Is THIS anxiety? HELP

[student8913]

Hello, I am new here. I am a 24yr old white Female. This all started around a stressful time in my life, my boyfriend of 2 years was moving away which doesnt seem like a stressful situation but for me i sat and worried about it 24/7. I have never had a "PANIC ATTACK" which confuses me. About 2 months ago a week or 2 before the big move, I started getting sorness in my chest on my right side, thought it was costo or a pulled muscle. Went to doctor gave me pain medicine all other test including blood and chest xray came back fine. A week later the chest pain go so sever and it turned into a excruciating pain when i swallowed down near the bottom of my sternum. Pain radiated up my chest into the right side. It was so SCARY! I sat and thought about everything wrong with me more a month straight. Had numerous test more bloodwork, upper GI, gallbladder liver and kidney function came back find (I do have a kidney stone which I knew about). Well finally once my last test result came back "FINE" I have a break down. Thought if these test came back fine there has to be something seriously wrong with me or wrong with my muscles. went back to the doc for the millionth time and he said it could be anxiety induced muscle tension, possibly "GLOBUS" in my chest. I looked up the symptoms and everything made since, finally in my mind I was able to relax and within a week the swallowing pain went away after a month- month 1/2!

Now what is left is dizziness and sever muscle soreness that changes. For two days its my right chest and arm. Then it gets better then its my right hamstring and now its my left arm and shoulder with numbness in my arm and hand. I also have TMJ which i have had for years but the past month it has been at its worse with pain in my right here and the base of my skull. I sit up and worry its some serious muscle disease. Some days i feel better then out of no where a new pain or symptom pops up. The only consistent thing throughout these 2 months is its something with my muscles.

DOES THIS SOUND LIKE ANXIETY? Please help! I have started to see a school counselor but only 2 sessions in and the doc is hesitant to put me on anti anxiety meds because im so young but i feel like I NEED THEM and its making me even more anxious NOTHING is being done about it and it could be something more serious. I also started yoga which i have had soreness from, but the muscle pain was and is still before yoga or days after yoga its only twice a week!. Overall i am a happy person, I have a great life with family and friends mostly I sit alone though because of work and school and no family or bf live in town anymore. I just dont want to pass this off as anxiety when the symptoms seems so sever and its IS something I need to have checked? It causing me to loose sleep. WHAT CAN I DO?

[Dan Medz]

Oh God. I'm going through this now only with different symptoms. That's always the concern isn't it? We know we are health anxious people and we know anxiety can be responsible for a whole host of crazy symptoms but there's always that nagging panic isn't there ... That little voice that says "Anyone can get serious illness even anxious people." And then that makes you worry even more because now you feel like you are in the worst category of human being of all because your very anxiousness may be making doctors less likely to take you seriously and miss something and and and AND!! It's an unending mental hell the whole mess I know believe me. And what's worse is if the symptoms are caused by stress and anxiety you freaking out about them is only going to make them last longer and be more severe, causing you in turn to freak out because that means in your mind that whatever it is they can't find is advancing. It just goes on and on. I haven't had all your symptoms myself but I have had anxiety a lot of years and STILL it throws new ones at me every so often that I only discover are anxiety based after a ridiculous amount of invasive and painful medical tests. We are just very unlucky that many of these symptoms are the same or similar to very serious illness most of the time. Right now I have panic attacks where I just get so hot and can't breathe and my chest hurts and I even throw up like I have food poisoning! Also all my muscles hurt and are achy and I get weird body wide muscle twitches you can see in my eyelid, neck, side of head, back, shoulders, legs and arms. I suspect this is ALL caused by the extreme anxiety I am under but even though part of me thinks that my mind of course goes straight to hopelessly terminal illness like ALS. MS if I'm lucky. And that makes me freak out and then I wonder do I go to a neurologist and start the whole medical testing circus over again and spend out on that only to have tests come back normal and fear yet another horrible untested thing and on and on or do I sit here, try in vain not to worry and hope it all just goes away? I really don't know the answer but sometimes the only thing that calms me down is slowly eliminating scientifically whatever disease I'm worried I might have at the time and then move on to the next. Not really a solution as there are so many diseases that fit these things. It's exhausting.

I can't give you any real answers unfortunately because I'm in the same place but I do know that either way.. even if all this was something unrelated to anxiety.. EITHER way we have to take care of that anxiety because it is just going to constantly tear us apart and make things worse whatever happens. Maybe we even have to face and overcome fears related to our own mortality and let that go. I don't know how deep it goes for you but for me I am terrified of dying of some horrible hopeless disease as I have watched many of my friends go before me and that crippling fear fuels every health anxiety and every symptom medically significant or not.. that I ever get. I think yes, we should check things out medically if not only to keep the anxiety at bay but equally we need to learn sometimes to take "You are fine." as an answer.

Two ways I tend to suspect anxiety more as a culprit for odd and scary symptoms is when (A) They happen "coincidentally" during a big change in your life. And (B) you find yourself worrying about one symptom and then exchanging that worry for another within a relatively short period of time and then realising the original symptom has disappeared while you were busy worrying about another!

Anyway sorry for the long ramble. Mostly just wanted to say I know how you feel. Feel free to private message me if you ever need to chat/vent.

[Dan Medz]

Also I have had this chest pain on one side as well. After extensive heart tests and an endoscopy they found it was silent reflux (the kind where you don't feel heartburn.. Go figure..) Wanna guess what one of the major causes of reflux and digestive issues can be? Yep, anxiety.

But still my brain can't help itself but think about pancreatic cancer which is often asymptomatic and very tricky to diagnose until it's too late... *sigh* Never ends. There are just too many awful medical issues that exist. Honestly the more research you do the more you realise you can never really prove you DON'T have something horrible in it's early stages.. not definitively. Just like you don't know if a bus will hit you tomorrow or your plane will crash. I think until I come to terms with my own eventual death I won't stop wasting what life I do still have on worries about my health.. justified or not.