feeling like i'll never feel 'normal' again!

[wine lover]

long time sufferer of anxiety, panic, spacey, etc., but now have twitching all over (which I must admit comes and goes), but more worryingly is the constant tingling on the soles of my feet, and occassionally in hands. Wake up through the night with pins and needles, which sometimes disappear on movement but sometimes lasts a day. Have had blood tests, seen a neurologist, and had a MRI scan, but nothing can be found! Doctor admits he is clueless, saying could be allergies, hormonal, but now feel I shouldn't bother him anymore although I am an my wits end. Tingly twitchy life has taken over! Obviously have made the sin of Googling, my god!! Well I've had everything including Lime Disease, Lupus, MS (which is still a worry) Parkinsons, Motor Neurones, Fybromyalgia, hardening of the arteries, alcohol poisining (could I even be an alcoholic!!), the list goes on. I feel that once the word ANXIETY is written onto notes in the doctors, that's what they put everything down to. I swear if I broke my arm, I would be told that the cause of the fall would be anxiety. I'm sure hubby and kids must dread coming home to find out what part of me is twitching. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanx.

[Claesand]

Hi Wine Lover...

First, the anxiety explanation does not imply that you are making your problems up or that you could just decide to get rid of them. The bodily symptoms are neural, hormonal and all sorts of systemic by-effects of the anxiety problem. Hence, they are as real as anything else, but they are not dangerous and they do go away eventually once your anxiety is gone.

Twitching is also known as "benign fasciculations", most people get it from time to time, and it is very common as an anxiety symptom. However, it is valuable since it is a symptom of only one neurological disease: ALS. When it appears in ALS it comes well into the process of muscle atrophy, and it is definitely not how ALS is noticed. Neither MS nor any other of those diseases gives muscle twitching. So if you have a lot of twitches, the chances are low indeed that you're suffering from anything like that.

As soon as I have a longer bout of anxiety, the left side of my head, over the ear starts to burn and tingle. I also get small burning spots on the skin which last about a day or two and come now here and now there. There are tons of things like that coming from anxiety.

I finally ended up with a good neurologist who took my problems seriously. He told me that I probably had some initial smaller problem, and then the rest is due to anxiety coming from getting stressed up. It turned out that I had piriformis syndrome (muscular nerve pinching in the buttocks) that (imagine the dread) caused complete numbness over good parts of my leg (like a dentist shot), and then all sorts of weird sensations that came and went. Stretching keeps that at bay. The rest, he said, usually goes away with a good dose of antidepressants. Guess what? It did...

So my advice, from my own experience, is to get an antidepressant that works, and to at the same time start with therapy. Personally, I prefer psychodynamic therapy: its aimed at the whole life situation while CBT is aimed at managing thoughts. Psychodynamic therapy is much less flattering, even quite painful, and is demanding for the person being treated. In that sense it "works" less well than CBT, and takes longer, but it's all a matter of what effort you give it. It's aimed at fixing the problem more long-term. CBT "works" well in the sense that it often removes symptoms, but if the problem is well entrenched it is sure to come back once you've managed to outsmart the tricks you've learned.

Hope this helps! And that feeling that one can never feel normal again I'm very acquainted with... but you can, and surprisingly quickly...
Claes