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.

Which is why in my experience it's better to be up front about anxiety, and describe everything you're already doing to combat it and to take it out of the equation.

GPs generally know absolutely nothing about menopause. The NHS has a very one-size-fits-all approach to menopause. I’m well into peri and my periods are regular as clockwork.

At one point my joints were so bad I was unable to open bottles due to pain.

HRT fixed this within 2 months.

Please have a read here (lots of good links on this site): https://www.newsonhealth.co.uk/

If your folate was under 3 they would treat you... NICE say this:

• However, there is an indeterminate zone with folate levels of 7–10 nanomol/L (3–4.5 micrograms/L), so low folate should be interpreted as suggestive of deficiency and not diagnostic.

So you could ask for folic acid - (5mg per day) .. folic acid works with b12, so if you take folic your b12 might drop

Your b12 is the lower end too - its normally 200 - 900 *Under 200 results in treatment .. Mine was low and took a lot of begging to get a therapeutic trial - but it makes me so much better..

Have a look at this quiz, and investigate, you might need to take care of your own treatment.. good luck

http://www.b12d.org/admin/healthcheck/diagnosticcalculator

Did you post yesterday? There was an identical post, lots of great advice on there.

If you do Botox or one of the other botulinum toxin injections, you could have toxin spread. These are symptoms of that including the feeling of being about to die.

I suspect your anxiety would be less elevated if your symptoms were taken seriously. Get a second opinion. Bring up some of the stuff raised here. Good luck OP.

I haven’t had Botox.

Make sure they check your thyroid too.

You’ve obviously never seen anyone with severe symptoms.
I will say, though, there’s a good chance of you having a heart attack with this level of stress .

It maps pretty exactly to covid or long covid

Did the blood tests include a full blood count?

I thought fybromyalgia when I saw the reference to burning pains.

I did precisely that Fellowworrier and was referred for CBT but the GP didn't take it out of the equation unfortunately. I was trying to ask about the HRT she was going to prescribe and she just batted my questions away as just anxiety, noting that I had read the NICE guidelines and that was a sure sign that I was over anxious. I'd just been to a work Menopause network meeting and they'd mentioned reading the NICE guidelines before a consultation. You can't win.

When did you have Covid?

With kindness, saying that you are anxious, panicky, hysterical and think you're dying seems over the top for your symptoms and I'm not surprised that your GP is putting some of it down to that. Are you on any meds other than propranolol for your anxiety? Perhaps it would be worth engaging with what the GP is saying to get your anxiety under control, seeing where you are and then reassessing?

Anxiety doesn't cause heart attacks.

It does cause lots of what doctors call 'non-specific' symptoms - things like transient tingling and buzzing and aches and pains that don't suggest any specific diagnosis.

A GP is not 'being lazy' by not investigating every possible and rare physical cause of these symptoms before suggesting anxiety as a cause, they are avoiding harming you by unnecessary investigations. Anxiety is very common, so is more likely to be causing your symptom than some very rare physical
problem.

It is more efficient for the NHS and safer for you to try dealing with your anxiety first, and then seeing if your other symptoms settle.

Have you tried any antidepressants? They are usually very effective for anxiety.

⬆️ this! Sorry to read you're having such a time of it OP. Hope they get you sorted soon.

OP, the constellation of symptoms you're describing are, to my knowledge, not really symptoms of any specific illness. I'd go with either purely stress/anxiety or some form of fibromyalgi or ME/CFS, which are also benign, albeit debilitating, and can cause some very scary symptoms.

If you're having appropriate tests done and they're coming back negative, I'd advise you to try not to worry too much. See if you can get small and measured doses of physical activities in between adequate amounts of rest.

I became physically ill at 40. Migraines, fatigue, buzzing/shaking with anxiety, no appetite at all, nausea, extreme dizzyness (felt like being on a boat), too tired to walk up stairs. I went to GP saying I thought it could be peri and he said I was too young and regular. He said I was anxious. I was, but had not realised quite how physical the symptoms were. I would not have believed it if I hadn't experienced it first hand. But the reason for my anxiety was perimenopause.

I did get better but relapsed off and on until I went on HRT 3 years later after paying for a Bupa menopause consultation. HRT sorted all my symptoms.

It could be something else but given your age and symptoms I would go to a different GP. There's no harm in at least trialing HRT.

I tested for Covid twice this week, both negative.

I had a full blood count which wasn’t normal. Haemoglobin concentration 112 (should be 115). Haematocrit 0.365 (should be 0.37). Red blood cell distribution was borderline top of normal range. This is why they gave me iron pills.

Erythocyte sedimentation 21 (should be 12 or below). They said this means high inflammation. Nothing done as far as I know. They gave me iron.

That's what my anxiety was due to Level45 (love the username btw!)

Xmas 2022.

Sorry it's Level75 not Level45!

What were your thyroid numbers, did they just do TSH or Free T4 too?

Yes, I think long covid is bt far and away the likeliest cause of everything you describe (including the blood test results).

We really don't know much about how to treat long covid, other than to alleviate the symptoms and hope it clears over time. Talking to your doctor about this would be worthwhile, because I think your anxiety is likely exacerbated by the not knowing.

Just TSH I think, which was normal.