worried91
19-04-11, 23:49
Hi all,
In September last year I lost my job due to budget cuts and have since had the stress of moving house and my grandmother passing due to cancer.
I have been suffering from various anxiety symptoms since the end of October, including shortness of breath, light headedness, dizziness, mild confusion, fatigue and poor short term memory. Every GP I've seen is very satisfied that these symptoms were caused by anxiety and are nothing to worry about, and that indeed that worrying about them is the worst thing I could do. I had a complete blood count in November and everything was absolutely fine apart from an elevated liver enzyme level which I was retested for a couple of weeks later and was presumably fine as I heard nothing back from the surgery. Anyway, all of these symptoms have, for the most part now passed although I do still feel a little lightheaded on occasion.
However, at the start of this month I began to suffer from randomly jerking muscles all over my body, primarily in my legs but also in my arms and abdomen. The jerks are mostly very minor and 99.9% are invisible to everyone except me. Stupidly I consulted Dr Google and Dr Wikipedia and was told that this was myoclonus, which means I could have CJD or ALS. Despite the logical part of my brain realising these diseases are unbelievably rare, and my symptoms don't really fit with them anyway, I became obsessed with the thought I had something awful. These symptoms also passed upon reassurance from my GP that they were not myoclonus, as myoclonic jerks would be very severe and noticable to others, and whatever they were they were not the presenting symptoms of some unspeakably awful incurable disease. He also insisted that I stop using the internet to attempt to self-diagnose. I did ask for a blood test as I've heard that low levels of various things can cause these symptoms, but as I had one in November he says it is highly unlikely anything will have changed.
However since last Thursday or Friday I have felt my anxiety levels increase again and the muscular twitching has returned, this time in the back of my neck which is much more irritating and harder to ignore. It seems to be worse when I am tired and improves considerably when I am busy and my mind is occupied. I'm sure I could run back down to the doctor's surgery tomorrow and feel a lot better but I'm sick of going down there every week.
I was wondering if anyone else has had these problems and could reassure me that I'm not alone as all the websites I've used (yes I know I should have stopped Googling!) don't list muscle jerking as a symptom of anxiety.
Sorry for a very long and boring first post!
Cheers :)
In September last year I lost my job due to budget cuts and have since had the stress of moving house and my grandmother passing due to cancer.
I have been suffering from various anxiety symptoms since the end of October, including shortness of breath, light headedness, dizziness, mild confusion, fatigue and poor short term memory. Every GP I've seen is very satisfied that these symptoms were caused by anxiety and are nothing to worry about, and that indeed that worrying about them is the worst thing I could do. I had a complete blood count in November and everything was absolutely fine apart from an elevated liver enzyme level which I was retested for a couple of weeks later and was presumably fine as I heard nothing back from the surgery. Anyway, all of these symptoms have, for the most part now passed although I do still feel a little lightheaded on occasion.
However, at the start of this month I began to suffer from randomly jerking muscles all over my body, primarily in my legs but also in my arms and abdomen. The jerks are mostly very minor and 99.9% are invisible to everyone except me. Stupidly I consulted Dr Google and Dr Wikipedia and was told that this was myoclonus, which means I could have CJD or ALS. Despite the logical part of my brain realising these diseases are unbelievably rare, and my symptoms don't really fit with them anyway, I became obsessed with the thought I had something awful. These symptoms also passed upon reassurance from my GP that they were not myoclonus, as myoclonic jerks would be very severe and noticable to others, and whatever they were they were not the presenting symptoms of some unspeakably awful incurable disease. He also insisted that I stop using the internet to attempt to self-diagnose. I did ask for a blood test as I've heard that low levels of various things can cause these symptoms, but as I had one in November he says it is highly unlikely anything will have changed.
However since last Thursday or Friday I have felt my anxiety levels increase again and the muscular twitching has returned, this time in the back of my neck which is much more irritating and harder to ignore. It seems to be worse when I am tired and improves considerably when I am busy and my mind is occupied. I'm sure I could run back down to the doctor's surgery tomorrow and feel a lot better but I'm sick of going down there every week.
I was wondering if anyone else has had these problems and could reassure me that I'm not alone as all the websites I've used (yes I know I should have stopped Googling!) don't list muscle jerking as a symptom of anxiety.
Sorry for a very long and boring first post!
Cheers :)