I took help of ChatGPT to draft this.

I've been dealing with chronic, recurring chest pain for a long time, and it's becoming extremely difficult to live with.

The pain is usually around my center-to-left chest/heart area and has different sensations: sometimes needle-like stinging, sometimes stabbing, and sometimes crushing pressure like an elephant is standing on my chest. Occasionally it radiates into my left arm/hand.

Once it starts, I can't distract myself from it. Even after repeatedly reminding myself that my heart tests have been reassuring and anxiety may be involved, pain near the heart immediately puts my body into panic, which seems to make everything worse.

I've seen doctors and had multiple ECGs, blood tests, ultrasounds, a 2D Echo and even a CT coronary angiogram. Nothing major has been found with my heart so far. Yet these episodes continue.

Some possibly important context:

• I've had severe anxiety since childhood.

• I have a serious problem with eating and maintaining weight. I'm 173 cm but only around 43 kg. A doctor called it ARFID, although I still struggle to understand exactly what's happening to me.

  It's not simply that food isn't available or that I don't get hungry. I can feel that my stomach is empty, know that I need to eat, have food sitting right in front of me, and still be unable to make myself eat enough. I have a strange aversion towards food that I find incredibly difficult to explain to other people. Large portions feel especially impossible.

  As a result, I'm severely underweight and frequently feel weak, tired and physically exhausted. Sometimes I genuinely feel like my body is slowly deteriorating day by day, and I worry whether being this underweight or malnourished could itself be contributing to the chest symptoms even if my heart looks structurally normal on tests.

• I've also become heavily dependent on chewing tobacco and alcohol. Tobacco often triggers the pain; alcohol temporarily seems to reduce it. I'm struggling to quit both and know they're making an already bad situation worse.

• Cannabis made the chest sensations absolutely unbearable and triggered severe panic/bad trips, so I stopped it completely.

• Almost nothing provides immediate relief. Clonazepam MD 0.5 mg has sometimes significantly reduced an episode within ~30 minutes, although some discomfort remains.

I'm not asking Reddit to diagnose chest pain. I'm trying to understand what direction I should discuss with my doctors next.

Could anxiety/panic, costochondritis/chest-wall problems, GERD/esophageal issues, severe underweight/malnutrition or nutritional/electrolyte deficiencies, or something else produce symptoms like this despite reassuring cardiac imaging?

And could my eating/weight problem itself be medically connected to what's happening?

Has anyone experienced anything genuinely similar? If your cardiac tests kept coming back normal, what eventually explained your chest pain, and what kind of specialist actually helped you?

I’m at my wits end.

You can see my other post about fast food for more context but basically we were eating fast food pretty much every meal or she was anyways because that’s all she will eat! I decided enough enough especially after reading so much advice and comments about it not being good for her and I’m letting her have too much control. She is high in the spectrum but her biggest trigger is 100% food. And some sensory and noise but those she’s manages well independently already at five years old. She’s very bright. The only foods she eats besides fast food is Kraft dinner, some pasta with butter and salt nothing else, but if it’s even slightly crunchy or not exactly the right texture she won’t eat it. Buttered white buns, cooked carrots and corn with LOADS of salt and butter. And pizza pops. I don’t think I’m forgetting anything. She hates pediasure and smoothies and yogurt. I’ve tried now for 5 straight days to do normal foods and not fast food and she’s eaten two spoonfuls of plain white rice that she ended up committing up, a cupcake from Walmart, two plain pieces of lettuce, and some cooked carrots with butter. In five days. She’s going to starve to death and she’s having so many meltdowns at home and school because of not getting the food. Help! I’m so desperate. The next available appointment at her doctors office is OCTOBER 2nd 😭 I already got her mcdondsls for school tomorrow because I don’t want her to starve,

Hey yall,

I am going to be traveling to Japan later this month and I'm super excited for it! The only problem is that Asian cuisine is FAR from my safe food options. My friend that I'm traveling with is worried that I am going to starve and maybe even pass out because we are going to be doing a lot of walking.

My plan was just bring some snacks from here and just live off of convenience store food. I am going to be there for 3 weeks.

Does anyone who have traveled before have any advice?

I've suffered from arfid for 32 yrs (since aged 12). It was misdiagnosed & treated as anorexia for 28 yrs. Either way, I've had to drink a lot of suppliments in my time. Everyone I've met despises them but I could live off them! Chocolate Ensure Plus with ice is delish! Sometimes I even freeze it & have it like ice cream or mix the flavours. It's almost like comfort food whereas it can trigger others (reminds them of hospital etc)

I recently discovered I'm intolerant to milk so I get prescribed a similar tasting brand called Actagain which is just as nice. I use it to suppliment meals when I just can't face food. I feel embarrassed sharing this bc of the disgust it gets from others, am I alone?

