Somatic anxiety?

[pAULspybeef]

Hello everyone,

For the last 2 years I have been suffering from what has been diagnosed as somatic anxiety by my GP, a neurologist, a consultant doctor and a pyschiatrist. The symptoms began rather suddenly one night in May 2011 following a rather stressful period in my life, including the death of my Mother-in-law, promotion at work and an increase in stress and workload and finding out my wife was pregnant and worrying about becoming a Dad. I thought I was anything but stressed at the time.

My symptoms include:
- A feeling of weakness down my left side. It waxes and wanes but never disappears completely.
- Tingling, numbness and burning skin sensations. My legs and feet can tingle sporadically. My right side of my face feels different to my left side seemingly constantly. It feels different to the touch. My right arm can sporadically feel numb/odd/strange.
- Sore eyes and tiredness - From time to time I feel very tired and my eyes can get sore.

Although I am functioning reasonably well again after 3 months off work at the very beginning of 2012, I continue to be concerned by the symptoms, although I have had perfect blood tests back and passed movement and visual tests etc with the neurologist (no MRI).

I would like to hear people's opinions on the following questions I have & would like to hear from people who have similar symptoms:
1) CAN Anxiety mimic diseases such as MS?
2) CAN Anxiety sometimes take years to resolve once in the vicious circle of questioning symptoms?
3) Has anyone got similar symptoms?

I would like nothing more than to be back to how I was prior to all of this hell! I don't feel overly stressed in comparison to how I was before, but read that such chronic episodes can come on after years of bad anxiety management.

I would really appreciate help from people on this forum.

Regards

pAUL

[Mogwog]

Hi Paul

YES!!!!!! About a year ago I had to have an MRI because my left side went weak, my arm felt weird and would jerk on its own, I also had very brisk reflex in that arm. (This worried my dr)It just felt weird and generally weaker . After various different tests I was deemed fit and healthy and it was due to anxiety and stress, which I had a very hard time believing.


So in short anxiety can have the same symptoms as all sorts of illnesses.xxxx

Ps I would also get the numbness and a very strange tingling in the whole arm. It was bizarre.

[cattia]

Yes, yes and yes. I had a huge MS scare a few years ago, and I had shooting tingling feelings in my leg, a weird sensation in my foot (best way I can describe it is it was like I had a piece of paper stuck to the bottom of my foot) feelings of cold and wetness on my skin and tingling, shooting sensations. These feelings would also come and go but never go completely. I was in total meltdown about it but my Dr wasn't worried, he wouldn't send me for an MRI as he was sure it wasn't anything serious. I saw an osteopath who said I had sciatic nerve compression. In the end other worries took over and all those symptoms went away. They have never come back since.

[jamaica]

It can take many years and can go round in a cycle meaning as you start to accept what as happened something else comes along and you go into reverse again

[Serenity1990]

Anxiety on its own? Not as such. However it can trigger various nervous system malfunctions, whether these be BFS, Conversion Disorder, some argue Fibro, etc. When this happens the symptoms are termed "functional", i.e. all of the nervous system is still there and is not diseased but it's functioning incorrectly for reasons not quite yet known. What is known is stress and anxiety is a major precursor to this. This is what your doctors have diagnosed.

I'm not a doctor but your symptoms sound nothing like MS and everything like FND - particularly sudden onset of left-sided weakness.

It's surprisingly common, it's estimated that around 20% of neurology outpatients have FND and it's very rarely misdiagnosed.

Some fantastic information here.

http://www.neurosymptoms.org

Oh and yes, I can totally relate. I'm lucky enough to have a referral to one of the two FND specialists in the country next month, which I hope will be the beginning of my road to being rid of this rubbish!

---------- Post added at 19:29 ---------- Previous post was at 19:21 ----------

Sorry just realised how old this thread is, was it really worth the revival? :scared15:

[pAULspybeef]

Thanks for the reply I'd seen this site and checked it out before and has some good info. Think the key message is no matter how unpleasant the feelings they are harmless. Mine gets worse at times but I've come a long way since original post in that I am dealing with it much better now.

[Serenity1990]

Thanks for the reply I'd seen this site and checked it out before and has some good info. Think the key message is no matter how unpleasant the feelings they are harmless. Mine gets worse at times but I've come a long way since original post in that I am dealing with it much better now.

Glad to hear this, best wishes for the future! :)

[Rennie1989]

I think with anxiety it can mimic whatever you want it to. I've seen people worried sick that they have MS, MN, a heart attack, a stroke, diabetes, a cancer, brain tumour, and lots more because of the anxiety symptoms they are experiencing. As a teenager I suffered from awful hyperventilation, chest pains and palps that I thought I had an undiagnosed heart condition, 10 years later I'm still kicking and screaming. And, from experience, the less you fear the symptoms and know deep down that they are harmless they stop being uncomfortable.

[NotCool]

Regarding MS fear, here's a good thread about it. It should calm you down:
http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/showthread.php?t=42556

Yes, when anxiety flares up, it probably was building up for some time, and it can equally take some time for it to pass.

Regarding symptoms, they are extremely versatile, and there's 100+ of them which can be caused by stress and anxiety.

[damianjmcgrath]

I apologise for reviving this old thread but this original post summed everything about me up perfectly. I'd never heard the phrase somatic anxiety before but it's perfect for me. I think there's two types of anxiety - cognitive and somatic. I've clearly got the somatic one which is probably why CBT had little effect because I don't have negative thoughts. I'd be really interested to hear about other people's coping strategies with this type of anxiety.