Stress & it's physical effects..

[simonspider]

Thought I'd share this in the hope it can give someone a bit of reassurance..

I've a pretty demanding job as a Director and have always (I'm ashamed now to admit) sneered when people have mentioned stress/anxiety attacks and the like.

Back in February I started to get random dizzy spells where things started to move around, especially disconcerting when driving. It rattled me but I started to worry when they became more and more frequent. No other issues just that.
Then I started to get a severe pain in my right chest area randomly again but it began to coincide with the dizzy spells. In the office one day late Feb the chest pain on the right really kicked in and I started to panic and took myself to A&E. Usual ECG blood tests etc followed by a chest x-ray. Nothing. Reassured I was discharged and went home.
Next day same again which freaked me out. I was reassured it wasn't my heart but very worried what it could be. Then over the course of the next month I had muscular pains everywhere from shoulders, neck, back and the pain in my chest. Back I went to the Doctors - more tests, all negative.
Things went from bad to worse. Felt like I was walking around in a vice, it was difficult getting out of bed then I started to convince myself I was very seriously ill with something sinister that the Doctors weren't picking up. At that point my mental health deteriorated I started to have proper panic stricken phases and it all went into a downward spiral.
Have to say my Doctor was fantastic. I'd not been for 7 years so she knew I wasn't someone putting it on. She simply demanded I go away for a relaxing holiday. I hadn't been on a proper one in years so went to a Spanish Island and sat in the sun by a pool for a week.
Came back - felt a new man. All the muscular pains had gone.
I'm back to normal for the first time in months and now take 4 days a month away from it all, hopefully it won't return.
But the reason for the post was really that I couldn't get my head around how a mental issue can affect the body and create so much physical pain. But it sure does. So I'd convinced myself there was something much worse when there wasn't.
Point is, if you have a demanding job and suffer the sort of symptoms I describe you need to back off the power and take it easy.

[TheJimi]

Not meaning to be glib, but presumably you've gotten to the root of what was causing the stress in the first place?

[Hoofy]

simonspider said:

Have to say my Doctor was fantastic. I'd not been for 7 years so she knew I wasn't someone putting it on. She simply demanded I go away for a relaxing holiday. I hadn't been on a proper one in years so went to a Spanish Island and sat in the sun by a pool for a week.
Came back - felt a new man. All the muscular pains had gone.
I'm back to normal for the first time in months and now take 4 days a month away from it all, hopefully it won't return.
But the reason for the post was really that I couldn't get my head around how a mental issue can affect the body and create so much physical pain. But it sure does. So I'd convinced myself there was something much worse when there wasn't.
Point is, if you have a demanding job and suffer the sort of symptoms I describe you need to back off the power and take it easy.

I'm quite impressed that your doc didn't just give you some magic pills.

But yes, stress can cause a lot of physical symptoms. The likes of IBS and Crohn's are said to be stimulated by stress as is tinnitus.

[mu0n]

I wish I could get rid of my stress/depression/anxiety.

[Animal]

Simon - glad you're feeling better! You should have treated yourself to one of those driving experience days, there's probably a good one near you...

You make a good point about making time to get away from whatever's causing the stress, but one of the problems is not recognising that you're suffering in the first place - it's sometimes hard to have a sense of perspective when we're all running on our little wheels!

[TheJimi]

mu0n said:

I wish I could get rid of my stress/depression/anxiety.

There's definitely an overlap between the three disorders you noted, but working out which one is affecting you would be a start

[mattikake]

Wow that's amazing. I had no idea a Directors job was demanding. All those early years as an I.T. fix-it bloke spent fixing Directors PC's while they pussied around the office like they had all the time in the world... Wow.

[simonspider]

Animal said:

Simon - glad you're feeling better! You should have treated yourself to one of those driving experience days, there's probably a good one near you...

You make a good point about making time to get away from whatever's causing the stress, but one of the problems is not recognising that you're suffering in the first place - it's sometimes hard to have a sense of perspective when we're all running on our little wheels!

Sorry didn't mean to come across pompous. Just work pressure caused it I guess driving experiences? What are they?

[F1sh]

simonspider said:

Point is, if you have a demanding job and suffer the sort of symptoms I describe you need to back off the power and take it easy.

Sorry but people (not everyone) dont have to have a 'demanding job' just to suffer from stress. There's plenty of people that suffer from it without having such jobs. Thing to remember is that regardless of who you are and what you do, you could suffer at some point in your life. Some take holidays, some find other ways of dealing with it.

