I'll try to make this brief yet clear and straight to the point. First of, I have always been somewhat an anxious person ever since I was as young as 8 years old. Reason for is because at that young age, I was faced to seeing my late father suffer from heart problems due to his diabetes and hypertension.

I was diagnosed having diabetes and hypertension at 21 - now I am 32 - back then I was most probably in denial of my condition, therefore dieting and trying to stay healthy was the last thing on my mind.

All these changed after I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy about 5 months ago now. Ever since then, I have been having anxiety problems - I experienced my first panic attack while I was at work, really thought I was having a heart attack or something. It came out from nowhere! I was just chatting to a friend when suddenly I felt panic creeping inside me for now apparent reason, then I started to sweat. Cold sweat like this usually signals my body system that something is very wrong with me. I suppose that triggered the attack. Suddenly I felt my heartbeat went racing. I have been prescribed with xanax so that was my saviour at that point. In 5 ins after taking it, my hearbeat subsided. Once I got home I checked my bp and it was still floating around 150 /90. Went to the dr's the next day to get an ecg done and it came back normal.

Problem is now, my bp becomes unstable every now and then. I take my meds regularly, I am more careful with my diet nowadays. What I need to tackle now is my anxiety.. the trigger is simple - my fear of having my bp taken and fear of hospitals/doctors/nurses.. in fact taking my bp at home at times can give me that nervousness. I know Im weird.... but I am wondering if anyone out there has the same problem as I am.. or perhaps can share your stories with me.

This forum has been quite an eye-opener for me as I realise slowly that there are a lot of people out there having similar symptoms.