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View Full Version : Question about Random Pain and HA and fear management



lofwyr
12-02-17, 16:01
Hey folks, not super freaked or anything, and this is not a reassurance post, but more of a comment and query to fellow sufferers with HA.

So this morning, I woke up with this pain in my left forearm, right in the meat of the muscle. It doesn't really make sense to me, medically speaking. Not near a joint, and the pain comes and goes, and honestly, isn't like pain I recall experiencing. I guess maybe, if I am honest with myself, I am a touch alarmed, but not majorly so.

As the morning progresses, I started to worry about it. It could be literally dozens of different things, all of them benign, or I suppose, it could be, remotely, the sign of something terrible. I haven't googled in ages, and wouldn't start now.

So I chose not to freak out about it. I admit, it is kind of hard shelving the anxiety--shelving the "is it cancer? or something else?" Those ridiculous thoughts of an irrational and anxious mind. But those are real thoughts and real fears, even if not founded in reality.

As the pain comes and goes (it seems to almost pulse, showing for 5 seconds or so, then vanishing, only to return at random intervals), I tell myself not to worry, probably nothing.

But then there is that word...probably. It leaves lingering doubt, lingering sense of danger. What-ifs creep in. Anxiety spikes a bit, feeding the anxiety. Fear feeding fear.

These pains, I am sure, are caused by loads of problems, but what techniques have worked for you in telling yourself that the what-ifs are almost never the end of the world? How do you hang on to the reality that something like a random little pain that shows up one morning is not cause to set up hospice care?

montys
12-02-17, 18:59
For me it's about distraction.

I find some activity that will consume my attention for an extended period of time. If I have work to do, I start to do it, and once I get into the flow state, the physical sensations become less and less noticeable. If I have time to kill, I put on an episode of a good comedy on Netflix and that usually does the trick.

My golden rule is that if the symptom persists for more than a week (and for less serious symptoms like random arm pain, even two weeks), only then start to think about getting it checked out. The awesome thing though is that no symptom ever seems to stick around that long :)