Hi guys, I’m a 25 year old girl who has had GAD since 12 years old after a bad horse riding accident.
Cut long story short I have been really calm for over two years or so and have had no anxiety. Maybe sometimes at night I can get anxious but I’ve learned to control it.
Over a month ago I started getting really bad bloating in my stomach and fatigue. My old hypochondriac self came back and convinced myself I had colon cancer or pancreas cancer and it was all I could think about (tiredness, bloating, constipation-diarrhea, back pains…) until a few days ago, out of nowhere my legs went weak and a bit twitchy. It’s as almost if they want to move it’s a strange sensation and they feel heavy. Just yesterday my arms are doing the same thing and my thumb wont stop twitching. I’m very tired all of the time even though I sleep well, I have been taking walks to see if the exercise helps but my legs just feel heavy. I decided to look up my symptoms (I know) and it said MS/ALS, all I can think about is this and it’s taking over completely, I keep thinking what if I do have it and how my life will be and I’m so young and am now panicking about it and it’s putting me on edge. I have an appointment with a neurologist in January and I’m scared of the diagnosis. I keep reading bad things about these diseases and I’m petrified!
Has anybody ever had this and does it go away? I really hope it’s nothing and that it goes away completely.
Thank you!
i’m sorry you are going through this. But I just wanted to let you know that so many people on this site who have similar symptoms all self diagnose themselves and it usually ends up being that they are convinced they have MS or ALS. that’s because anxiety and stress tend to show symptoms in the nervous system.
actually I admit I did the same thing and that was back when nobody was using the Internet! Can you imagine how scared I was when I had absolutely no support for this and none of my questions answered? My parents were very supportive but they didn’t know much about it.
Anyway, all my testing ended up being normal. My symptoms were very similar to yours. I had such weakness I couldn’t get off the couch, I had muscle twitches all over, constipation, numbness and tingling in my arms and legs, floaters in my eyes, shallow breathing, and several more. I was absolutely convinced I had MS before the testing. But there still was no answer as to why this was happening. I had to really think about my life and then it dawned on me that ever since I was about five or six years old, I have had anxiety. I never want to leave my house to go to school, terrified of being around other people, never talked in school. I was always having fight or flight responses in my body. All of this had built up over the years until when I got in my 20s I had all of those symptoms at one time!
What actually happened was that the body can only take so much stress and it finally has a breakdown and that’s where the symptoms come in. The symptoms are not dangerous, the problem is unmanaged stress and anxiety. You can have this without even knowing it. You can feel good but still have that underlying anxiety. My symptoms lingered for quite a while but not as severe. But I wanted you to know that I am now in my 50s and I am doing very well. If I get anxious about something and I get a little twitch here or there or feel tired I basically ignore it because I know what it is. But I don’t get those symptoms like I used to at all.
So the point of all this isthere’s a saying that goes … don’t believe everything you think! Because most of our thoughts are not based on fact or reality but they are based on fear! Your thoughts are not a part of you. The other thing is please don’t Google because you can take just about any symptom and it can be applied to just about any condition, serious or not. anything you read on Google will not pertain to your individual situation.
Let those thoughts go! Took me over 30 years to learn that but I’m trying to help people on here because I don’t want them to go on in for 30 years. All the worrying I did actually wasted days and years of my life when I could have been enjoying it! Don’t do that to yourself. most everything that we worry about does not ever happen. worrying is like rocking in the chair it keeps you busy but it gets you nowhere and it actually is very unhealthy.
get on YouTube and listen to some great meditations and talks for anxiety. Keep yourself busy and stay out of your head! That’s one thing I had to learn. The odds are greatly in your favor that everything is going to be fine. I hope this helps. You are stronger than you think!
Hi Jan, thank you for your reply.
I do hope it is anxiety and nothing else, the weakness in my arms and legs is horrible, they feel heavy really, and the constant tiredness even after a good night sleep is just… ugh.
Thank you so much, your reply was very assuring.
Big hugs and have a lovely Christmas! xx
I havent heard of anyone dying from this, just be positive and all the best. It sounds fixable.
Hi,
i just wanted to share my fear on MS also. It came up out of nowhere and has consumed my worrying thoughts for almost 12 months now. I had an episode of vertigo last year, googled it and this lead to a self diagnosis of MS. The more I googled, the more I convinced myself this is what caused the vertigo. From there, I developed a host of symptoms from a feeling of ‘not being present/feeling spaced out’, lack of energy, tingling and burning feelings around my body and an aching calf muscle. I had an MRI on my lumbar spine to check for compression of ny sciatic nerve as I have back issues but this returned as normal. After 6 weeks the muscle pain stopped and I felt much better mentally for a few weeks. When the muscle pain returned, so too did the tingling and fatigue. Recently, my blood work returned normal again (although this doesn’t help as we are convinced it HAS to be something more even though we are petrified of hearing the worse case scenario!!!). Today, my leg is aching and tingling (chiro thinks it’s piriformis muscle sensations), both arms feel heavy/bruised and I have waves of extreme fatigue when I get so tired that I feel like crying. I am trying to acknowledge that my fear of MS is irrational and have been trying to take on a more positive mindset. One step at a time, you’ll get through it. Best wishes!
I’d also like to add, when I’m keeping busy, the muscle pain seems to vanish. once I make myself aware of it, the aching returns and so too does the fear. Along with that comes the spiralling doom that I have MS again. We are our own worst enemy.
Hi Sophie. Just wanted to let you know that you’re not alone. Im 28 and Ive been having the same twitching going on for probably 5 months now. Im sure you’ve gone through the forums and have noticed that a lot of other people have similar symptoms as well. You probably also have noticed that most people before having the twitching went through a period of high stress or anxiety (usually due to thinking they had a terminal illness). I spent pretty much all of last year convinced i had some type of cancer or autoimmune disease or something else serious. Everytime I went to my doctor everything would be fine. I had blood drawn multiple times, an MRI and a CT scan and they all came back normal (minus finding out i was low on Vitamin D). My guess is after 9-10 months of constant stress and anxiety took a toll on my body and now im dealing with this. Im curently on low dose Wellbutrin but that doesnt seem to be doing the trick so i probably need to go to my Dr. and change things up and find a different medicine or combo of medicines that can help. Not that i need to tell you as im sure you already know but just like Jan said try to stay off google. Google is always going to show worst case scenarios and as you know with having health anxiety our minds immediately fixate on those instead of all the other less severe possibilities.
At this point i havent been able to find away to get them to go away completely. I have days where they are less bothersome than others but havent gone a full day yet without having them. I have found that trying to keep busy helps a lot. When im up moving around and my mind is busy they seem to go away. However, when i lay down or my muscles are at rest they come back. If you are having trouble sleeping i have found having a bed time routine helps. For me i take a bath, put something lighthearted on TV, i take magnesium supplements, avoid caffeine and sugar and use a lavender essential oil diffuser. I have noticed this helps me get to sleep. I still sometimes wake up early feeling anxious but im at least getting 6ish hours of sleep.
I hope your appointment went well. Definitely let us know how it went.