bruised feeling and pulled muscle like feeling?

[miniholly]

hi all,
im sure you're all fed up of me moaning about HA.
but for a few months now i've had this pulled muscle like feeling on my back going round to my ribs when i move sometimes. its okay after a good nights sleep and the doctors have told me its nothing.
occasionally i'll get like a dull pain under my left breast too which happens only on the odd ocassion.
all i can think right now is lymphoma or stomach cancer, although if it was that surely i'd know by now? :(
it doesn't stop me doing day to day things and doesn't hurt to touch, im thinking i may have a touch of IBS?
im really frightened as i've heard loads of horror stories about people going months with one little symptom and being diagnosed with cancer in its late stages.
i also have a bruised feeling (with no bruise!) on my right hip with sometimes switches to my left, its not painful to touch, only if you really press on it it hurts, idk what it is.
i know i'm not pregnant as my last period came fine and haven't had sex since then and im on the pill (have been for about 3 months now).
whats causing all these symptoms? my mind's plagued by loads of horrible things right now.
thank you for reading xx

[anthrokid]

Hello dear,

I cannot tell you for sure what it is or is not, only a doctor can do that, but I can tell you that it sounds very much to me just like muscle tension.

Remember, anxiety causes a ridiculous amount of muscle tension and our muscles are tensed so often that we don't even realise we are doing it. This, of course, means that our muscles are often worn out and sore from being strained with that much tension. If it's always happening in that area it definitely sound to me like you are tensing your shoulders and back when you are worried, maybe hunching your shoulders or holding your back tight. I do this myself and it can cause some killer back pain!

Under the left breast is also an area where I get a lot of tightness and aches. I attribute these to anxiety and muscle tension also because there's nothing else in the area that would cause that type of pain (as relayed to me by 3 doctors and my boyfriend who studies physiology).

What I can tell you is that it's definitely not sounding like a cancer of lymphoma to me, and if a doctor's said it's ok then try and believe them. I know it's hard but they really do know better than anyone else.

And IBS can also cause these kinds of pains because it causes you to tense your muscles as well in your stomach and back.

Try some yoga or meditation and stretching your muscles out a lot :)

[blueangel]

Also, I think the key thing here is that the pain is moving around. I remember having a discussion with my GP about this years ago when I was having similar problems, and he said that if pain moves around, it's much, much more likely to be caused by muscle tension or anxiety.

[miniholly]

thank you for such an informative answer amieekid blueangel :) really did put my mind at ease xxx

[LisaLisa]

Hi Miniholly

I think that you should trust your dr. What really is stressfull these days is that everyone has scare stories about people they know who got diagnosed with real nasty stuff too late to do anything...those thoughts freak us all all and I m sure they must cuase the majority of the basis for our health anxiety ....that and the internet giving us too much out of context info ( becuase lots of us dont have degrees n medicine!) about health problems.

I found that the thing with anxiety is that the longger we have it and also the older we get, it starts to manifiest itself on our bodies with aches and pains and we start to have zero tolerance for these aches like we shouldnt have any and there for there must be something huge wrong......I know for me its not the aches and pains that are the problem but me noticing and giving them too much attention
!!

Sorry thats so long winded hun

Lisa
xxxx:hugs:

[miniholly]

it wasnt long winded at all hun :)
the health horror stories really do frighten me as it always has me thinking "what if i have that right now" and immediately panic, feel a pain or two and focus on it for ages.
and of course every flu or stomach bug i get i think it's something sinister, just so many horror stories floating about these days and of course dr google (which i stay well away from these days!)
xxx