Physical manifestations of anxiety and health fears

Mental health
1

First time posting, really struggling. I've been a functional GAD sufferer for years. Last year I had several neurological symptoms that literally scared the s**t out of me. They came on almost immediately after a scare with my daughter. Numbness, paresthesia, muscle twitching, arm weakness, tinnitus, spasms, balance issues, slurred speech. Testing for MS, MND, peripheral and small fiber neuropathy, all that fun stuff. No organic cause for symptoms. Symptoms slowly went away and then came digestive symptoms. Reflux, nausea, vomitting, diarrhea. Again fun testing and minor GERD and some inflammation in small intestine. No legit major issues. All this in about a 9 month span. Summer comes around and relatively symptom free through November this year. Then what do you know, work gets busy, boss is an a**hole, kids keep getting sick and neurological symptoms come back. I start tracking them and wow very similar symptoms, except this time much more twitching and all over body, no where is off limits. New symptom of muscle jerking. A week ago legs start cramping and arm feels heavy. Also have had 3 possible panic attacks while trying to fall asleep (gasping for air like I'm choking). My arms feel incredibly weak and shake when trying to do simple things. So stupid me Google's s**t again. And there ya go. Back to where I was a little over a year ago.

Trying to come to terms that this is all anxiety, my body is in a constant fight or flight, and it's manfesting physically. That would logically make sense right? Seeing patterns of symptoms in times of extreme stress.

Yet my stupid mind goes to the big hitters, cause you know my symptoms are exact. The big MND and MS scares. MRI in fall of 2016 and NCD/EMG showed nothing.

In my mind I think, what if they missed something? What if it was too soon?

Thanks for listening. This sucks. Seeing a counselor and starting meds again. Scheduled a neurologist appt , even though I really didn't want to.

Anyone deal with this? Really struggling.

2

Yes Beth

Exactly the same symptoms on and off for 18 years. Gone for months and been fine then back it comes. Had MRI for MS and tests for Cushing's. Nothing. I have been looking at possibility of Functional Neurological Disorder (see Facebook). I've been struggling every day for the last 14 months with no quality of life. Was really determined it wasn't going to come back ever again! Do meds work for you?

3

If you continously say 'what if' you will never beat anxiety and it physical manifestation

4

Hi Beth. 

In the same boat as you. I have severe health anxiety all after I got pretty ill with a recurrent intestinal infection and was experiencing weird side affects from medication.  Had a panic attack because of it and haven’t been the same since. My anxiety got so bad I now have depression from it.

I have loads of physical symptoms. My worst one is chest pain that feels like my rib cage is full and can shoot into my shoulder/arm, it’s scary and makes me feel like I am having a heart attack. I have bad tension headaches, body numbness, acid reflux... the list goes on.

Anxiety manifests itself physically very often and for people with health anxiety like us, it’s a never ending cycle. Physical symptoms convince us something more is wrong and cause us to panic more, despite reassurance from professionals that it is just the anxiety, which in turn causes more symptoms or worsens them. I am only 18 and have thought i have heart disease, brain tumors, HIV, pretty much every serious thing there is to have. My doctor assures me I’m fine but I too think she just is listening or that we’ve missed something. 

It does suck, a lot. Good that you’re getting the help you need. I started therapy recently but am a little weary about medication. Let me know how it goes for you, I’m interested in trying it. Best of luck xx