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Monday 30 September 2013

Help with going to back to university


Help with going to back to university
Hi guys so I thought I would write this blog as I know that there are a lot of you who have emailed me about wanting to go back into education but fee like that your pots well hold you back.
So I decided to that I would go back to university this year. I was concerning taking a year off from uni but when I spoke to my tutor at uni he told me that student finance can help me complete my studies. So I called student finance England and they sent me a disability application form. The form was really easy to fill in, and all I had to do was get a letter from my doctor to statue I had pots. After I sent the application off and it took around 3 weeks for me to get an appointment with a disability adviser which I thought was really good. So the disability specialist was great he knew all about pots and came up with some great things to help me stay at uni.
 He has arranged that I can get a taxi to and from university so I don’t have to travel on my own and I received a computer and printer with different programmes on to help me such as a book reader. I will also get a mentor who will correspond with all my teachers when I am too ill to go into uni, and have the class recorded on a Dictaphone so I do not get behind with my studies. I really believe that with these measures put in place I will be able to successfully l finish uni and all these things are free so I do not have to worry about the cost which is great.
I am fully aware that this year at uni is going to hard but I really want to try and get back to normal and I do not want pots to hold me back any more

I am really sorry about any spelling mistakes I have made usually where I am dyslexic my sister will spell check it for me but she is not here today so I had to try and do it myself. 

Tuesday 24 September 2013

Really bad Withdrawal symptoms

 Hi guys sorry that I have not updated the blog for a few weeks, but I have been really sick. I stupidly decided to take myself off my anti depression and was so sick I had to go into hospital.
To be fair to myself, I have wanted to come off the tablet for a few weeks, so when I got a tooth abscess (and was too ill to take the tablet) I decided that day I wanted to try coming off of them, especially as I’m only taking a 10mg dose. For the first few days I was fine, still a little bit anxious but nothing too serious. Then after day four I started vomiting and having really bad dizziness and stomach aches. After a few days of not getting better, I went into hospital, got put on an IV and anti-sickness medicine and they kept me over night. At the time I didn’t put my sickness down to me coming off the tablet, I thought it was due to me taking a strong dose of antibiotics for the abscess.  
After I was discharged from hospital, I was ok for a few days, then the sickness came back and it was even worse the last time. I phoned my doctor who said I needed to go to A&E ASAP, as this was the second time I had been ill. So I was back in hospital vomiting badly and the doctors phoned a neurologist ,who advised that I once again be kept in overnight and be booked in for an out patients   MRI, and an appointment to meet with him. I stayed in hospital overnight and was pumped with fluid and anti-sickness and in the morning I felt better. I was starting to worry that maybe there was something wrong with my head, so when I got home I started looking online and I accidently stumbled on a post where someone had put that there sickness had been due to withdrawal symptoms, due to coming off citalopram. I then found that there were loads of websites and chat rooms that mentioned the withdrawal symptoms and that it was really common to get them if you suddenly stop the medication. So on one hand I feel better to know it’s not a head problem but I also feel like a complete idiot for (1 stopping the medication suddenly and then (2 not thinking it would affect my body.
I have decided that I do not want to go back on the medication as I want to try and beat my anxiety issues without them. I do not know how successful this will be though. I am doing CBT so hopefully this will help.


So my advice to anyone taking this medication is…. DO NOT think about just stopping the medication, go to the doctor and discuss it with him because trust me; you do not want to spend 4 nights in hospital like me. 

Sunday 15 September 2013

Thankyou eveeryone

I wanted to write a blog to say thank you   to the all the people who are supporting me and inspiring me during my POTS journey My spelling may be a bad as i am still a bit ill. 
I want to start by saying thank you to all the pots groups on face book, all your stories help me not only with this blog but give me  reassurance that I am not alone in this. I feel like we are one big pots family. When I am having a bad day or need advice someone is always there to give me advice and guidance and to be honest I do not know how I would be here without you. To anyone who has pots or has a family member who has pots this group should be your starting point after you doctors to find out information about POTS these guys have been there and got the t shirt when it comes to pots and are always on hand to give advice.
I would also like to say a massive thank you to all the people who take the time to read this blog it is truly a huge honour for me to share my story with you, and I write this blog not just for me but for everyone is who is going through what I am going through. Thank you for all your comments you have given me on the blog, and to all the people who message me on Facebook to say they love my blog and it inspires them.  All of you inspire me to keep writing and all your comments mean the world to me words cannot express how thankful I am.
To my nurses and  my cardiologist and the royal Brompton and Chelsea and Westminster hospital you are all amazing  and it has been a great comfort to me to know I have you as my medical team.
To my little sister who in the last 8 months has been like a mum to me you have looked after me and are here for me 24hours a day. I really don’t think I could have coped with out you and I know I can be really annoying at times but I love you and I am most thankful. This blog would also not exist if it was not for you as you were the one who encouraged me to write this so thank you.
To my friends and my mother in law thank you for caring so much and understand and giving you time to help me and the children. You all go out of your way to support me so thank you

And lastly to my two beautiful children you 2 give me the courage to keep fighting and the faith that I will get better. At times I feel like I am letting you down as you see me collapsing and going into hospital so much that I times I feel like you deserve better. But your hugs and the amount of love you show me makes me feel like I have done a good job with you two, you are both the most amazing children and I could not be prouder to be your mum.
This Pic of you too always make me smile 