F1sh

[mikebradford]

Intresting , as your symptoms mirror my wives exactly
she has a reality stressful job, and she brings the issues home, if that makes sense

same symptoms, and wouldnt go to the doctors as she was to busy etc
then the chest pains kicked in
nearly falling over all the time
i made her go to the doctors, and he diagnosed the same

she was put on some tablets, not the normal ones. as she has incredibly naturally low blood pressure
she cant take time off work unfortunatley, which doesnt help

but i have made her a little happier by finding her life insurance policy, so she can be happy in the knowledge that if she does keel over, then the kids and i will eventually get over it lol

im glad to here your on the mend

Edited by mikebradford on Friday 7th June 19:07

[Lemmonie]

I get really bad chest pains when I'm suffering with stress. But not when I'm "stressed"

Sounds odd but there is a real different from me having a freak out over something at work or the kids etc. to when everything is gong on at once over a period of time.

The chest pains have been so bad I've had a hospital trip or two. It never ceases to amaze me how stress can physically cause so much pain.

[Animal]

F1sh said:

simonspider said:

Point is, if you have a demanding job and suffer the sort of symptoms I describe you need to back off the power and take it easy.

Sorry but people (not everyone) dont have to have a 'demanding job' just to suffer from stress. There's plenty of people that suffer from it without having such jobs. Thing to remember is that regardless of who you are and what you do, you could suffer at some point in your life. Some take holidays, some find other ways of dealing with it.

F1sh

Personally I think that if a job is causing you to suffer from stress or is exacerbating your stress levels then it is a demanding job, irrespective of what it is or how senior you are/are not. Physically my job is about as demanding as napping in the garden but mentally I find it quite taxing - other people in my office find it less so. Being a workaholic just compounds this (I'm sat in my office now!).

[Hoofy]

Lemmonie said:

Sounds odd but there is a real different from me having a freak out over something at work or the kids etc. to when everything is gong on at once over a period of time.

It's the sustained stress that is bad for our health, I think. A one-off short-term stress is fine. It's when you have it all the time that it becomes a health issue - similar to what you might get if you're in a stressful job (and that's irrespective of whether you're a powerfully-built company director or a sales assistant).

[Tonsko]

Not sure if anyone uses this site, but my doc put me onto it. His surgery basically uses a 'private' version of the database this public site uses, so it's one of those rare things - a website database about health that is endorsed (by my admittedly small sample of 1 GP! ).

Anyway, patient.co.uk

And the stress link:

http://www.patient.co.uk/health/Stress-Acute-React...

[Piersman2]

TheJimi said:

Not meaning to be glib, but presumably you've gotten to the root of what was causing the stress in the first place?

It's interesting because just recognising that the pain is due to stress is usually enough to break the link and remove the pain.

There's a doctor that has been making a link between back pain and stress for years, someone recommended me to read one of his books when I had been suffering from an increasingly sore back for about a year. In his view back pain has become the modern version of stomach ulcers, Remember those? They were the classic sign of stress back int eh 70s, but nobody has them anymore. Now everyone has a bad back.

Anyways, after reading his stuff and making that mental link my bad back was improving within minutes , and after 2 weeks it was back to completely pain free.

But in his books the pain doesn't manifest only in the back, in different people it can be the back, hip joints, knees, etc...

To solve the issue it's not required to remove the stress, but just to realise that the stress is there and that the body is reacting to it. The trick is to stop the body/mind manifesting the pain somewhere else!

[Hoofy]

Piersman2 said:

It's interesting because just recognising that the pain is due to stress is usually enough to break the link and remove the pain.

There's a doctor that has been making a link between back pain and stress for years, someone recommended me to read one of his books when I had been suffering from an increasingly sore back for about a year. In his view back pain has become the modern version of stomach ulcers, Remember those? They were the classic sign of stress back int eh 70s, but nobody has them anymore. Now everyone has a bad back.

Anyways, after reading his stuff and making that mental link my bad back was improving within minutes , and after 2 weeks it was back to completely pain free.

But in his books the pain doesn't manifest only in the back, in different people it can be the back, hip joints, knees, etc...

To solve the issue it's not required to remove the stress, but just to realise that the stress is there and that the body is reacting to it. The trick is to stop the body/mind manifesting the pain somewhere else!

That's curious. I've heard of some unusual treatments before but never that - I mean, it doesn't even require treatment!

But many people do realise that their work stress is the cause of their issue. Also, we don't have stomach ulcers but we do have IBS, Crohn's etc which people recognise is linked to stress (if not directly to blame).

