User8
04-29-2016, 01:00 PM
This is going to be a bit long winded, but I have been going through hell and I'm really hoping for some answers. Anyone with experience in this please help!
In July 2015 I was victim of a corporate restructuring and while I didn't lose my job, my position was eliminated and I was reassigned to a different role that I didn't like. This role was very stressful at times.
In August I started to get some neck pain. Very slight on the right side of my neck. Not enough to really worry about. I never thought to correlate the neck pain with the stress that I was having at work. Over the course of Sept and Oct the neck pain got worse. I still did not think it had anything to do with my work situation.
By mid November the pain was bad enough that I went to my primary care Dr. He sent me off for some x-rays which didn't show anything wrong. He referred me to physical therapy. After a few weeks of physical therapy things didn't get any better and I also started to get headaches, primarily lightheadedness.
Towards the end of December I quit physical therapy because it wasn't helping and I went to a chiropractor. She took xrays and again found nothing wrong, but recommended several adjustments per week. I did that for about a month with things only getting worse. Headaches became chronic.
In early Feb 2016 the headaches were so bad that I went to the Emergency Room one day. They did a CT scan on my head and again found nothing wrong. The ER doctor said it was tension headaches. I started getting sharp pain in the back of my head in addition to the headaches. At this point I said enough with this stressful job and I quit and got a better job that is way less stressful. This is the first time I thought about the neck pain being related to stress at work. Up to this point I had been stressed out, but in no way depressed or sad. I was getting tired of the pain because it limits what kinds of physical activity I can do, but I wouldn't say I was depressed by any means.
A few weeks later I went to see a Physical Medicine doctor. He did an MRI on my neck and found nothing wrong. He then did trigger point injections in the muscle in my neck to try and loosen it up. After talking with him I finally told myself this wasn't something physically wrong with me but rather stress induced. The injections helped a little bit with the sharp nerve pain in the back of my head, but did nothing for my neck or my headaches. He referred me to a neurologist.
March - first signs of some weird feelings coming from my brain. The new job is going great, but I had to travel for 3 weeks for training and while I was away from my family I got pretty lonely. I started having feelings of what I would describe as adrenaline running through me. My heart would race and I would feel like I want to jump out of my skin, for no apparent reason. I would wake up in the middle of the night with my heart racing and not be able to go back to sleep for hours. This really freaked me out. By late March not only was I having these frequent sessions of what feels like adrenaline running through me, I also got body tremors a couple of times. They lasted about 30 minutes and come on for no apparent reason. There was one time about 15 years ago when I was about to get into a fist fight with someone at a bar. My body started shaking uncontrollably and it took me about 10 minutes to calm down after the situation was defused. That is the only time in my life (now 35) that I have felt those tremors. What I am having now feels like that, just less severe. It is just minor shaking now, but I get it every couple of days for about 30 minutes.
About 3 weeks ago (early April 2016) I got into see the neurologist for the headaches. She said that is nerve pain in the back of my head causing the headaches and prescribed nortriptyline 50mg per day. I started on 25mg per day for a week, then upped it to 50mg. I am now 19 days on nortriptyline and I feel no different. I still have the muscle pain in my neck (massage therapist says the muscle on the right side of my neck is super tight like a rope). I still have the nerve pain in the back of my head. I still have the constant headache/lightheadedness. This has been going on since August 2015. I did not feel any signs of anxiety until March 2016.
Does this sound like anxiety? I do not feel depressed, except the fact that I can't do much because of my constant headache. I'm in a great job now that does not stress me out. I've got a great support system with my wife and kids who all love me. Life should be GREAT! But I can't get this damn neck/head pain to go away. No doctors can seem to find anything physically wrong with me other than telling me my neck muscles are super tight.
If this is anxiety, has anyone else developed a chronic physical pain that resulted from something mental that happened in the past?
In July 2015 I was victim of a corporate restructuring and while I didn't lose my job, my position was eliminated and I was reassigned to a different role that I didn't like. This role was very stressful at times.
In August I started to get some neck pain. Very slight on the right side of my neck. Not enough to really worry about. I never thought to correlate the neck pain with the stress that I was having at work. Over the course of Sept and Oct the neck pain got worse. I still did not think it had anything to do with my work situation.
By mid November the pain was bad enough that I went to my primary care Dr. He sent me off for some x-rays which didn't show anything wrong. He referred me to physical therapy. After a few weeks of physical therapy things didn't get any better and I also started to get headaches, primarily lightheadedness.
Towards the end of December I quit physical therapy because it wasn't helping and I went to a chiropractor. She took xrays and again found nothing wrong, but recommended several adjustments per week. I did that for about a month with things only getting worse. Headaches became chronic.
In early Feb 2016 the headaches were so bad that I went to the Emergency Room one day. They did a CT scan on my head and again found nothing wrong. The ER doctor said it was tension headaches. I started getting sharp pain in the back of my head in addition to the headaches. At this point I said enough with this stressful job and I quit and got a better job that is way less stressful. This is the first time I thought about the neck pain being related to stress at work. Up to this point I had been stressed out, but in no way depressed or sad. I was getting tired of the pain because it limits what kinds of physical activity I can do, but I wouldn't say I was depressed by any means.
A few weeks later I went to see a Physical Medicine doctor. He did an MRI on my neck and found nothing wrong. He then did trigger point injections in the muscle in my neck to try and loosen it up. After talking with him I finally told myself this wasn't something physically wrong with me but rather stress induced. The injections helped a little bit with the sharp nerve pain in the back of my head, but did nothing for my neck or my headaches. He referred me to a neurologist.
March - first signs of some weird feelings coming from my brain. The new job is going great, but I had to travel for 3 weeks for training and while I was away from my family I got pretty lonely. I started having feelings of what I would describe as adrenaline running through me. My heart would race and I would feel like I want to jump out of my skin, for no apparent reason. I would wake up in the middle of the night with my heart racing and not be able to go back to sleep for hours. This really freaked me out. By late March not only was I having these frequent sessions of what feels like adrenaline running through me, I also got body tremors a couple of times. They lasted about 30 minutes and come on for no apparent reason. There was one time about 15 years ago when I was about to get into a fist fight with someone at a bar. My body started shaking uncontrollably and it took me about 10 minutes to calm down after the situation was defused. That is the only time in my life (now 35) that I have felt those tremors. What I am having now feels like that, just less severe. It is just minor shaking now, but I get it every couple of days for about 30 minutes.
About 3 weeks ago (early April 2016) I got into see the neurologist for the headaches. She said that is nerve pain in the back of my head causing the headaches and prescribed nortriptyline 50mg per day. I started on 25mg per day for a week, then upped it to 50mg. I am now 19 days on nortriptyline and I feel no different. I still have the muscle pain in my neck (massage therapist says the muscle on the right side of my neck is super tight like a rope). I still have the nerve pain in the back of my head. I still have the constant headache/lightheadedness. This has been going on since August 2015. I did not feel any signs of anxiety until March 2016.
Does this sound like anxiety? I do not feel depressed, except the fact that I can't do much because of my constant headache. I'm in a great job now that does not stress me out. I've got a great support system with my wife and kids who all love me. Life should be GREAT! But I can't get this damn neck/head pain to go away. No doctors can seem to find anything physically wrong with me other than telling me my neck muscles are super tight.
If this is anxiety, has anyone else developed a chronic physical pain that resulted from something mental that happened in the past?