Anxiety - Can It Lead To Real Pain? Or Is It All In Our Head?

[Moonshadow]

IBS
TMJ
Fibromyalgia
Interstitial Cystitis
Pelvic Floor Dysfunction
Migraines

These are all different manifestations of my PTSD.
They all hurt. They are all chronic and incurable.

The higher my stress level, the worse is my pain.

 

[judyandsus]

Anxiety can make you sick in many different ways. I have a spastic stomach caused by stress. Angina caused by stress. Headaches every single day. Yes anxiety can make you sick and cause some pain

 

[GR-ass]

I get tension headaches alot as well as aches in my back, hips, jaw. My shoulders cramp up and I have moments of sever nausea/diarrhea.

Boy its so much fun (there is nothing physically wrong, it really is all stress).

 

[xxarmywifexx]

Moonshadow,

I feel your pain, till just recently I didn't connect my IBS and Migranes to my PTSD. Anxiety is haunting...:(

 

[void]

emotional pain so intense it is also felt physically
physical pain so intense it is also felt emotionally
mind/body body/mind where does one stop and the other begin?

 

[Target]

I have heard that stress can be reduced by distracting yourself by using the right brain, then left then back to right. Google things that make the different sides of the brain function (maybe right brain/left brain activities), then rotate them. I've heard of using this to distract one's self from over eating, smoking, etc. It couldn't hurt to try.

 

[Mina]

I think that yes, anxiety can lead to real pain, and no, it's not all in our heads.

I woke up and threw up from the nightmares at 2am on Monday. My stomach was upset well into the evening even though I was eating soda crackers and sipping ginger ale off and on all day.

For me personally, the anxiety bubbling under the surface does lead to specific pain as well. A couple weeks ago, my husband and I were discussing maybe getting another dog and my hand just sprang to life. It felt like someone had just stabbed a big knife through it, so much like it did when I was bitten, and kept on for a while. The same thing happened this week in therapy during an EMDR set. My nightmares are often of my hand getting injured in some way other than the dog, and I frequently awaken to it hurting.

 

[Mina]

emotional pain so intense it is also felt physically
physical pain so intense it is also felt emotionally
mind/body body/mind where does one stop and the other begin?

That's a REALLY good question!!

I have trouble with the fact that western medicine seems so inclined to separate the mind and body with such a hard and fast line. However, I think it doesn't help that PTSD symptoms mimic symptoms of other things. I saw my MD for a physical shortly before I was dianosed...we briefly discussed the incident, but talked about the symptoms in detail, especially the fatigue and sleep problems. Apparently I fit the profile for sleep apnea *perfectly* - I even have a family member with my same slight build who has it. He was extremely surprised when tests showed I didn't have it, and luckily I was diagnosed with PTSD just after that...or who knows how many tests we'd have gone through trying to find out what was wrong, when the causation wasn't body-mind but more mind-body.

Please don't misunderstand me; I'm not slamming western medicine or traditional MDs, because I respect them and I think they have their place. I just think it's sad that many traditional docs are not more attuned to the powerful mind-body or body-mind connections which eastern medicine, naturopaths, and alternative practicioners are sensitive to.

 

[nemofightsfire]

I agree it does...

Real pain vs imagined pain...

I completely agree that the pain is real. The tightening of the jaw with headaches, the back and leg pain, oh and don't the insomnia! It's real.

 

[andy o'hara]

It hurts. For me it comes from nowhere, tightens the chest, brings a sense of dread and/or irrational fear, I clinch my teeth, feel trapped...

I guess, yes, it's "in the head," as such disorders are. But it's one of the parts of my PTSD that has gone up and down but always been there.