The problem comes when you leave work and can’t switch off, says colleague Peter after overcoming tetany symptoms

Author: Zuzana Kocáková

Lifestyle

15 reading minutes

Read how to successfully fight tetany symptoms.

Peter has been working for fourteen years as an IT administrator in msg life Slovakia. Although he says he enjoys his work, over time he started to accumulate responsibilities, he was in charge of a team of people, more responsibility and went through a difficult period. When the first health problems appeared, he visited a doctor who diagnosed him with tetany – a stress-related disease.

At first Peter did not want to admit the psychological causes of his illness and for a long time he did not confide his problem to anyone. It took him three years to resolve the problem and although he says he is proud to have dealt with it on his own, he considers this time lost. Today, he sees similar symptoms in many people in his neighbourhood, which is why he decided to talk about the disease. He believes that tetany should not be underestimated and can be caught at the first sign.

How did your health problems start?

I was never sick, so I didn’t even go to the doctor often. About five years ago, however, my health problems began to accumulate. I felt like I couldn’t breathe, I felt like I was going to pass out, and even though I was at rest, my heart was pounding. I tried to breathe through it somehow, but after two weeks similar symptoms returned. Muscle cramps, constant whistling in the ear, abdominal pain or digestive problems were added. These are all pretty common diagnoses, but for me it was happening all at once and more and more frequently. I tried to modify my diet, but when it didn’t work for a long time, I started to solve the problem with my doctor.

Which doctor did you see?

At first I thought I was having a heart attack, so I went to the emergency room where they examined me. They prescribed me magnesium and said there was nothing wrong with me. Later, when the problems persisted, I went to see my general practitioner, who did a complete examination. There was a very nice young doctor working there at the time who seemed interested in solving the problem. My results were fine, but in the meantime my doctor had changed. The young lady was replaced by an older lady who looked at the medical record and approached the problem differently. She said that the symptoms were clear, supposedly it was tetany.

What was the first thing that came to your mind when you heard the diagnosis?

I had no idea what was going on. The first thing that came to my mind was tetanus, then I tried to look up the name of the disease on the internet. I found out that it is a nervous disorder from a deficiency of minerals such as magnesium or calcium, but it can also be the result of an exhausted nervous system that is constantly “on alert” and agitated.

This can be caused by persistent stress or various stimuli that the person is not even aware of, but his head is still processing. Eventually, this is reflected in the state of health. I was surprised to learn that cattle also suffer from tetany because they often lack the necessary nutrients or are stressed. But lately it is also becoming more common in humans.

How did the doctor solve your problem?

She told me that antidepressants would solve the tetany. She prescribed various nutritional supplements and recommended I see a psychiatrist. I immediately refused this and told myself that if it was bad enough and it was psychological in origin, I would try to solve the problem myself first. Maybe that’s what finally made me do something about it.

Why did you refuse to see a psychiatrist?

A psychiatrist will obviously help a person who wants to be helped. I didn’t trust him. I didn’t trust that I would go to a psychiatrist and he would listen to me and help me. I understand what his role is, also that he’s a professional. He can certainly make a diagnosis and refer patients, but he was a stranger to me. I had no need to confide in him as my friend. I had a problem with having to “complain” to a stranger.

Until some time ago, I wasn’t even interested in presenting that I was dealing with something like that. Apparently the doctor didn’t mean it in a bad way. I am, however, proud that I decided to deal with it myself, even though the time it took me to get over it is kind of lost. Maybe if I had seen a psychiatrist, the problem would have been resolved sooner.

How long did it take you to recover from tetany?

I had a period where I felt bad for a few months, then I got better. But I never knew if I did something right or wrong. For example, my first child was born at that time and I was spending some time at home, so that might have had an effect. Today I have three children and my condition has always been better after the birth of a child. But then there was always a deterioration, so I visited the ambulance again.

In the meantime, however, my doctor has changed again, which has probably helped me the most of all. He looked at the previous records and asked me if I was stressed at work. When I answered that there was some, he wrote me a PN for one week. When I returned for a check-up after seven days, I told him that my condition had only improved by half. So he wrote me off for another two weeks and my condition had improved considerably.

That’s when I realized that the cause was work and I knew what to focus on. Since then, I’ve been trying to change my approach to work. After three years I got rid of tetany completely. For a long enough time my problem was admitting to myself that it was psychological in nature. Probably also because I had never been ill before and suddenly I had a number of health problems. I found this unbelievable and I didn’t attribute it to the psyche. I only understood it when I spent three weeks at home.

What exactly did you change when you returned to work?

I tried to do it in a way that I enjoyed. Not to give it a high priority, to organize my duties differently than before and to minimize stress. I’ve started to approach communication with colleagues more directly, although I’m not always successful, but I’m trying to improve. Suddenly my ear stopped whistling, my nervous system calmed down, I didn’t feel cramps and the symptoms gradually stopped until they disappeared completely.

I work mostly from the office, so work has picked up in those three weeks, but I’ve come to realize that when you disappear from one day to the next, the world doesn’t come crashing down. Either someone else will do some of the work, or others will manage without me. No one is irreplaceable.

Were you a pedant at work before?

I wouldn’t define it that way, rather, maybe it was a problem when I didn’t clear some issues with people right away. Then I kept thinking about how to explain my point to them. If one doesn’t clarify things, one doesn’t find inner peace, one keeps coming back to them, and so it builds up. The problem comes when you leave work and you can’t switch off. You think about work on the way home from work, when you get home, or in the evening watching TV. That’s not right.

