Physical anxiety symptoms - muscle twitches, cramps, weakness

[Rubybleu]

The past week or two I’ve been totally ruled by my health anxiety. I started having a weak feeling in my left hand and arm and something about MND came on TV and now of course I have MND. I’ve been experiencing muscle twitches and cramps/sore muscles, mainly in my calves and forearms. I saw my Dr in relation to this and he tested my reflexes, strength and pulses and all was fine. I keep trying to reason with myself but I just can’t shake this MND idea. It’s ridiculous. My Dr only prescribed medication to take when I’m having a really bad moment but the problem is I’m having these every day for most of the day.

Is anyone else experiencing this type of physical anxiety symptoms? This is all new to me as I’ve never experienced this type of anxiety before.

[44Max44]

I've been worrying about a bunch of different things the past few days, but the main one I'm worried about is my eyes. It's a weird feeling, it's like one of my eyes just feels kind of 'weird' even though my vision is completely fine. Have you experienced anything similar?

I've been taking Magnesium for a while too, mostly to get me to sleep but also to lower stress and whatnot and because I can be quite twitchy when I'm anxious. It helps out quite a lot. I even noticed that a few days after I ran out of magnesium is pretty much when my current health anxiety episode started, so I guess going cold turkey on it wasn't the best idea. It makes sense though because I was taking it every day for like 3 months and then stopped abruptly. I'd definitely recommend getting some.

[Boo90]

Hi, I was just wondering if you spoke to a neurologist regarding the twitching being a last symptom? Iv read so much online it’s terrifying me. Mine started with this weird twitch in my foot arch, then spots all over my body and now it’s in my right calf for a few does constantly, I do feel like once my panic got so high it all became worse, I’m so frightened I have mnd, I’m having nerve conduction studies done in a few weeks but I just don’t know how to cope till then, I don’t have any wasting or clinical weakness, Alton I feel my anxiety had made my legs and arms feel weak, my neurological exam was all normal except for easy to elicit ankles. But bilateral and specialist said this can be very normal being that it’s bilateral. I’m just not coping at all, I’m also on medication day and night and feel upon waking I’m “swallowing” but not meaning to, I don’t know if this is a sign of my anxiety or not. Iv always had abit of health anxiety and tend to always think the worst, I’m 29 with 3 daughters and this is the most terrified I have ever been

[amiee2893]

Hi Max,

You will see in my first post that the eye thing is what I wrote about. So yes, I have had that. I get pressure around my eye. It went away and now it’s come back because I am stressed. I’ve been cleared by 2x MRI looking at my brain and optic nerve.

[amiee2893]

Hi Boo,

I have seen a lot of people say that it is an end symptom, not just on this forum. I’ve stopped googling because it just makes me worse then I need to be. To be honest, your post has triggered my anxiety.

I get muscles twitches all over my body, they’re not localised. I literally get them everywhere. My doctor isn’t concerned and doesn’t believe I have anything wrong with me other then constant health anxiety causing all these symptoms, my eye is really sore again even though I know I am medically okay.

I am seeing a neurologist in 3 weeks. My doctor done the referral because she wants me to close the chapter on this part of my health anxiety, it’s been relentless since April. That’s right, every day since April I have been convinced that I’m going to die, first my stomach, then my eye and now the whole body sensations.

It it sounds like you’ve already seen a neurologist and they’re not concerned?

I have just down loaded the curable app and I am going to see if that helps gets my sensations under control.

[Boo90]

Hi I’m so sorry about my post triggering your anxiety, I haven’t seen a neurologist I seen a specialist who has an “interest” in neurology, she gave me a referral for nerve conduction studies but maybe because I was so wound up in the appointment with her, she is also sending me for full Brain and spine mri even tho I had one on my brain last year, mine all started after some stress so I’m hoping it is just my anxiety, my doctor said that he thought it was anxiety but sent me to her anyway, I also went to a hypo lady twice this week and she done a “tapping” technique on me, which had helped, mine are also wide spread but I feel like obviously they always start somewhere and maybe high stress causing them to become wide spread. I get them in my back, arms, legs and feet, but I do notice they aren’t “as” bad if I calm down, I have an app called”breathe” and I listen to that to go to sleep at night. I hope your ok and I’m so sorry if I have made you feel worse. It’s the most scary thing to think of in my opinion and I guess I came here because I didn’t want to feel alone, I feel so alone in my symptoms

[Boo90]

I also wanted to add that I too have suffered health anxiety for years, j had stomach issues last year I even had an endoscopy done and other then some inflammation it was clear, I also have these vibrations in my legs that only last seconds, but they put the fear of god in me. You are not alone in fears xx

[amiee2893]

I’m on a Facebook page for health anxiety and A LOT of people have the muscle twitches. Realistically when you think about it, if every one of us had it, that have the twitches ect, that is a lot of people and would be a coincidence.

