Can anxiety cause this?

[Ormonde]

In August I was a healthy 40yo woman who lifted weights and went on five mile hikes. But over the course of two weeks I suddenly became very stiff and achy with pins and needles and fatigue. The pain was so severe that I was unable to walk.

For the past month I’ve slowly been recovering and the pain has been reducing. I’m still suffering pain but it’s less severe and I can slowly walk about a mile now. Extensive tests have shown nothing wrong with me.

The GP initially said the pain must be viral. But it hasn’t gone away after two months so she’s now saying it could be anxiety. When the pain started I don’t think I felt particularly anxious. I did get very anxious when the pain was at its worst because I was scared about what was causing it. The anxiety has eased off as the pain has started going away.

I know anxiety can do lots of things and make you feel achy, but can it really cause pain so severe that you can’t walk, and which persists for months? If it is caused by anxiety, how do I stop being anxious when I don’t even feel consciously anxious?

Get a second opinion, I wouldn’t ask a bunch of strangers for a diagnosis

I’m a retired GP and would expect to have run a full set of blood tests to exclude acute arthritis, polymyalgia, menopause and thyroid disorder. If you have had all these and they were normal I’d think about a post viral condition. If it’s getting better then there is less reason to worry but anxiety wouldn’t cause this.

long covid?

I’ve seen four different doctors, two nurses and a hospital consultant. All concluded there was nothing wrong with me. Initially they said the pain must be viral because there’s literally nothing else wrong. But it hasn’t resolved after two months so they’re now saying it must be anxiety. But it seems pretty severe to be caused by anxiety and I don’t feel particularly anxious.

Is the pain/stiffness in your joints or in your muscles?

Thank you @TopOfTheCliff they have done dozens of blood tests and said it’s not autoimmune, not a vitamin deficiency, not hormones or thyroid, not diabetes, no inflammation markers, liver and kidneys are working fine, bone panel and blood count are fine, no markers in my blood to suggest any muscle breakdown. Then they did a neurological examination and ultrasound and there’s nothing wrong with me.

The hospital consultant told me today that they are discharging me because they can’t find anything wrong. They are all shrugging and saying it could be anxiety, or maybe I had a weird virus, but they don’t know what because I had no flu like symptoms.

Both but mainly muscles and tendons. Joints were clicking but that’s stopped now. Muscles are still twitchy and painful but apparently I’ve lost no strength.

I’m at a loss and hoping by a stroke of luck that someone has come across this before. The doctors literally won’t see me any more. They said there’s nothing wrong and I’ve seen multiple doctors and had every test they can think of. They’re starting to think I must be pretending for attention.

What were your b12 levels? The nhs have a stupidly low passable level, so you can be poorly but get zero help

Both but mainly muscles and tendons. Joints were clicking but that’s stopped now. Muscles are still twitchy and painful but apparently I’ve lost no strength

I know it's an obvious question but have you started any new medicines? When I went on ssri's I felt all that you're describing, but I was also experiencing severe anxiety so it could have also been that. On another occasion I had a bug and about a week later I was stiff and sore all over, mainly in my ankles and wrists and felt carpal tunnel symptoms too. Doctors believed it was post viral arthritis.

B12 was 275, which is towards the low end but they said not low enough to cause illness.

GPs say it must be anxiety when they don't know what it is and want you to go away.

I have endometriosis (was anxiety), IBS (also anxiety). Peripheral neuropathy (that was laziness actually).

What they mean is none of our tests can work out that it wrong, so we can't fix you and so we don't want to see you any more.

Incidentally, back in the 1960s before there were tests for MS, guess what that was? Either anxiety or a personality disorder!

No medicines at all.

Hormone tests are unreliable if you are in peri-menopause. I was at 40 and was on HRT by 41. I had horrific anxiety that I had never had before, as well as other symptoms that came on. It hit me like a train.

I would go to a private peri-menopause/menopause clinic as soon as possible to talk to medical professionals who know what they're talking about. GP's aren't it.

They said if it was menopause I wouldn’t have got really bad then started getting better. You don’t get better from menopause. They said I must have had a virus (even though I wasn’t ill apart from the muscle pain). Or anxiety.

