Ways to reduce stress symptoms and conditions

I can't tell you all how glad I am that I found this web site.

I've been taking 10mg Lisinopril daily for about ten months now (for slightly high bp). Beginning last October, I started feeling the following symptoms off and on:

-lightheadedness (including one fainting spell)
-some discomfort and tightness in my chest
-difficulty breathing (when this happened, I would force myself to breathe deeply and usually found that I was breathing OK ... just felt like I wasn't always getting enough air)
-feelings of panic
-muscle pain in back and neck
-diarrhea

I've never really had any previous health problems and I've never suffered from anxiety or panic attacks.

I saw my doctor several different times about these issues. When it first started, my wife wondered if it had something to do with the medication. My doctor (who I really like) said 10 mg is not enough to really do much of anything.

Since I've been on it, my bp has been great. And I knew 10 mg wasn't very much. I believed that the medication wasn't causing it. So I went through the series of tests:

-MRI was normal
-blood tests were normal
-repeated EKGs were normal
-chest x-rays were normal
-stress test was normal

My doctor started thinking it was something mental and talked to me about ways to reduce stress and anxiety. But I knew there was something going on.

Then I found this site. I stopped taking Lisinopril yesterday and am talking to my doctor about changing to something else.

Thanks, all!