I don't have any physical pain... physically, I am fit and healthy. I just did 20km's this week, speed walking and starting to throw in running again, which I haven't done in many years.
If I don't exercise and stay active, then yes, I do get sore. That isn't PTSD though, that is the human body. If we don't use it, it stops functioning as well. The evidence now keeping people alive longer by getting elderly exercising daily, is proof enough how much using your body is required to keep it going.
Some people have pain for different things though, ie. from accidents or genetic issues, and that is vastly different and legitimate. There is also somatic pain, which whilst rare, can be debilitating only due to symptoms based on trauma. For example, when a female is raped, it's not uncommon that when triggered and a symptom/s spike, they feel vaginal pain suddenly. Or if anal raped, anal pain.
If a person is over-weight, then its normal for them to have severe pain. When they lose that weight, they suddenly realise where that pain was coming from, being over-weight; as our body is not designed to carry excessive body fat.
All depends what pain is from...
My mother and two sisters, none of which have PTSD, all have pain because they're all obese. There bones are not capable to carry the weight they have... and whilst two of them make every excuse under the sun for the weight, you will often see them eating junk they have stashed away for late at night. They don't exercise and eat loads of junk. One sister is honest, she just enjoys fatty food and doesn't care about being obese... she likes to eat crap and can admit it. She simply says to me... I am going to die happy, eating and living my life how I enjoy. She isn't in denial... my mother and older sister, both in denial and go directly to the thyroid as an excuse for eating that packet of chocolate biscuits in 30 minutes.
Then you have age... the older you get the slower your metabolism typically... so you MUST exercise as you get older to keep weight off and maintain a healthy body weight, even though you only eat little food and good food... you can do both of those things, but as you get older your body will simply not process that little amount of good food as well, thus you will put on weight, hence you must exercise to aid your bodies metabolism to lose and maintain a healthy weight.
Where do you fit with pain Srain? Is it overweight or is it accident / genetic / age related, with medical validity?
I have all the diagnostic symptoms of severe PTSD (originally determined by a psychiatrist and a psychologist), but is there any other mental illness, that you are aware of, which can mimic the symptoms of PTSD?
No. There is only Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), which is not mental, but physical, which mimics PTSD symptoms near exactly.
There are a lot of other disorders that cross over with symptoms. PTSD is given when it fits the best, being, you have endured abnormal trauma and exhibit the symptoms clusters within the diagnosis. You may cross into other diagnosis, but you will always fit one better than another. Further diagnoses are then given as comorbid, if relevant... which cover additional symptoms outside of PTSD.
That is until we processed one of the times I was raped when I was 7 years old. During that session it centered intensely in my left shoulder and shoulder blade, felt literally like someone was forcefully bending my arm backward behind my back further than it should go. I flashed on a new memory of the rapist doing exactly that. It hurt so badly it made me nauseous. I have had pain there as long as I can remember, even the PT didn't completely remove it. Once we finished processing that particular rape it was like the pain melted away. I realized when I was driving home that the knot in my left shoulder was gone.
Exactly... which all comes back to the trauma being processed. You can try every pain remedy you want for somatic pain that is related to a trauma, but unless you process and identify why that pain exists, if somatic based on a trauma, then that pain won't go anywhere.
Pain is an isolation game. If weight is not a factor, then past injury or medical must be ruled out, then you're left with psychological pain, which is far more difficult to find and treat than any other. Sometimes, it can be a combination of weight, past injury / medical and psychological.
