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MS or chronic anxiety?

Posted , 4 users are following.

alison1985
alison1985

I feel sooooo anxious over this its unreal.

I gave birth 12 weeks ago. Since giving birth ive had pain in my bum and felt like i was struggling to push. Docs said it could be pelvic floor related as it sometimea affects me when urinating.

I put this down to trauma from giving birth.

I suddenly got really bad anxiety a few weeks back and it hasnt gone since.

My right eye was blurry. Convinced myself i had a brain tumour. Had an eye test and all the rectal photography etc and all was fine.

Over past 5 weeks ive switched 3 antidepressents....citalopram, setroline and now ive been on mirtazapine for 2 weeks.

Last Saturday i started getting slight tingly hands and feet. I googled it and saw MS. Now health anxiety has kicked in.

Since saturday i have tingly left hand and foot. Pain in chest and stomach. Hand pain/ache. Cold feeling on right leg, and this morning i thought the sleeve of my top was wet but it wasnt.

Saw doc on tuesday and he said its anxiety because ive read the symptoms.

Im not so sure? I feel awful and have convinced myself i have MS.

I dont know if id have so many MS symptoms at once if i really did have it?

Could anxiety cause this?

Help :-(

1 like, 3 replies

3 Replies

  • Dcltr
    Dcltr alison1985

    Posted

    Hi Alison.

    Unfortunately I can't say whether or not your symptoms are a result of MS but I can say I'm going through the exact same thing and I know how tough it can be.

    About 3 months ago I started having similar symptoms. Tingling, weakness in my left leg etc and I made the awful mistake of searching my symptoms which through me into a dark hole of constant worry and anxiety.

    As a result I decided best to get a couple of tests done and speak to a professional about health anxiety. I had a brain and c spine mri which came back clear and made me feel great. But then the symptoms remained and made me worry more. What if they got it wrong? What if the neurologist read it incorrectly? So I saw a second neurologist who did some basic tests, had a look at my scans and mentioned it was unlikely to be MS.

    Even still, because anxiety makes you ignore all logic you still think.. But what if? So I've still got worries and have even developed hand tremors which do not affect my day to day living but are annoying.

    The other part of this was learning from a professional about anxiety. I won't go too deep into it but one of the things which helped me most was he drew me a picture of the brain and explained a certain section that starts the flight or fight side of anxiety. The example he gave was that this is meant to kick in when you feel in danger etc but constant worry and stress can set it to auto pilot, causing havoc on your body and mind. He used an example of how when driving a car, you just do it... You don't seem to think about every turn, indication, brake etc.. Your brain just knows. The same thing can happen with worry and anxiety. With too much stress you can put that section into overdrive and teach your brain to allow it to stay active, causing more worry and symptoms.

    It's a vicious cycle but day by day I'm trying to see it logically and accept what I've been told.

    Sorry I couldn't be of more help but another thing that helped me was this thread on an anxiety forum. Give it a read if you have a chance.

    http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/showthread.php?t=42556

    All the best,

    David.

  • joanne19156
    joanne19156 alison1985

    Posted

    It's best not to get too anxious you have been through a traumatic experience see if it settles down if not ask doc for a referal to see a neurologist I've been having stroke symptoms so I'm concerned too if it's not mini strokes what is it could it be the start of parkinson's or ms I have pins and needles and less sensation in my right hand pincer grip is poor docs keep saying mine is in my head I've just had heart monitor 24 hours followed up with a heart scan I'm having mini seizures too
  • wendy80842
    wendy80842 alison1985

    Posted

    The short answer is: yes, anxiety could definitely cause this. The longer answer is that, having pretty much just given birth, your hormones will still be doing backflips, they take ages to settle back down. Also, antidepressants take quite some time to get to a point where they're properly effective, so I'm not sure why they've been swapped about so much. It might be an idea, to find some kind of relaxation techniques (online?!) that you could do, when you can, or perhaps try some kind of exercise. Get as much sleep as possible, I realise that this isn't always possible, but try (without worrying about it, if you can't). Remember, household chores will ALWAYS be far less important than you. As far as MS is concerned, statistics are definitely on you side, it isn't possible to say that you absolutely haven't got it, but you're way, way more likely to NOT have it.

    Take care

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