Muscle pains due to anxiety?

[hguess]

I have always been a worrier, but I think it is starting to get the best of me. I have been known to worry myself quite frequently, but not to this extent. I am a 21 year-old college junior and I have so much on my plate - too many hours at school, a job, an internship, etc. I have been under so much stress lately, and I haven't had any time to relax. I think I have forgotten how to relax. I also have a bad habit of looking up symptoms online, and then literally convincing myself that I too have whatever disease I have looked up. My Dad also had a heart attack a month ago which has just added to it all.

I have had 2 complete physicals in the past 6 months - one from my general practitioner and one from another doctor for a new job. Both included complete blood work tests, and everything was fine. My heart rate was high at my general practitioner's though, so they did an EKG, heart and thyroid ultrasounds, and I wore a 24 hour heart monitor. The EKG and ultrasounds were fine, but the monitor showed my heart rate spiking a few times throughout the day to around 150, so they think I have a mild tacchyrdia. It hasn't given me problems, though, so we are going to continue to monitor it. I have been working out at Curves 3 times a week for the past 3 months, hoping that will improve it, too. But my physicals were fine. A few weeks ago, I thought something was wrong with me. Turns out it was just a panic attack, but I went to visit my general practitioner anyway. He looked me over and said he had no reasons to believe anything was physically wrong with me. We made an appointment for a few weeks from now to follow up. He said we might try medicine or therapy to help me better cope with all my stress.

Since I saw him a few weeks ago, I have had weird tension in my back, neck, shoulders, and even into my arms that comes and goes. I have had tension headaches before, and it feels similar to that pain. It always goes away after a day or so, but it has been lingering on and off for nearly a week now. My muscles feel tense, sore, tired. It's not painful, and it's not interferring with anything. My parents think it's all in my head because of how stressed I make myself over EVERYTHING. It's mostly in my arms now, which is really weird. It doesn't hurt, though. They just feel sore, tense, heavy, almost weak at times. There are a few things I notice trigger the pain. When I carry around my heavy backpack for too long, when I'm sitting at the computer for extended periods of time (which I can't avoid at my internship or in one of my classes), or if I sit here and think about it too much. Like I said, I have dealt with stress and tension headaches my whole life, but it always goes away. I just don't know why it's lingering like this. When I go workout, I feel great during and after. I'm not having problems sleeping, either. It just comes and goes throughout the day, especially with those triggers I mentioned. And it is mostly in my arms. I just don't know what's going on, and I don't have money to keep taking myself to the doctor. Could this be due to stress? Or could there be something wrong with me? Wouldn't they have found something with my physicals and other tests they performed? These symptoms started showing up AFTER my physicals, and they have been lingering for about 5 days straight now. I have that appointment scheduled for about 2 weeks from now. How do I even bring this up with my doctor? It just seems like such a random thing, to have tension that keeps coming and going but it's now mostly affecting my arms. What do you guys think? This is just adding to my stress even more.

[unibaby]

Sweetie... you just described what happened to me last summer.  It was the scariest time in my life.  I had every test run that I could, I was hooked up to EKG machines and heart monitors, I was setting bells off and nurses were running to me.  Then the muscle tiredness started, I ached all over and it never seemed to get better.  I was finally diagnosed wtih Adrenal Fatigue, and I was so far gone, it went over into Adrenal Exhaustion.  Go to adrenalfatigue.com and read about what it is.  It might well answer several of your questions.  I'm just glad I had a group of doctors who knew what it was.

[heartfluttersflyawayplz]

oh yes anxiety causes me to have shoulder ackes /headackes backackes where we stay so tenesd up it makes the muscles do it , so yes i get it a lot .

[cj29]

Since you had the physicals, it sounds like you are ok...you can talk more with your doctor if you have anymore concerns. Health anxiety can be a vicious cycle if you do not understand it.  I had my first panic attack out of the blue and I had been running 35-40 miles a week, extremely social, loved to travel and was generally a really happy person.  I thought I had a problem with my heart and I did not believe the doctors when they told me I was fine.  I eventually went into a downward spiral and was even afraid to leave the house.

When I say anxiety can be a vicious cycle, I mean the more anxious you are it actually takes a pretty big toll on you both mentally and physically.  In my experience, you will feel exactly what you are feeling and coupled with anxiety and oversensitzied feelings, it can really be hard to handle at times, but if you confront it and realize what it is, it is very managable and one can THRIVE with it and use it to their advantage.  By confronting it, I believe you have to talk it over with a therapist; understanding this pattern of thinking is a great way to get out of this cycle....keep us posted!