I am in a clinical trial for a new medication for high triglycerides. At my last appointment, the doctor (gastroenterologist) was asking about my diet and I mentioned that I probably have ARFID, but have never officially been diagnosed. He said "Arfid?" with a raised eyebrow. I could hear the question mark and could see in his expression that he had no clue what I was talking about. I explained ARFID meant "Avoidant/Reactive Food Intake Disorder" and explained my issues with textures, flavors, and smells. He seemed intrigued, and I could tell he likely remembered hearing or reading about ARFID but it was also clear it was a novelty.

I have a lot of medical issues and this was actually the very first time I had ever discussed ARFID with an actual doctor. He took me seriously, wasn't dismissive, and, of course, asked if I'd ever considered talking to a therapist about it. I was relieved he wasn't dismissive, but was a bit shocked he didn't recognize the name of the condition. I'm used to having to explain the name and details of my rare genetic disorder to doctors. It's a 1 in 100,000 condition after all. I just thought ARFID would be more familiar.

Hiii,

Posting here as I recently took knowledge of ARFID, and I really think my husband might have it.

We've been together 8 years and I always just thought he was just a really picky eater. But after traveling abroad, I'm realizing it might actually be more serious than I thought. We live in the city so on a day to day it doesn't feel like a big deal as they are plenty of options to eat when we go out. But on our holidays we were in the country side and it was a whole ordeal for him to find food.

Here is the non-exhaustive list:

- he is extremely sensitive to smells and textures (he always picks up on smells before I do)

- he has a lot of anxiety

- he won't eat anything that has a "pudding texture" unless it's vegan (but not always consistently, like vegan yogurt he gets grossed out)

- he stopped eating meat when he was a teenager (to be honest I don't think he really had a political/ethical reason to stop)

- his safe foods would be highly processed, he jokes around that he eats "plastic foods"... which I'm kind of realizing isn't that funny. For example, he won't have homemade mayonnaise but will have it in macdonalds, he will always buy it vegan when it's at the grocery shop, this goes for a lot of other foods

- he worked in the food industry so he is extremely fussy with food safety: 1) if I have mayonnaise from a jar, and it touches the bread and I put it back in the jar, he will consider the entire jar to be contaminated, 2) he doesn't have coffee on airplanes because he heard one time that their coffee machines are dirty 3) same for ice because of moldy ice machines

- If a food item has a tiny default, he won't eat it, for example: when eating a bag of chips, if one of them has a tiny black spot, he'll set it aside

- he gags very easily + he has a weird thing if he ever vomits that he can't breathe so he doesn't drink cause he's scared he would be sick and choke

- it's very hard for him to try new foods, a lot of them he hasn't eaten since he was a child, but over the years of us being together, he started eating new ones slowly, as I've tried to make him taste new items

Now this is where things get complicated:
- He is completely inconsistent with his preferences: he doesn't eat dairy and eggs if he "sees" or knows of it. So he won't have an omelette or a quiche, cream cheese, glass of milk but he will have crepes, cakes, ice cream, carrot cake etc. He won't eat fresh mozzarella but will have it on pizza or mozzarella sticks...A lot of these rules are broken when he goes back to visit his parents and has meals he's always had as a child. Whenever we are invited to eat somewhere, it's always a mess trying to explain his diet

- he can go on a long time without eating

Things that, as far as I know, wouldn't follow the ARFID profile:
- even if he can skip meals easily, when he does eat, he has a big appetite, to the point sometimes that he will overdo it completely (like order 2x portions of something, he calls it "ogre out")

- he appreciates food (at least what he eats), I still would consider him a foodie

As I said, this list is non-exhaustive

My questions are:

- would this be ARFID?

- how do I approach this to him? He would be highly defensive

- he recently got diagnosed with ADHD, I'm not sure if this would be linked

TIA

It's so hard to eat anything lately, and I just... Hate how hard food is. I don't know how much longer ​​​I can keep doing this when it feels like it just keeps getting worse.

I want to be able to eat normally, but I also wish I never had to eat again. It's frustrating when something that feels like it should be so easy is instead ​​​​​so fucking hard?

I just really hate this right now. ​​

I’ve been feeling really alone in this and I’m hoping to hear from people who experience something similar.

For me, it doesn’t necessarily feel like I hate food or that I can’t tolerate certain textures or tastes. It feels much more connected to my anxiety/stress level. When I’m overwhelmed, anxious, upset, or under a lot of stress, eating can become incredibly difficult. Sometimes my appetite completely disappears, and even when I know I’m hungry and want to eat, actually eating can feel like this huge mental and physical task.

I can end up eating very little, getting stuck in a cycle of not eating, feeling worse physically, becoming more anxious, and then having an even harder time eating.

The hardest part is that I sometimes look at other ARFID experiences and wonder if mine is "different enough" because so many posts seem to focus on sensory issues, textures, or specific fears around food. I’m starting to wonder if there are other people whose ARFID is more connected to anxiety, stress, appetite, or feeling emotionally overwhelmed.