[Piersman2]

Hoofy said:

That's curious. I've heard of some unusual treatments before but never that - I mean, it doesn't even require treatment!

But many people do realise that their work stress is the cause of their issue. Also, we don't have stomach ulcers but we do have IBS, Crohn's etc which people recognise is linked to stress (if not directly to blame).

A lot of people don't actually realise that the pain can be a physical manifestation of the stress. According to the book I read the reason that the body starts to 'hurt' is to distract the mind away from what is causing the stress. It's a way of protecting the mind from having to deal with the stress.

This guy specifically, mainly targets bad backs. He's dealt with people over years who have had no physical problem in their backs and yet have been suffering chronic and worsening back pain.

For me, once I'd made the connection I stopped molly-coddling my back and the pain started to recede immediately.

How this works for the problems you've mentioned I don't know, but in my mind the same underlying principle is in there somewhere.

The book I was told to read was this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Healing-Back-Pain-Mind-Con...

And you're also totally correct in that it needs no treatment, just a mental leap of faith as to the cause and effect. I just read an article about the book , and then the book and what it described fitted my symptoms so exactly, that I had little problem mentally giving it a go!

Christ, I sound like some kind of evangelist, but it really did work, and the guy that recommended it to me says it cleared his RSI that was so bad he was considering hiring someone just to do his typing for him!

[Hoofy]

Piersman2 said:

A lot of people don't actually realise that the pain can be a physical manifestation of the stress. According to the book I read the reason that the body starts to 'hurt' is to distract the mind away from what is causing the stress. It's a way of protecting the mind from having to deal with the stress.

This guy specifically, mainly targets bad backs. He's dealt with people over years who have had no physical problem in their backs and yet have been suffering chronic and worsening back pain.

For me, once I'd made the connection I stopped molly-coddling my back and the pain started to recede immediately.

How this works for the problems you've mentioned I don't know, but in my mind the same underlying principle is in there somewhere.

The book I was told to read was this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Healing-Back-Pain-Mind-Con...

And you're also totally correct in that it needs no treatment, just a mental leap of faith as to the cause and effect. I just read an article about the book , and then the book and what it described fitted my symptoms so exactly, that I had little problem mentally giving it a go!

Christ, I sound like some kind of evangelist, but it really did work, and the guy that recommended it to me says it cleared his RSI that was so bad he was considering hiring someone just to do his typing for him!

It certainly sounds interesting - my background is in identifying the problem... and then working on the underlying problem to solve the symptom (in this case, back pain). But now I'm thinking that I get my clients to work on the underlying problem because they don't accept it as the reason. So... by accepting the reason, they cure the symptom once and for all? This would actually tie in with the system that I use (Emotional Freedom Techniques).

[Piersman2]

Hoofy said:

It certainly sounds interesting - my background is in identifying the problem... and then working on the underlying problem to solve the symptom (in this case, back pain). But now I'm thinking that I get my clients to work on the underlying problem because they don't accept it as the reason. So... by accepting the reason, they cure the symptom once and for all? This would actually tie in with the system that I use (Emotional Freedom Techniques).

The book makes it clear that this approach won't work for everyone. For example someone that really does have an injury it's obviously not going to help until the physical issues have been addressed and that if someone has had a sudden injury whilst playing sports or working then his advice will not apply, they should go to a physical doctor to get it checked. This guys advice is for those with chronic back pain that appears to have no direct cause.

The book does say that often people have a back pain, go to a doctor and even have tests, MRIs etc... and are then told that there is some minor 'issue' or misalignment, etc... and therefore believe that they do really have a problem.

But as the book points out, the human race has evolved over millions of years to be what it is now, and do we really think that this evolution doesn't include being able to sit in a chair? It also makes the point that as we age, our spines will show signs of wear and tear, as any part or area of the body does, but does this mean we should accept this as a cause for people to have such chronic back pain?

Basically what he's saying is that a lot of people are told they have some minor back 'issue' which in truth is not a real problem , certainly not one that should be causing the levels of pain, but the mind uses this to reinforce/excuse the back pain, thus perpetuating the cycle.

By the time I read the book I was at the stage of hobbling across the carpark into work each morning and having to sit uncomfortably upright in my chair in an effort to find a position I could sit in. Within minutes of reading an article explaining the above I had started to relax, and after ordering and reading the book I was completely free of ANY back pain within 2 weeks.

You forget how much back pain effects your life and what you do and just how much time you spend focussing on it. Now, it never even crosses my mind.

[Hoofy]

That's pretty good going!

Yeah, it's obvious that if you've injured your back, stress isn't the cause.