To think I’m dying? Any doctors around? 🙏

[Garret]

Got worse over a couple of weeks. Tiredness. Squishy tummy and no appetite. Aches and pains. Buzzing sensations all over. Back and neck pain. Joints hurting and clicking. Muscles twitching and hurting. Feeling wobbly. Now struggling to walk because of muscle burning pains. Anxiety and panic.

GP is totally unconcerned. Checked me over and said I haven’t lost muscle strength, range of movement, tone or sensation. Took some blood to test for vitamin deficiencies (I often have these but never felt like this before). Told me to address my anxiety and referred me to the psychiatric nurse.

I’m hysterical. Imagining I have some awful disease. How can the GP not be worried when I have such severe symptoms? Please help me if you can.

Like I said, you're not dying!

The message was a bit harsh but not wrong. It's not bullying to not enable someone's delusions. You are intent on not accepting that your anxiety is the cause of your symptoms. Until you do, you will not make any progress.

OP's symptoms could be caused by anxiety or by a physical condition.

OP I stopped going to the GP for my issues as I felt he thought I was a hypochondriac as I had all these vague symptoms but no oblivious explanation. It was a physio I was going to for joint issues that mentioned psoriatic arthritis. I was trialed on methotrexate and symptoms cleared.

I had terrible anxiety the last few months along with other issues. I went on progesterone only pill and anxiety gone in 3 day together with the other complaints. My anxiety had a hormonal cause.

It is not wrong for the OP to consider physical causes of her issues before accepting them as anxiety.
There are lots of physical conditions that can cause these symptoms and they should be explored.

Good luck OP I think some people are being way too harsh.

@jazzyfips you dont know anxiety "is" causing her symptoms, you are guessing and being an ass to the OP because she wont accept your conclusion.

It's not my conclusion, it is her GPs.

But you're not engaging in treatment though are you? You're hounding GPs because you refuse to listen to educated registered professionals and instead prefer to obsess over yourself online and simply use GPs to fund tests in a desperate and fruitless bid to try to prove yourself right. (And yes, I am implying you're acting selfishly but mental ill health does actually go hand in hand with acting seflishly sometimes.)

What are you going to do if you don't get the answers you want?

You aren’t dying and your symptoms aren’t severe but you feel like you’re dying and you feel severely unwell. That is valid and understandably concerning! You don’t have faith in your GP but who is coming to see you later, is it someone different? Perhaps it would help to see a different person to have your fears heard and fully listened to. You may well have some physical symptoms but equally, managing how you emotionally respond to them is important.
If you can afford it, a private GP would probably cost no more than £100 and you’d have plenty of time and not be rushed to talk about your health and make a plan.

Excellent post.

And I had a bunch of symptoms including anxiety and night sweats, plus irregular periods and got dismissed. A lot of GP's appear to be useless around peri-menopause/menopause.

You have health anxiety. It is resulting in very real symptoms but it is still caused by your anxiety. Are you not on medication every day?

I am on anxiety medication. I am anxious but I don’t think it’s caused by anxiety. I have lower back pain, pain and burning in both legs and joints, also in my arms but not as bad. Plus a tummy upset. My best guess would be some sort of virus or maybe a back problem. Not anxiety.

OP - there's a lot of us here telling you to consider fighting for HRT. I've even linked something that details almost everything you've described as a peri/meno symptom. PLEASE at least read it.

My doctor just keeps saying it’s anxiety and definitely not perimenopause. Several posters here keep telling me I’m being ridiculous and wasting NHS time. I have a learning disability and it’s difficult for me when people keep saying I’m mentally not physically ill. I don’t know what to believe any more. Am I actually poorly and need treatment because my muscles and nerves are inflamed, or am I just going mad?

If you are under 45 with regular periods the NHS will not EASILY accept its menopause. But they will accept it if pressed.

You may have a bit of both the mental and physical...or all of one and none of the other. We don't know. Regardless: you need treatment.

I was in physical daily pain, being sent for scans for arthritis before they would prescribe HRT.

Once I was on HRT, it all went away.

I went in to my appointment with a list of my symptoms and a list of peri/meno symptoms, then they relented.

Just ask them to give you 3 months. Just three months to see if it helps.

Have they checked your ferritin stores?
I take an iron tablet and have B12 injections but my actual stores were very low.
I had awful painful legs.
I had to try 2 different tablets before my stores increased.
I hope your GP appt goes OK.

I was offered HRT at age 46 despite still having periods, and I was really sceptical.
However, within three months I felt much better in every way.

I think it would be worth trying to insist on having HRT and see if it makes a difference.

1 pill probably isnt enough to change anything. I was anemic in pregnancy and they prescribed 1 pill, two weeks later I went to see the midwife, I was gasping for a breath just walking up the hallway, she took a horrified look at me and said I needed 3 pills a day, my symptoms has gotten worse with just 1 pill. It got to the point where I was too weak to turn over in bed.

Even in this pregnancy I was straight away prescribed a higher dose to prevent anemia than I was given initially when I was diagnosed with anemia in my last pregnancy.

Some mental illnesses cause physical symptoms. We're not saying that you're imagining the physical symptoms or that you shouldn't get treatment, but that they are probably caused by your anxiety, as many of us have experienced ourselves, so the anxiety needs treating.

Please consider getting more help with your anxiety and give it a chance to settle your symptoms.

And this is exactly why you don't ask random people online for medical advice. None of us know you or your medical history. 99% of people on here aren't medically trained and the 1% who are can't help you as they can't access your medical records. You have now had multiple people mentioning many different medical conditions they think it might be which is not helpful for anyone especially someone with anxiety. It may be physical it may be psychological who knows this is something you need to figure out with your drs. This is not helpful.

Oh you poor thing you should’ve mentioned the LD. Ok, when dh had a breakdown he went in to out of hours a wreck and the GP on duty had an MH interest he taught him breathing exercises and he came out so much better.

I know it sounds trite but meditation techniques like that really help but you’ve got to try it to believe the difference it makes. You’ve got nothing to lose by trying.

Youtube have loads of meditation videos on it too, treat it as a panic attack so search for panic attack breathing exercises.

The hardest thing to do with anxiety and panic attacks are believe it’s anxiety. It doesn’t feel possible that it can make you feel physically desperately unwell. My DB suffered with panic attacks for years and each time thought he was having a heart attack. Nothing could make him believe otherwise. He went to A&E each time and was temporarily reassured but next attack he was back to being convinced he was dying and headed for A&E. It’s a horrible thing to have and yes you absolutely do need some help and support from your GP with managing it. Two bereavements, one which was after a wrong diagnosis, is very likely making you super focused on something being missed and you being seriously Ill. It makes sense that you might feel this way.

if you haven’t told your GP about this, please do. It will help them to help you. Severe health anxiety and panic is utterly debilitating. Seeing my DB mid panic attack was awful.