It’s already a rare disease and then our age & the fact we’re female, add that into the equation. It’s like 1 in 11,000 or something like that. There is so many other illnesses that are more likely to occur. Like breast cancer is 1 in 8.

Have you tried magnesium? I would usually get muscles twitches before now, just not as frequent & we’re usually just in my legs or in my eye lid.

If you didnt google tour symptoms, would you even know what it could be related to? Because I didn’t, I had no idea.

The more you think about something, the more it manifests. I get really anxious and think I have MND because of my body’s sensations, then yesterday, you know what I did? I cut down a whole tree that was about 1.5m x 2m with a hand saw & the whole time I was saying to myself, if I seriously had MND I wouldn’t be able to hold onto that hand saw for that whole time I wouldn’t have had the strength to cut through all the branches... it’s little things like that, that remind me that I am most likely okay and it’s my stupid ass brain that is causing this to happen, just like my stomach, just like my eye and just like my head ache that lasted 4 months.

[Boo90]

Thanks for your reply that actually really helped me. Googling had always been my worst habit, I remember a few years ago I got a bad eye lid twitch for like 4 months, and I also recall here and there the odd twitch in my back muscle, funny thing is I never googled and never worried about it. I remember reading this thing on google saying fibrillarions with facisculations where bad and that’s when I went into full blown panic about 2 weeks ago because I actually have had both, ( wish I could send a video) BUT i also know that i do have health anxiety. I’m the same I test my strength a lot, and although at times I feel both my arms are weak or strained and even my upper thighs I can imagine it’s stress. I know the chances being so young and being female even are so slim but I’m that one that always says yep I’ll be the 1 in 11,000. Having kids was the best thing I ever done but it’s when my anxiety started. So scared to leave me or never see them grow up. And then I feel guilty because I find myself so worried about my own twitching that I’m not putting the time into them they deserve. I feel like my logic mind says if I had what I fear I would also have other symptoms surely not just some twitches, I had epilepsy as a child, and iv also been screened and getting re screened for ms as that’s what my specialist is actually thinking but yet clean mri? I’m like you iv had heaps of pain behind the eye but I also have had several vision loss episodes spanning over 20 years and also I have this sensitivity on my skin that sometimes comes up it’ll start the size of a 20 cent piece and spread in like a line down to the arch of my foot or around to the top of my bottom and it hurts so much just to lightly touch but yet to apply pressure no pain at all. I also get restless leg syndrome and vertigo a lot, but to be honest I’d welcome a diagnosis of ms over what I fear at the moment. It’s not a good feeling when you feel so alone in your mind and your symptoms so I’m so glad I found this post, thanks heaps for your reply’s they really have helped me x

[amiee2893]

That’s okay, it helps me to, to talk myself out of it.

I dont know what those big words mean but I’m assuming it’s about the twitches. My doctor told me that Google always nearly takes you to the worst case.

At at the moment I have tingling in the corner of my lip, it comes and goes, like the eye pain and muscle pain and the twitches. I’ve been out all day today and haven’t thought about the twitches once and then as soon as I read this I had one in my calf 🙄

I searched In the group about muscle twitches and so many things come up of people with health anxiety saying they have them & every one said they’re an end symptom, not at the start. So I’m assuming that’s after you have lost the ability to move a limb ect.

Its very scary, I’ve never been scared of this until the last two months and it started because I had tingling in my leg, which now comes and goes. I don’t have it at the moment, but that’s how I started to find out about it and then the muscle twitches started after I started reading about it and now they just haven’t stopped, well they fluctuate depending on how worked up i am. If I’m calm, nothing, hardly anything. If I’m having an anxiety attack, they will come in waves. There are also people in this group that have the muscle twitches and nothing has come of it apart from it being anxiety. My anxiety has always been around cancer, until now.

Hopefully in 3 weeks I can put a lid on it & the Neurologist says I’m fine. I would really like the muscle test that they use to diagnose it but I know she won’t do it unless she thinks it’s necessary - which will then stress me out even more.

My partner works FIFO and his home at the moment, so when I have my appointment, he won’t be home.

I usally check this forum forum every day to see if some one has replied to me because sometimes it’s the only thing that really helps me, knowing that there is other people with the same symptoms as me and they are healthy and ok xx

[amiee2893]

Now I think of it, I don’t want to know what they mean because I will start getting them to 🤣

so maybe just leave me in the dark about it lol