Anxiety Returning With Body Ailments

[SevenWolves]

I had a few months where everything was going well. My therapist informed me that I could take a break from therapy but we kept in contact via email.

About a week ago I started having chest discomfort. I have heart problems in my family so I got some tests done - EKG and Echo - both came back normal. I'm also having problems with Tinnitus. My appointment with ENT was yesterday and besides some high frequency hearing loss (he said it wasn't a lot) everything's fine.

Both my family doctor and ENT informed me that it could be my anxiety. I don't understand why it's coming back now. Nothing's changed. In fact I'm in a better spot now than I was last year.

I emailed my therapist yesterday to let her know everything that's going on. Anxiety runs in my family. I'm the only one with PTSD. When my sister has an anxiety attack I can physically tell. I do have hypervigilance but it's not as frequent as some other people have.

My anxiety comes out almost always in the form of body ailments including muscle weakness, shortness of breath, chest discomfort. I've been tested for just about everything so we already know it's the anxiety.

I don't know how to deal with it. I never get sick or body ailments so this is causing some major problems for me. I can't keep going to the doctor complaining just to find out everything's normal and once again it's the anxiety.

Does anyone else have there anxiety come out mainly in the form of body ailments?

 

['91 Girl]

Yeah, I'm 21 and have mild chest pains constantly because of it. I know it's the anxiety because it "travels". One day it will be in the center of my chest, then it will be at the bottom right of my rib cage, then the top left, etc... Very annoying. I also get leg and arm pain regularly, again relatively faint, more like an ache than a cramp. I have just gotten used to it, but it does worry me that one day, I will die or get seriously hurt because I didn't pay attention to some pain.

 

[The Albatross]

I get them when I don't do consistent self care. It's like electricity builds up if I skip or start sliding. When I get a body reaction I start running down the list to see what I've habitually been missing.

Have you been attending to your basic needs?

 

[SevenWolves]

I've been getting plenty of rest, meditating, breathing exercises, eating right. My sister's been helping me try to pinpoint what the problem is but neither her nor I can figure it out.

 

[The Albatross]

Sounds like you're doing your self care, if that's the case for me, I've usually got something subconscious running in the background I'm ramping up stress or anxiety about. How long has it been since you have been on a break from therapy? Maybe that's a possibility? Glad you're posting, hope you get some clarity soon. Usually my reaction is in my stomach.

 

[I Can Do This]

Hi! I think what you are describing is those pains in your body that always come back to anxiety, are remnants of old trauma. We have memories in our brain but memories also get locked in our body. The chemicals that are released in our body when we have intense emotions stay stuck in our body if we don't attend to them. All that adrenaline and other chemicals are there to give us the energy to fight or run - most of us with childhood issues tend to freeze. When we freeze, we don't use those chemicals up and release our body from their urgent messages. So we feel pain, stiffness, aches, etc.

I have a trauma therapist that uses Somatic Experience techniques to move those old memories out of my body. It really works. It has given me a whole new understanding of my brain and body and how they work together. With this understanding I know how to attend to myself better - and HEAL! Yea!

Does that make sense to you?

 

[SevenWolves]

I've been on a break since a week before Christmas. I'm going to have to do some intense internal work to figure out what's going on.

As for this being remnants of old trauma - that's possible. I'd have to start dealing with the trauma but I don't know what the trauma is. I have no memory due to severe dissociation.

 

[I Can Do This]

You don't have to have a memory! That's the beauty of it. Your body has the memory - all you have to do is sit down and feel what is in your body. Concentrate on it - does it have a temperature, or weight, or mass to it? While you have your awareness on it - just be curious about what happens next. And then follow that with curiosity.

I once sat for an hour with a pain in my back - I was so rigid like with intense fear - I just stayed with it and it finally released and I exhaled loudly and my back just stopped being rigid.

I never knew what caused it - it doesn't matter, you don't need to know. Your body is telling you it wants to purge something that is stuck in there - that is all you have to do, give it attention and follow it with curiosity.

 

[healthbuilder]

I get them when I do not follow the methods of self help or self esteem. I do prefer to do exercises regularly to protect myself from the anxiety symptom.

 

[SevenWolves]

Saw my therapist. Seeing that I have DID it's possible that one of my insiders is bringing the attacks on. We've also gone through a lot of the symptoms I've been having and I'm having panic attacks which are new. Seeing that nothing has changed with me we're still working on figuring out the cause. In other news I've found some clothes I don't remember buying so it seems like the dissociation is becoming a problem again.

 

[tartella]

Does anyone else have there anxiety come out mainly in the form of body ailments?

Yes, indeed, with a caveat -- I didn't discover quite how much my anxiety manifests itself through physical symptoms until I started physical therapy for actual physical symptoms that weren't anxiety-related. Confused? ;-)

I've got posterior tibial tendon dysfunction -- severely collapsed arches -- in both feet. It's led to hip problems, too. I've been seeing a physical therapist since January who noticed that beyond the actual mechanical problems, I had severe nervous system inflammation -- tightness in my hamstrings, calves, lower back, muscles that were always "on" for no apparent reason -- that calmed down through relaxation work and stretches to calm down my autonomic nervous system. After some of the exercises, I gained several degrees additional range of motion in my feet just from calming down the nerves. The more stressed and/or anxious I am, the worse my physical symptoms are, because my nervous system reacts really strongly to my emotional state. Breathing gets more shallow, heart rate increases, tinnitus gets worse (I'm 42 and went to a few concerts without hearing protection in my late teens), constipation, and so on.

One day I came into the office and told the physical therapist that I was having weird pain around the shoulder blade, but that I couldn't remember having done anything to it. Knowing how my nervous system is, she said, hmmm, let me take a wild guess, do you feel it right here? and poked me exactly where the pain was. Again, it was nerves. Relaxation exercises helped it immediately.

One thing that has helped has been to cut back on caffeine intake, as that stimulates the nervous system.

 

[SevenWolves]

Things have gotten much better since I last posted. My paxil was increased so the anxiety that tends to happen at night has decreased tremendously. An anxiety medication was added for day time use when needed. It's helped greatly as well. I'm also back to meditating and doing the breathing exercises and enjoying spring the best I can. I'm moving around a lot better. I've been pushing through the muscle weakness since I know it's all anxiety related.