Aches & pains

[popdisaster]

Hi there,

Just looking for some reassurance about various aches & pains. I've been to see my doctor quite a lot recently, who is very nice, to talk about my health anxiety which I have been struggling with for about 2 months now.

I had a thyroid test which came back normal, and he's not concerned that anything else is wrong, based on the symptoms I have described. I mean, I'm 26, never smoked, don't drink much, eat well and exercise daily. So I KNOW I'm in pretty much the lowest possible risk group for getting a serious illness... but even so, I still struggle with so many different aches & symptoms... sometimes it's hard to ignore them.

Recently I have had...

Tight throat, feeling swollen, hard to breathe
Sharp pain in chest
Headaches
Pain in lower back/buttocks/down one leg
Ear ache
Pain in lower jaw (although this could very well be a wisdom tooth which I can see half-emerged)
Feeling the cold / feeling tired / feeling dizzy or 'out of it'
Not sleeping well

When I'm thinking rationally, I'm 99% sure these are all anxiety symptoms. Because, as sure as clockwork, each one disappears once I stop thinking about it. But then another will surface. At the moment, the pain in my lower back/buttocks is troubling me, kind of near the tailbone. My bowel movements seem normal. Also, there's a weird achey pain in the centre of my back and a bit in the chest too.

Even though I know that most (or all) of my symptoms sound like classic anxiety, and my doctor has told me that he's not worried at all, I guess in moments of panic (irrational thinking) my main fear is that there must be something wrong... My main fear is usually cancer or something similar. I always remember stories in the media of people "feeling a bit crap" for months and then finding out they have something serious.

Is this likely or should I just completely forget about it? The doc insists that if I had something wrong, I would immediately know with some serious symptoms, rather than the stuff I have mentioned so far.

Any help appreciated!

Oh and by the way, I'm taking 3 tablets of propanalol a day and going to see a CBT specialist soon...

---------- Post added at 18:17 ---------- Previous post was at 15:45 ----------

Anyone?

[panickyme]

Sorry you are not feeling well. You are young and healthy, and you have been to the Doctor, try really hard to believe him. It seems if we do not give our symptoms to much attention, they eventually do go away. Hope you feel better soon.

[Annie0904]

I think these are all anxiety related symptoms. Like Panickyme said, the more we focus on them the worse they get.

[popdisaster]

Thanks for the replies. A bit of reassurance is always good to hear.

It's so strange, trying to comprehend how the body & mind can work like this... conspiring to work against you really. This is still all relatively new to me, so I'm trying to figure out the whole thing... what it is, why it happens, and how to fight it.

Last night I had really bad leg pain. It had been bad all day at work - fidgety, a weird feeling throughout one leg. And it's just so hard to ignore when I get symptoms liks this... my mind just fixates on it, more or less constantly. Then in the evening I decided to put together a new bit of flat pack furniture that I got delivered. It was actually really good at getting rid of my symptoms...! Sounds bizarre, but it was a good combination of doing something physical (I worked up quite a sweat lifting all the bits, screwing parts together etc) and completely occupying my mind - following the instructions, completing the task at hand.

Often I will try to go for a walk or cycle to beat the anxious feelings and pains, but quite often it doesn't really work, as I just think "the reason I am on this walk is to stop the symptoms"... and then of course you can't forget them. What is really good is to completely occupy the mind with something else - a task, such as building the furniture. By the end of that, my leg pain had completely gone!

So, that was a success, and I'm trying to figure out what I can do now, to try and get rid of some of the 'new' symptoms that have magically appeared.

Any suggestions welcome...! Anyway, thanks.