I don’t know if I belong here but my GP thinks I do....

[QueenofmyPrinces]

I’ve always been quite an anxious person - not anything particularly debilitating but I can focus on things related to health, disproportionately but I have always put that down to a)having a chronic health condition and b), I’m a nurse so surrounded by illness a lot and potential for me to harm a patient if I make an error.

Anyhow - I have been on beta blockers in the past due to high blood pressure and palpitations but I haven’t taken them for for about 4 years now.

Anyhow - I have been under a lot of stress at work over the last 6 months with accumulated to triggering my chronic condition which had previously been stable.

I have been off work sick for the last 3 months. I have been very stressed and anxious about my health and returning to work. Very tearful, episodes of feeling convinced something was going to happen to me in relation to my chronic condition.

Anyhow - I was at the doctors this morning for something unrelated and when my blood pressure was checked as a routine procedure they found it was very high: she checked it three tones, the highest was 169/151 and the lower at was 159/107.

Anyhow - she thinks it’s due to me suffering from anxiety and stress and so has prescribed me propranolol.

I thought my stress and anxiety were just a normal reaction to the difficulties I’ve been having at work, not something that I needed medication for.

She also gave me some phone numbers and websites for mental heath support.

She’s made me think I’m losing my mind or something.

It’s made me nervous.

She’s made me feel like there’s something wrong with me when I thought I was fine and normal.

I guess I’m here just to hear other people’s stories and hopefully get some reassurance that I don’t need to be worried about myself

propranolol is also used for high blood pressure as it's a beta blocker if she thinks that your high blood pressure could be caused by stress and anxiety that could be why she gave you the number to phone (they may help and give you tip on how to control stress and anxiety)

Why do you think having stress, anxiety and MH issues make you abnormal and like its a personal attack? Pretty much everyone in the country has had this at some point- it doesnt mean you are weak or theres something wrong with you.
You have a chronic condition- would you refuse treatment for that because it makes you should just think yourself out of it? Where has this thought process come from?
If you have been unable to work for three months and are constantly stressed and tearful then you are clearly mentally very unwell. Until you acknowledge this you will not get better.

If you have been unable to work for three months and are constantly stressed and tearful then you are clearly mentally very unwell.

I’ve been off work for physical reasons: the flare up in my chronic condition and anaemia.

The work environment I am in, and the stress I was under, is what is thought to be the reason for the flare up, hence why I’ve been upset about the thought of going back.

I’m only tearful when I’m talking to my manager or my consultant - I’m not in a constant state of upset and tears.

I function fine, I have two young children that I’m out with all the time, I laugh, I smile, I have a nice social life, I’m doing a course at university and generally my life is pretty good. Yes I’m concerned about my current health but otherwise I’m absolutely fine.

I’m not sure being worried about the stability of my chronic health condition makes me “mentally very unwell” as you put it.

I don’t think anyone with mental health issues is abnormal and I don’t think I was being personally attacked (I guess I didn’t world my original post very well if that’s how I’m portraying things).

My point was that it feels weird that I now feel like I have been diagnosed with mental health issues when the only reason I went to see the doctor is because I have ear ache.

She’s made me feel like there’s something wrong with me when I thought I was fine and normal.

This was me when I was diagnosed with asthma at the grand old age of 53. It took me months to get my head around the fact that the bodily sensations that had been my normal for over 30 years - are actually abnormal. And that they had been getting worse was not due to menopause (ie just something to get on with and accept as a new phase in my life) but due to the asthma getting worse.

Suddenly I had to listen to my body in a completely different way. And respond to myself differently. My normal me, sensations I felt as vaguely unpleasant but I could safely ignore, were actually danger signals that I must not ignore.

You have to learn a new normal. You have to relax some of the coping mechanisms. M It is disconcerting, to say the least!

It's happened to me before, when I made major changes to my life to accommodate a condition that I hadn't known I had. That time, too, it took about a year for me to truly appreciate that my previous normal had not been normal, and that this was actually health, this was actually fine. What I'd had before was coping.

That was beautifully explained, thank you