Health Anxiety is suffocating me

[Bhamgirl]

Hi all,

This is my first post, and quite frankly I don't know where to begin. I'm scared, hopeless, and remain unconvinced that all of my physical symptoms are anxiety related. So, I'm hoping that others here can relate to my specific symptoms and provide some much needed reassurance that I don't have any serious illness.

I will preface this by saying that I KNOW I am suffering with a great deal of stress and have for many years now. I am currently in Physician Assistant school, and the program is intense to say the least. I am also a wife and mother to two children (ages 10 and 7). My symptoms began this summer when I started school and was working 12-14 hour days. The most bothersome symptoms have been:

Body wide trembling, especially in hands and legs
Trembling and weak feeling in my legs, "jelly legs"
and the most troubling is a twitching, involuntary movements in my right pinky toe

All of these symptoms are primarily right sided, and that's where my medical brain kicks in and tries to convince me that anxiety typically presents bilaterally. This has me terrified. I'm not sleeping. I'm not eating. But I have to keep going because school and family mandates it. So I've been running on pure adrenaline for MONTHS now. My body and my nerves are completely shot.

I want and need to believe this is anxiety, but as y'all know, that's not so easy to convince a HA brain. I'm being suffocated by the worry, by the endless "what if" game. I can't stand it anymore.

And yes, I have been THOROUGHLY and REPEATEDLY checked out by many doctors, had all the tests, etc...but I still can't believe anxiety would present only on one side of my body like this. I try to use my medical training to convince myself of this, but it's just not working. I feel like medication is my next best step, but I've never done well with meds. Yet at this point, I don't see an alternative.

Any reassurance would be so greatly appreciated. And I am so sorry for such a long post!!

[Bigboyuk]

Hi Well Its a typical HA post seen many on here! Tbh HA can cause many symptoms and what I see is you are in right state and yes sorry you are seriously ill not in a physical sense but with your HA, its time to seek help for this and you can begin you recovery on a bit of reassurance you have numerous tests done and you have been given the ALL clear so seek help for your HA :) ATB

[Beckybecks]

I sympathize with you! As a HA and general anxiety sufferer for 25 odd years I can tell you that anxiety symptoms can present themselves in whatever way your mind decides. Yes we can have confirmation from doctors that there is nothing physically wrong but at the end of the day its our minds that need treatment.
My list of symptoms is endless and at first I couldn't accept that this was just anxiety. The symptoms are so real and so painful. But over the years I've realised that they never gor worse and never came to anything. This helped me to accept that they were indeed due to anxiety only. Once I accepted this they completely disappeared. Unfortunately they were always replaced by fresh and mystery symptoms, enough to get my HA going, my mind analysing and the anxiety magnifying the symptoms. Now I give mtself two weeks to see if I get worse before I see a Doctor.

When I read how extreme your anxiety is with loss of appetite and running on adrenaline it sounds so familiar.
Like you I'm bad with medication and in fact I dont believe its the answer. Temporarily, yes, to treat anxiety, but it doesn't help to get to the root cause.

You're right that your mind needs to accept what you find so difficult to believe. You are focussing on the symptoms at the moment so they'll continue.
Try to get some CBT therapy. Its very good at helping you to retrain your mind.