Have you also dealt with your problem directly with people at work?

No, I tried to solve it myself, mainly by changing the management of the work. I’m in a management position, so I had the opportunity to make a difference. I’ve tried to take less on and delegate more. I’ve also adjusted my lifestyle. I’ve relaxed more , played more sports and kept to a sleep schedule. I did not inform the management about my problem. I didn’t trust my colleagues with my diagnosis either, so they had no way to help me. However, socialising, for example at work, helped me. When we talked in the kitchen or during breaks, I could feel that my condition was improving.

So have you tried to socialize more?

Most of the time I was tired or in pain. I was lying at home, doing nothing, not feeling fit. When you have cramps in your stomach, you don’t really feel like going out. But when I finally got over it and relaxed, it helped me. Moreover, I found out that I was not suffering from this problem alone.

Who else in your area suffers from tetany?

I encounter that friends and colleagues alike experience similar conditions. Now that I know that many people suffer from tetany, I try to talk about it. If someone has just one of the symptoms, such as insomnia, it doesn’t mean it’s tetany. However, when someone lists symptoms similar to what I had, I try to advise them what helped me. For many people it starts in a similar way – heart problems, depression. Many doctors prescribe antidepressants , the procedure is apparently the same.

Do you think this is an underestimated problem?

Definitely, because it can lead to a variety of other health problems. For me, it was a shock because I had never been sick and suddenly I had a lot of problems all at once. Whistling in the ear on a daily basis is nothing pleasant, it can lead to other psychological problems. Some people find it harder to cope, especially if one is alone.

What role did your personal life play in your case?

I didn’t trust my partner with the problem for a long time either. I tried to mask it, but later she noticed something was wrong. Then together we tried to figure out what might be causing me stress and she supported me. With the kids, I was more able to relax. My personal life wasn’t causing me any additional stress. Rather, it was when I came home and dealt with other “world” events. To some extent, that had some effect on me as well.

What kind of “world events” you mean?

A lot of people come home from work and look at posts or comments on Facebook. A lot of times people get angry and deal not only with work and private issues, but also with issues that are ultimately out of their control. It is important to realise that many things are out of one’s control unless one is somehow an insider. It is not necessary to keep track of all the information every day and be indignant about what we cannot change. Stress comes from that as well, and I think our brains are not built to handle that much information on a daily basis. Maybe it’s also the “pressure of the times” and being too over-informed.

Have you limited your use of social media?

Even if you turn off social media, you still get annoyed at how someone could have an opinion and how it could be refuted. Maybe the problem is that I don’t engage in the comments at all. I did, however, decide to cancel my Facebook account altogether and it helped. I mainly use Twitter. I don’t have my friends there and just surround myself with IT news and what interests me. If I look at the news there once a day then I don’t have the time or the need to look at Facebook where, apart from that news, there would be a lot of other unnecessary news that could have a negative impact on me.

It’s important to surround myself with something that doesn’t cause me stress. Paradoxically, technology is supposed to make our lives easier, but it often does the opposite. I think people were not prepared for the advent of something like social media. They don’t know how to use them. That’s why I often compare them to a pub. If you’re in the mood and you’re the type, you’ll shout in the pub. But the others, and it’s usually the majority, don’t respond to that.

What else helped you in your battle with tetany?

I also tried to take all the prescribed nutritional supplements regularly during the treatment. Apparently this helped to some extent, but I don’t think it had that much of an effect. A doctor can detect vitamin deficiencies from blood tests, but I always had everything within the normal range. That’s why I think it’s mostly about the psyche.

The doctor also recommended me to leave coffee out of my diet. It makes you feel energized and it really works for me. The fact that my nervous system was sufficiently stimulated meant that there was no need to stimulate it further. I think this also helped me a lot. Before, I drank one coffee a day. Then I cut it out and when I had one of those again, some of my symptoms came back.

Can you spot now that your tetany is coming back again?

Occasionally I happen to pick up the first signals again. But now I can distinguish them, so I can catch it and take a break. I try to really relax during the holidays and take three weeks off every year. When I took a week off in a bad period, I needed another week or two to get much better. That’s why I take every single day off, including the extra vacation that msg life provides as part of the company benefits program.

What other employee benefits do you use to relax?

Apart from holidays, I also go to the company fitnesscentre now and then. I do sports rather occasionally, but I think it doesn’t matter what one does or where one does it. The important thing is to switch off. I do well at home with my kids, they keep me one hundred percent occupied, so then I don’t have time to think about other things. And that’s the main thing. Otherwise, I can also unwind with computer games. These are also stressful in their own way, but you switch off the game and don’t deal with it any further, unlike work.

What lessons did overcoming tetany teach you?

It’s not good to take work too seriously, especially if the body is signalling to us that it’s time to slow down. It’s also important to realise that some things are out of our control. We should also be able to switch off, and for longer periods of time. Many people don’t do this and are not used to it. Someone should keep an eye on that, in my opinion. Even given the accelerated information and stress filled times we live in.

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The problem comes when you leave work and can’t switch off, says colleague Peter after overcoming tetany symptoms

Zuzana Kocáková

At msg life Slovakia I take care of the company culture, events and I am part of the marketing team. I like a job where I can be creative and contribute to making my colleagues at msg feel good. I regularly prepare for you not only news and interesting things from the world of information technology and insurance, but also from behind the scenes events at msg life Slovakia.