Peri-menopause is not menopause. Peri can last ten years or more and it is marked by constant/regular hormonal fluctuations that can make life really, really unpleasant. My joints would be so sore I thought I was going to break. It was awful. I'm not saying peri is definitely what you have, but it wouldn't be unusual for your age at all. However, I definitely am saying to not listen to a GP regarding anything about peri-menopause or menopause.

Ignore the anxiety thing.

On a more serious note, clearly there is something wrong they just haven't found it yet or possibly can't find out t in the current state of medicine.

Probably the first thing I would do is check your results - vitamins, thyroid hormones etc against the world health organisation reference ranges. The NHS uses slightly odd ones that tend to report people are fine when actually they are not. Particularly for thyroid hormones but applies elsewhere as well.

Then, if you can afford it, get a private blood screen for all the common stuff. For some auto-immune diseases, as various glands etc burn out then the hormones vary over time, so a single reading is not enough.

Also, ask if you can be referred to the pain clinic. As you are experiencing pain, they can't really turn this one down and it's specifically for people in pain where either medicine can't do anything for the disease of where they just don't know what's causing it.

Can I just check about the problems walking. Was that solely due to the pain or were you having problems with controlling your legs as well? The pins and needles sensation is classic for nerve damage.

It can be hard for them to work out where the nerve damage is (if you have some which you may not) and it's not always easily fixable even when they do, but medications like amytriptyline or duloxetine will help.

@Octavia64 I had pins and needles sensations, twitching, burning pain and stiffness. No difficulty controlling the muscles. The reason I couldn’t walk was due to the severe pain. It has eased to the point where I can now slowly walk a mile, but my leg muscles still feel like they’re burning. My arms are stiff but much better and not as bad as my legs.

Fibromyalgia can be triggered by a virus like ME/Post Viral Fatigue can. It's a diagnosis of exclusion, so if all the blood tests and others are negative it might be worth speaking to your GP about fibromyalgia.

www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/fibromyalgia/symptoms-causes/syc-20354780

I know you mention neurology - have they done an MRI/lumbar to rule out MS? I have similar (pins and needles, burning nerves, stiffness etc) and could apparently be possible MS .. am on list

Functional neurological disorder?

Have a look into this, some of it sounds familiar. I was diagnosed with similar symptoms by a neurologist

I agree an MRI to rule out MS and transverse myelitis would be sensible. Having said that my younger brother had a weird episode of leg weakness caused by vitamin D deficiency. I found it hard to believe but he got better with vitaminD spray

I'm a psychologist and it doesn't sound like anxiety per se. If you were experiencing physical symptoms to that degree I would also expect you to be experiencing broken sleep, palpitations, anxiety attacks, confused thinking in some form. PTSD can cause physical pain, but that's not going to be the only symptom. Unfortunately, doctors like to use anxiety as a catchall for female patients they're struggling to diagnose. Everyone experiences anxiety, but the symptoms you're describing are not symptoms of an anxiety disorder, nor do you describe anything meeting the diagnostic criteria for an anxiety or panic disorder. Obviously there may be things you haven't mentioned, but anonymously with no professional fallout to deal with, I think you're being fobbed off. And anyone would be anxious going through those symptoms and feeling like they weren't being heard. That doesn't negate the physical symptoms you had before feeling anxious. I'm sorry you're going through this

Ok, so if no problems controlling muscles then clearly no motor nerve damage/problems.

The pins and needles, twitching, burning pain say sensory nerve damage.

This could be MS - do you know if they have investigated it?

Something like amytriptyline or duloxetine essentially "turns the nerves" down and will help you mobilise more as the pain will be less. You may have to get referred to the pain clinic for these medications though.

Re other diagnoses- fibromyalgia basically means you have whole body pain. You could get diagnosed with it but I wouldn't bother pushing for it as they'll only refer you to the pain clinic anyway and you have quite specific pain that is usually linked with nerve problems.

Functional neurological disorder again is something of a dustbin diagnosis - I'm diagnosed with this and with fibromyalgia - and all it basically means is something is up with your brain and nervous system that means it isn't working properly. They only diagnose this if you don't fit any other diagnoses and it's incredibly common for people to be diagnosed with this and later found to have MS or other organic caused neurological diseases.

Actually, sorry, just picked up that you said you are on no meds at all.

That's fucking disgusting. If you are in pain you should have pain meds at a minimum to help you mobilise more.

Shout at your GO for pain meds, and ask for amytriptyline for what is clearly nerve pain. Get a referral to the pain clinic.