Am i making my pain worse then it actually is???

[dizzy68]

is it possible to get a pain and just focus on it to make it worse? Because i think i may be doing that with my leg because the docter said it was fine but i am just always worried about it? It does feel tight and knotted can stress do this?

[MrGreen]

In a nutshell? Yes. If you read around the forum you will see that many people who suffer from anxiety have various aches and pains. Some run to the hospital thinking they are even having heart attacks. So we can feel a twinge and imagine the worse. Thus making the pain worse the more we focus on it. The mind is a fantastic thing. Love it or hate it.

[JSGeare]

A good question. In my experience, pain presents in at least two principal ways. There's the "interferring" kind, which interrupts whatever you are doing. You're watching TV -and you notice when you swallow that you have a sore throat. Then there's the focused kind, where you are thinking about the pain and maybe even rubbing the part of the body that hurts. Simply because the human brain finds it is hard to stay focused on ANYthing for very long (before being distracted by a noise or another thought or whatever) it is difficult to be always focused on the pain -depending on how bad it is. But as Mr. Green suggests, if we know we have a pain, we are likely to check for it more often to see "how we are doing" and this means that while the pain itself may be of about the same degree -we keep going BACK to it, mentally, and THAT makes it seem worse.

My 2 cents, anyway.

[Heather3418]

May I add, "my two-cents?"  As a chronic pain sufferer with Multiple Sclerosis, I do everything I can NOT to focus on the pain, but to keep my mind busy.  When you suffer from chronic continuous pain, it's actually very hard to distract your mind enough to concentrate on anything else.  How I wish I could.  I would do anything to be able to take my mind in another direction, but the pain persists.  Disrupting my day, more than I would ever admit to.

My only advice to others that DO suffer from chronic pain, is to keep as busy as possible.  Sometimes the little aches and pains can be ignored.  If you indeed suffer from chronic, long-lasting pain of any kind, it IS time to consult a doctor to find out what is causing your discomfort.  Pain is often under-treated in today's world, because of the doctor's fear that their patients will become addicted to the pain medications.

It is true that stress can make your pain or pain sensations, worse.  I have noticed myself in the pain that I have no control over due to leg spasms, that when there is added stress in my life, I experience more pain sensations.  So it can and does happen.

Thanks for letting me add my "two-cents," for what it's worth.

Heather

[moonflower13]

I believe it is not only possible, but very often the case, especially for chronically anxious people or anxiety-prone people. What we focus on immediately becomes bigger. And we know that the mind can do the most amazing things. It can make you see, feel, hear something that isn't even there, but that feels or looks very real to you. Worry amplifies whatever physical pain is causing it. The proof for that is that when we're distracted, entertained or basically occupied with something else, we rarely notice any physical pain, unless it's overwhelming. This isn't to say that we should dismiss the signals that our body is sending us, but we must know that we can, and often do, make things much worse by just worrying endlessly about them.