals with anything like this, I wish you the best, and I hope you'll see a doctor soon!