Feeling anxious about my health

@wittyChestnut3942 Hi. It's good that you are concerned about your health and are keeping an eye out for symptoms. It might be a good idea to go for a check up and speak to a doctor to give you a better picture of your current health concerns and this might help you address the apprehension that builts up whenever you worry. By the way try doing the Growth Path exercises when ever you log in. They are like a therapy treatment plus you could read the self help guides .

@wittyChestnut3942 I feel like I could have written this about a year ago. I don't know if this will be helpful, but I hope it brings you some manner of peace and helps with your anxiety.

So a year ago, I hurt my back really bad. Couldn't get out of bed or sleep because of the pain. Moving my legs was possible, but agonizing. A few days after the injury happened, the muscle twitches started. Horrible, constant in my legs, stomach, arms. Everywhere. And I looked it up, only to find ALS at the top of the list. I panicked, and the twitches became worse. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat, and the cycle of feeling unwell, looking up my symptoms about feeling unwell, panicking, and then starting it all over again just made me get worse and worse.

I finally went to a neurologist, who did some minor strength testing and watched me walk (by then, it had been a few months and my back had healed enough to let me walk, but I was still having muscle twitches), and prescribed me gabapentin for the muscle spasms related to my injury and told me my health anxiety was making my injury worse. He checked in with me periodically, and as time went on, my twitches began to slow in frequency. I took my medication, I ate regular meals, I tried to sleep when I could, and I stopped doing constant strength tests. I am exactly one year from when the twitching began, and they only come back if I stress myself out very badly (and not really like. as awful as they were before, mind you, just a few here and there) or if I lay wrong on the part of my back I injured.

What helped was looking up BFS and reading how many people stress themselves sick, basically. You could have an underlying injury, you could be stressing your body out with too much exercise, not enough sleep, emotional damage, etc. But basically whenever I manage my emotions in a healthy way, my body reacts positively. I can still walk, eat, drink, hold / squeeze things, etc.

Go to a neurologist if you can, it may ease your mind to have a specialist look you over and say "hey, you're okay, I promise", try to give yourself a regular bedtime and eat / drink. My twitches were at their absolute worst when I stopped eating and drinking entirely. :(

I hope things improve for you! I know it's hard, I have literally been there for the past year and only just started to heal.