anxiety/ill how do u know!?

[lajjj]

how do we know when we are genuinely ill? i suffer with anxiety have done for years....i started on meds bout 10 weeks ago ... last few weeks felt good still some anxiety but generally felt alot better. but today i dont feel so good...was at work everything was fine then started to get a bit of a tension headache which i zoned into then suddenly started to feel weird and spacey...like i was going to colapse...got lots of aches and pains... head feels weird...neck /back hurt..one legs hurts! and when i sit and think about it i start to shake... is this anxiety or am i coming down with summit!? how can u tell the difference?! x

[harasgenster]

Hi
Sorry, I realise this is an old post but I remembered it being here and was thinking about it! I know exactly what you mean. I'm never sure which one it is. Not only the physical feelings anxiety causes but the power of suggestion is incredible. I feel genuinely extremely ill a lot of the time. It's not the symptoms that are associated with anxiety and sometimes there is something wrong as well but they are genuine feelings that are later proven to be completely in my mind.

For instance, I had a really bad cold in august. Other people had it and everybody agreed it was very bad and felt more like flu but I was lying down while I was ill and suddenly became aware that I couldn't stand up and then I actually couldn't. Every time I tried all of my limbs were so heavy they wouldn't move. Then my boyfriend came in upset about something and I needed to comfort him. Without thinking I got up to comfort him and about five minutes later went "Oh. That was in my mind, but it was incredibly real".

I have a few ways of working out whether I'm ill or anxious. First of all, temperature. If I have a temperature I'm ill. Then, pulse. If my pulse is racing I'm anxious. If I have neither and still feel really ill it might be in my mind. To test this I try not to think about it and try to do something else. If it goes once I'm distracted and once I've said to myself "I am not ill" - sometimes doesn't go for hours but does eventually - it was in my mind.

I've somehow just made it sound more simple than it actually is. It doesn't always work but if you're not sure you could have a go with some of this stuff and see if it helps.

EDIT: Just thought of something else. I've been told I have low blood pressure at the moment. But it's only slightly low. Now that it's in my head I feel woozy, tired and faint a lot. I don't know whether it's just small symptoms blown up by anxiety by I've started asking my boyfriend if I'm pale. That helps to distinguish the two. Again, there's a flaw here because you can become pale if you panic, but it might be a good one for fainty episodes which are actually just nervousness.