anxiety

[emtw12]

why does anxiety make u feel so crap physically ?? everyday I get chest pains arm pains shortness of breathe and numb feeling in my arm! had it all months and it still makes me worry like mad! it's all on the left and centre mainly so why wouldn't I worry over n over?? ;( that's all that's bothering me mainly these physical symps grrr :( anyone feel the same n can relate?

[emtw12]

I feel fine other than these symptoms and racing heart occasionally wen I'm due to go places etc

[jessed03]

When you exercise, your heart races, your muscles go through periods of a lot of tension, lactic acid build ups happen, your oxygenation levels in the blood change, your blood sugar levels alter, blood pressure changes... And that's to name a few things.

Very similar occurrences happen with anxiety. In essence, you could imagine having anxiety all day, as being kinda similar to exercising all day.

Both would make you feel pretty horrible, and leave you with some nasty symptoms!

[Lee Grant Irons]

I feel fine other than these symptoms and racing heart occasionally wen I'm due to go places etc

emtw,

Putting this all together with the leg cramps you mentioned in another post, this all sounds very much like what I went through with my thyroid condition. Arm pain and numbness, chest wall pain, leg and foot cramps, anxiety, feeling like I could not take a full breath of air.

Have you ever had any thyroid blood work tests?

[cdfrank]

I have ALL of these symptoms and more! I have chest pains EVERYDAY which sets off my anxiety, heart palpitations, tingling on left side, twitches in my feet and arms, headaches, dizziness EVERYTHING you name I go through! My chest pains is the worst though they are the things that's making my anxiety the worst right now and like you said everything happens on the left side which make everything worst! And I been told I have GERD which makes all the symptoms that much worst! Why did anxiety have to come with symptoms? Smh I'm so tired if this

[Lee Grant Irons]

Sometimes anxiety is a natural response to the unknown. Sometimes it is enhanced by hormone and electrolyte imbalances. My autoimmune hypothyroid condition brought me all the symptoms you both mention, and more. The chest pain could be the GERD or it could be chest wall muscle pain. Hypothyroid can generate pain in the chest and shoulders and radiating down the arm. For some reason, it is typically the left arm. That's the way it was for me. I still get it occasionally if I get off schedule on my medicine.

Any doctor worth their salt will do a a comprehensive metabolic panel and a thyroid panel blood test when a patient comes in with anxiety in addition to any of the other symptoms mentioned in this thread. The good news is that electrolyte imbalance and thyroid problems are easily treated, unless its autoimmune thyroid, which makes it more challenging but still treatable if you find the right doctor.

[cdfrank]

My thyroid and everything been tested and the test came back with nothing wrong! What kind of chest pains do you have! I also get this other symptom where my body get hot and I start to sweat in the area where it got hot!

[Lee Grant Irons]

With my pain in my chest and arm, I could actually feel the soreness in the muscle and sometimes sensitivity in the skin, especially in the left arm.

These symptoms are associated with dysautonomia, which is a technical way of saying that your autonomic nervous system is freaking out a bit. It controls your heart rate, your blood pressure, your body temperature, your sweat glands, etc. This could mean that you have a hormone or electrolyte problem of some sort. There are forms of thyroid trouble that are difficult to detect by just the standard thyroid panel. There are also other endocrine system problems that could lead to these symptoms. You might need to consult with an endocrinologist if your primary care doctor is out of ideas. The good news is that if it is such a problem, and endocrinologist can usually detect it with more blood tests. And any of the possibilities are treatable.

The key here is that, if you are sure that this is not just all in your head but that there is something physically wrong, you should believe your own body and keep pushing on the doctors until they do something to help you find the problem. Never give up. It took me five years of pushing and more than 40 doctors to get a complete and accurate diagnosis along with a correct treatment that actually helped me feel better. Why 40 plus doctors. Because most of them decided it was all in my head. I knew it wasn't!

Having been through the gauntlet with the US medical system, I have developed helpful tools that people can use to benefit from my experience and hopefully have more success with doctors and sooner than I did. The first thing is to make sure you get copies of all tests that doctors do on you. The second is to leave any doctor who stops listening and keep looking for a primary care doctor who will listen to you, review all of your past test results from other doctors, and then set up a plan with you on how you both can proceed to try other things toward getting a diagnosis and a treatment that works. There is more that I have to share, but this is probably good enough for a start.