I am new here, but need your help

[e88]

Well here in a nutshell is my story.

About a year and half ago I absolutely hated my job, and it gave me so much stress it was ridiculous. I woke up one day and had incredible chest pain and left arm pain, i thought i was having a heart attack. I went to the hospital, and they did their evaluation...EKG, Chest Xray, Heart Monitor, etc and everything came back clear. They said Chostochrondrits. Well i immediately felt better that it wasent my heart, and lived happy for 3-4 weeks. Then it came back, strong. Its been strong for this long now, some days worse than others. The chest pain is on the left side, and is anywhere from the top by my shoulder to the bottom of my rib cage and moves around. I have seen my doctor, urgent care centers, hospitals, etc thinking i have heart problems and it always comes up negative. My doctor says I have anxiety, and i agree I do, but i still cant comprehend how the pain can be so real. I am 24 years old, and feel like i have a body of a 70 year old due to the chronic pains. I admit my life is stressful, and I admit I have bad anxiety, but this is just so unreal to me. I worry about EVERYTHING, things I have never worried about. I ALWAYS think there is a new catastrophic failure in my body, most people think a sore throat is a sore throat, I think its throat cancer. Most people get aches and pains in the chest, they think muscular, i think lung cancer or heart attack. I am seeing a therapist, and he is trying to figure this all out. I have been on many SSRI's with no luck, and do take Ativan on a daily basis at this point to just get through the days. I get panic attacks, thats when I think im having a heart attack. The chest pains and arm pain/numbness never goes away, just gets to tolerable levels on some days. I dont know what to do anymore, just feel like im loosing myself. Does any of this make sense? Is this "normal" signs of anxiety? Chronic pains?

[trinidiva]

Yes!! At my lowest point, I definitely had chronic pain. Every day was something new, some new pain, some new worry to go along with it. I started taking a combo of buspar and Zoloft. I also, slowly, started an exercise program and changed my eating habits. By far, exercise has helped me the most. I feel
anxiety free after I finish my class, I wish I could have that feeling every moment of the day. I know a lot of people say they are scared to exert themselves too much with exercise, myself included before I started, but its helped me so much. I have now stopped taking the Zoloft, and I've cut back on the amount of buspar I take daily, and I don't have the panic attacks anymore. I don't have the chronic pain all the time like I used to. I still have to work hard to maintain a positive Outlook on things, and not to worry about minor things, but I'm getting better at learning how to do that.
Here's a good thing, you know your heart is healthy, since they did a full cardiac workup on you. Be thankful for that..that is something positive. Do you exercise at all?

[e88]

I really don't exercise much, but just recently decided I wanted to join a gym, at least for the cardio equipment. The biggest problem I have is whenever I get a checkup done, i feel great for a while, because my mind goes to rest, but after some time the pains come back and i start the spiral again. Its as if I don't believe the doctors, even though I should because I have heard the same thing from so many different ones. I panic and question everything, an ache, a pain, any feeling...its like my mind is on high alert and highly in tune with all activity in my body and I scan for issues. Seems like all the things i panic about are health related. I'm very thankful for your post, it helps to speak to a real person regarding the same symptoms i have, not just a doctor. I hope someday this can go away, its been so long and its not something I can live with, it needs to go!