Saturday 14 September 2013

my week so far

Hey guys
So today I’m writing about how my week has been so far. So on Monday I had an appointment with my cardiologist and he has booked me in for ablation on my heart in 16 weeks. I am excited and nervous, both at the same time.in a way I am hoping that it relieves the AF , but on the other hand, I’m also worried because I have been made aware that there can be complications with the procedure. I have spoken to my pots friends on the pots Facebook about ablation, and thankfully the majority of those that have had ablation have found it helpful, so I am hopeful that it will help improve my life. I am also lucky that I have an amazing cardiologist and nursing team, whom I completely trust with my life, which does give me some comfort.
The kids also went back to school on Monday Whoop Whoop. I am really pleased with myself that I got through the school holiday as I have been suffering really bad with my pots at the moment,  but with the help of a young careers group, we actually had a really good holiday
Then on Wednesday I started to feel, well basically like crap. I spent two days in hospital which just made me feel even worse to be honest. So for the second time in two weeks I have come down with sickness, blurred vision and headaches. I went to A&E and the doctors were really good, apart from one who, when I was explaining what POTS was looked at me like ‘well you look fine’ and I just felt like I had had enough of people saying that. Yes I may look fine on the outside because I smile but on the inside I am crumbling.
The ‘good’ doctors decided that I needed to go for an MRI (as an outpatient) and have appointments with the neurologist and at the epilepsy clinic. This really scares me. Like REALLY, as my dad died at age 38 of epilepsy and a heart attack, and I just feel as though history might repeat itself.
I just feel like since I have been diagnosed with pots my health is just getting worse and worse. I am trying to be strong for myself but at this time, it is really hard.

On a brighter note, I am out of hospital and back at home with my children .hopefully I will now start to stop feeling sorry for myself.   

Friday 6 September 2013

Oh how i hate anxiety

I thought I would do a blog on anxiety as it is an issue that is affecting me a lot recently, so much so that at times I do not want to go out or don’t feel myself.
I have suffered from anxiety since I was 15. I can remember my first panic attack like it was yesterday; I woke up suddenly in the night and felt like my heart was racing. I felt scared and I remember feeling like I was going to die. For some strange reason I didn’t wake my parents, instead I went outside my house and started pacing up and down my road. To this day I don’t know why I did this, if I had to guess I would say that I thought if I kept moving then I would settle down and I would not die. My neighbour came out of the house and I suppose thought I was on drugs. She came and tried to calm me down and when I told her what had happened she said she thought I was having a panic attack.  She sat with me and told me that she had suffered from panic attacks and that I was not going to die, it was just the bodies’ way of dealing with stress.
I spoke to my mum about this on the day and she told me she suffered from anxiety and so did her twin sister. She suggested that I should go to the doctors and speak to them, I did this and to be honest I didn’t really find them very useful.  I carried on having panic attacks a few times a year but learnt how to cope with them and as I wasn’t experiencing them regularly they didn’t really bother me; but in April that all changed.
I was on the underground to work when I suddenly felt extremely scared and was getting bad palpitations and chest pain. I felt like I just needed to get off the train and when I eventually got off I just ran like I had never had before. I had never felt like this before, to me this was a much different type of panic attack, actually at the time I actually felt like I was having a heart attack. So I got home and my sister and I went to the hospital where they confirmed that I was not having a heart attack but a panic attack.
To me it didn’t feel like it was just a panic it felt much worse, this feeling carried on non-stop. I had been into hospital 10 times in a month and was not getting any better. In June after taking my children to school I came home and just collapsed. I went to a different hospital and that is when the diagnoses process started. This eventually led to me being diagnosed with AF and POTS.
I was beginning to get treated for my Atrial Fibrillation and POTS but I was still having panic attacks and always anxious. I felt like feeling anxious was only making my AF and pots worse so I went to my GP and basically begged for help, I was lucky my doctor understood and refereed me to have cognitive therapy while also prescribing me anti depressives at a low dose, to help with the anxiety. I didn’t really want to go on anti-depressives and I feel that there is a stigma attached to taking them, but after discussing it with my doctor I felt I should give it a try.
So two months on and I still feel anxious a lot of the time. I really do believe that being anxious makes my POTS much worse as I feel trapped and am scared to go out, always worrying that I will collapse or feel too dizzy to walk, or even not be able to socialise with my friends because of the anxiety. Another aspect of my anxiety is that I always feel like something bad is going to happen to me or that I am going to die and this is what generally will set me in to a panic. Since I have been doing cognitive therapy though I have learnt that it is my own negative thoughts that cause me to panic, and that the more you feel negative, the more you panic. For example, I don’t want to go out because I feel that I will collapse, this will then cause me to get even more anxious and then my heart rate will go up even more, making me panic more; the cycle is complete and never ends.


Although I do know that really it’s just my negative thoughts that are stopping me. I need to realise that yes I have POTS and AF and they have changed my life and yes I have really bad POTS days and if I go out there is a chance I could collapse, but if I don’t try then I will never know how strong I am. I am actually laughing while I write this as while I can write what I should be doing, doing it is another story altogether
It is really hard to not think negatively but I don’t want to be like this anymore I want to attempt to be able to watch TV without think of bad things. I am only two weeks into my cognitive therapy and I am determined to give it my all, I want to beat this as yes I have POTS and AF and I probably  always will, but I will not feel anxious any more.
I would really like to know about anyone else who suffers badly from anxiety and how you deal with it.
Also I will keep you guys up dated and do a blog on how my cognitive therapy is going and from now on it is all about positive thoughts.