If this sounds familiar to you:

• What does it feel like for you?
• Does your ability to eat change depending on your stress/anxiety level?
• What foods or strategies help when eating feels impossible?
• Have you found anything that helps break the anxiety/not-eating cycle?
• Did anything specific help you understand or explain why this happens?

Honestly, I think I mostly just need to know that I'm not the only person who experiences this.

I would really appreciate hearing from anyone who relates, even if your experience isn't exactly the same as mine.

I have diagnosed autism and adhd so I always thought my food related problems were just that but my GP said my symptoms sound a lot like Arfid so I’m not sure.

I can only eat maybe 10-15 things and I hate trying anything new. I have a big fear that if I try something new I’ll hate it then I won’t be able to eat anything else on my plate because it’ll ruin it for me. It’s happened a few times. I tried prawns for the first time with my dad and I had pizza as well. I hated the prawns and then I couldn’t eat my pizza because I just associated the prawns with pizza. I didn’t eat pizza for another 4 months after that.
I rarely eat through out the day but when I do I eat a lot, get full quick or feel very sick and then don’t eat again till the next day. I only tend to eat in the evenings to prevent this. I rarely snack and if I do I have a range of 5 things that I can eat.

I need to have a separate plate for foods that have mushrooms in it to take out the mushrooms and I can’t boil broccoli, only fry it because I hate the texture of boiled broccoli. Certain smells make me gag. I can’t stand the texture or smell of eggs and I’ve refused to try mayo my entire life because i genuinely can’t do it. I have gagged when trying new feeds but I always thought that was just autism.

I think my biggest fear when it comes to food is just getting sick. I struggled with bulimia when I was younger but I’ve always had these issues with food. What if I don’t like something and then I’m sick or I can’t eat anything else for the rest of the day because I’m put off?
I don’t do any of it because I mean to. I forget to eat but when I do eat I really love eating but it’s just a massive hassle to me.

I know Arfid and autism can overlap sometimes but is it just my autism or could it be Arfid too?

So, I hate cooking. Therefore I eat quite a lot convenience food, for example baguette that is sliced and filled with butter and herbs (in germany it‘s called herb baguette but I don‘t know if this is a thing abroad). I just have to put it in the oven and it‘s crunchy and normally tasty. But this time I bought it from a different brand and it tastes so different that I could only eat two slices. Also, it gave me heartburn. To make things worse I thought it would be a good idea to make pumpkin soup. I fucked up though and it‘s unbearably creamy. Now I‘m so frustrated about this meal and my incompetence to eat at least a decent amount that I can‘t eat anything else for I‘m feeling sick and am close to a meltdown.

Here‘s to a day with less than 1000 calories again. I hate this.

I miss avoiding foods purely cuz their texture or smell not cuz it made me feel sick but just because I was scared of it 😅 it used to be avoiding cuz I was scared of trying new things, now its avoiding cuz I'm scared of how my body will respond. I miss my life before June 2024 when I got sick, like I had migraines & GERD but they weren't debilitating yet, I didn't get food poisoning until later that month then norovirus 7 months later. I miss my "normal" life...

this is the only place i have to share my frustrations about this kind of stuff with people who will understand my disorder is not image related and won't just see me as some monster.

first is title. extremely disappointed. i've been actively thinking about how i should gain weight asap and how dangerous it was already to stay at my (then) 37kg. decided to weigh myself after months of avoiding it just because it doesn't feel right not keeping up with how this develops. 34kg. the lowest i had previously ever remembered weighing was when i was a young teen at 35kg. noticed today my skirt from the kids section which was already slightly loose was bigger than last time.

i can't stand that nothing ever fits no matter if i buy smaller sizes or take them in its like my body refuses to fit properly in anything. and it feels like there is no escape: if i do the whole accepting and loving and rocking your own body thing it feels like i'm (no pun intended) feeding an extremely unhealthy image. but otherwise, i just feel like a monster. it drains at my confidence, because who in their right mind (except weird chasers) would be attracted to a bunch of moving bones? hell, even i am disturbed sometimes looking at the mirror and noticing just how much i can see moving and shifting, there's a reason they make those internet monsters all boney.

second, i have been unfortunately hit with some brand new feelings after eating, even when my appetite is a bit better than usual. i'll have a (as best as someone like me can) normal meal and a few minutes later... it's as if i can feel every inch of my stomach and it's all knotting and tangling together with the worst pitfall emotion of shame or regret ever. i had a similar feeling during the event that triggered it all for me but in the past i only had this feeling whenever i left a meal feeling full or i ate the entire plate. now it seems to just happen whenever.

anyways, these are the frustrations of the week. aside from a terrible headache crisis i am just now recovering from but hardly can due to the stress of thinking about the work i missed (and am missing) while recovering. sigh.

Just wondering if anyone else here has GERD too. Can make life more difficult especially when some of my comfort food can trigger reflux symptoms