Anxiety and Psychosomatic Pain?

[SunnyHours]

Hi everyone!

I finally saw a doctor that was willing to help me. Although I presented multiple times at the clinic for chronic back pain and other moving pains.
The doctor asked me a bunch of question, and she's pretty sure it's all because of my anxiety. I believe I have some kind of Fibromyalgia or CFS...
Anyways, I'm gonna give her a try, even though she seemed to think the only thing I wanted was drugs...she and I had a long discussion about my drug use.
I made a point to tell her it was mostly in the past (abuse). As now I mostly self-medicate (since no doctors seemed to wanna help me), I use medicinal Cannabis and pain relievers in Medical doses.

She now wants me to stop using Tobacco (Snus, not dip,chew or cigarettes) and Cannabis to start me on an anti-depressant.
Funny thing is I know that Cannabis (it helps in a major way) did not make me anxious, nor do I think the anxiety gives me pain. I think the pain caused the anxiety.
Also, I've had very bad experiences with anti-depressants. So it's kinda ironic to put me on them since that's what makes me even more anxious hehe

She gave me a small prescription of Klonopin 0.5mg for sleep. Although it doesn't help me to sleep, which I think even keeps me from sleeping as it makes me feel more normal, not as on edge...it does help the anxiety BIG TIME during the day.
When she gave me the prescription she even said "don't sell these to your friends" which I found borderline insulting...

I'm ready to try and quit the Cannabis for 1 or 2 months to see if it'll help though. But the anti-depressant scare the sh*it out of me! And I'm not ready to quit Snus (just quit smoking).
She also put me on sick leave at work for a month. Which is kinda of stressful, since that's gonna be almost 5 weeks without pay :(

Do you guys have any pain induced by your anxiety? Like back pains and other deep pains moving around your body like arms, knees, hips, ankles and feet?
Either way I'll keep working with her and see how things get on.

Thanks a bunch guys for your answers in advance as all this is quite stressful

[Dweeb]

Yeah ive had hip pain for about 2 weeks now and had serious bad backache today its all down to anxiety and the more u focus and worry about it the more pronounced the pain will become

[tailspin]

Hi SunnyHours, I have chronic back pain, but it's always in the same place. It doesn't move around as you describe. I'm sure my back pain is stress-related.

Psychosomatic pain is one of those vicious cycles because it tends to fuel depression and anxiety and then you end up not knowing which came first, the pain or the depression/anxiety.

Glad to hear the Klonopin is helping with your anxiety!

[SunnyHours]

Actually the low back pain is always present. It's the numbing dull pain in my arm, the throbbing hips, achey fingers and the feeling of having my knees crushed. I also get electric shocks in spine that doesn't go down the leg (not sciatica).
All these other pains come and go as they please, without any reason for them being there in the first place.

I'm sure the anxiety isn't helping, since I now have some tight muscles in my neck and shoulders. I have to mention that I have had these pains for 3-4 years now, though they were much milder in the beginning. I also complained a lot knee pain when I was younger, 6-8 years ago.

Around 4 months ago I also started to get panic attacks when it was time for me to leave the house to go to work.

1 step (problem) at a time I guess :P