Anxiety effects on the nervous system - health question

[julleri]

Does anyone (maybe Scotty would know best being in health care) know the adverse effects the nervous system can suffer in a highly anxious person? Last neurologist I saw said that all my neurological symptoms can be from anxiety, but I am really having a hard time wrapping my head around it. I feel so many strange things neurologically speaking, especially in my muscles. They hurt, but it's a pain I've never experienced before. Almost like razor blades in the tissues feeling. Cramping, twitching, numb patches of skin. All from anxiety? How can this be? Also, I am so skinny, even though I am gaining good weight.

Anxiety can really cause these horrible neurological problems? I'm not saying I *don't* believe it, it's just that it is so, so hard, and then of course my mind wanders to the health anxiety land where I feel this is an overlooked disorder, that my brain and nervous system are suffering beyond repair, etc etc (you know how it goes.)

Thanks all. I don't know how I'd get along without this board. I need to read more and post responses to others more, too. Sorry, all.

[Timinjapan]

Hi Julleri,

I'm not a healthcare professional by any means, but I'll venture a comment. Anxiety is a name we can apply to various fearful and uncomfortable thoughts and feelings that may arise for various reasons. Anxious thoughts can lead to anxious feelings because feelings (and/or emotions) can be considered as the physiological reaction to thoughts. And anxious feelings can generate anxious thoughts because when we have an uncomfortable physiological feeling for which we don't know the cause, we tend to worry that something serious maybe wrong with us. This can then develop into a vicious circle in which anxious thoughts and anxious feelings feed into each other.

Claire Weekes explained anxiety or nervous illness as being the result of sensitization, bewilderment and fear. In response to over-use, the adrenal glands produce adrenaline and other stress hormones too freely, and these hormones affect certain organs of the body in specific ways. Our nerves become sensitized to the effects of these hormones, we are bewildered at the way our nerves behave, and we experience fear as a result. This causes a self-sustaining fear-adrenaline-fear cycle to develop.

It is amazing how many horrible neurological problems can be brought on by anxiety in this way. Claire told us that once you've experienced nervous illness for a time, the symptoms will not get worse, because adrenaline always affects the same organs in the same way. But I suspect that she was fibbing there in an attempt to be reassuring. Often, the symptoms evolve over time to become stronger and more unbearable, even to the extent of precipitating physical illness. It seems almost axiomatic that one can develop serious physical illness as a result of long-term anxiety. hence the expression, "she worried herself sick".

On the other hand, SSRIs can also cause a wide range of symptoms that can be mistaken for common-or-garden anxiety, as most of us reading this already know.

As for the question of whether the nervous system can permanently affected by high anxiety, I wouldn't worry about that possibility. The best course would be to just attribute all the symptoms to anxiety (either through bad thinking habits, SSRI use, or whatever) and to have faith that with the right sort of treatment they will improve in time.

[Songbird]

Are you talking about anxiety or withdrawal? We here at PP know that w/d can cause all kinds of symptoms, but this is rarely acknowledged by medical professionals. As for anxiety, I believe it can produce quite a range of symptoms, however IMO modern medicine artificially divides health into 'physical' and 'mental'. The mind-body connection is a two-way street. I also find it strange that the nervous system is treated by neurologists, and the mind by psychiatrists - as if the brain is made up of two different parts and our thoughts are not produced by neurons firing. I don't believe you are going to find the answers from conventional medicine. You are right - it is an overlooked disorder - I mean SSRI withdrawal - and that is why this forum is so needed.

Stay calm, work on your anxiety with CBT, relaxation exercises and Dr. Claire Weekes's techniques. If your problems are from SSRI withdrawal, eventually your body will heal and you'll feel better.

[robert12]

Originally Posted by julleri

Does anyone (maybe Scotty would know best being in health care) know the adverse effects the nervous system can suffer in a highly anxious person? Last neurologist I saw said that all my neurological symptoms can be from anxiety, but I am really having a hard time wrapping my head around it. I feel so many strange things neurologically speaking, especially in my muscles. They hurt, but it's a pain I've never experienced before. Almost like razor blades in the tissues feeling. Cramping, twitching, numb patches of skin. All from anxiety? How can this be? Also, I am so skinny, even though I am gaining good weight.

Anxiety can really cause these horrible neurological problems? I'm not saying I *don't* believe it, it's just that it is so, so hard, and then of course my mind wanders to the health anxiety land where I feel this is an overlooked disorder, that my brain and nervous system are suffering beyond repair, etc etc (you know how it goes.)

Thanks all. I don't know how I'd get along without this board. I need to read more and post responses to others more, too. Sorry, all.

No anxiety does not cause neurological problems or disorders. anxiety is fear and its an emotion. it will not kill you. the physical distressful feelings you feel are from the drugs you take or are withdrawing from. doctors always deny its the drugs and say its you.. obviously they do it to hide their crimes.

[Timinjapan]

Originally Posted by robert12

No anxiety does not cause neurological problems or disorders. anxiety is fear and its an emotion. it will not kill you. the physical distressful feelings you feel are from the drugs you take or are withdrawing from. doctors always deny its the drugs and say its you.. obviously they do it to hide their crimes.

I'd like to believe this, but I personally had some pretty horrendous symptoms stemming from anxiety before I took a single med. However, SSRIs and SSRI W/D can exacerbate existing symptoms and generate entirely new ones. There are lots of ways to mess up the central nervous system to the point where it will kill you.

[robert12]

Originally Posted by Timinjapan

I'd like to believe this, but I personally had some pretty horrendous symptoms stemming from anxiety before I took a single med. However, SSRIs and SSRI W/D can exacerbate existing symptoms and generate entirely new ones. There are lots of ways to mess up the central nervous system to the point where it will kill you.

Anxiety can be frightening and can cause physical symptoms but it wont cause central nervous system damage that the drugs do. All psychiatric drugs damage the central nervous system. but it doesn't stop there, they also damage the mind and cause diseases of many many kinds. there are natural supplements that will calm anxiety like gaba and l-theanine and there's so many others. people dont have to resort to psychiatric drugs that damage brain cells and tissue.

i was told by a pharmacologist/internist that psychiatric drugs are 1000X more dangerous and destructive than street drugs. nobody knows exactly how they work. its pretty scary these drugs are out on the market and people are gulping them down.

[Timinjapan]

Originally Posted by robert12

Anxiety can be frightening and can cause physical symptoms but it wont cause central nervous system damage that the drugs do. All psychiatric drugs damage the central nervous system. but it doesn't stop there, they also damage the mind and cause diseases of many many kinds. there are natural supplements that will calm anxiety like gaba and l-theanine and there's so many others. people dont have to resort to psychiatric drugs that damage brain cells and tissue.

i was told by a pharmacologist/internist that psychiatric drugs are 1000X more dangerous and destructive than street drugs. nobody knows exactly how they work. its pretty scary these drugs are out on the market and people are gulping them down.

I'm sure psychiatric drugs can result in physical damage to the nervous system. You don't have to try to convince me of that. I certainly feel that my nervous system has been damaged by anxiety and further damaged by Paxil, but I'm relieved that apparently many people make a full recovery from both of these things.

Also, I tried both GABA and l-theanine before I went on Paxil, and both sent my tinnitus into the stratosphere. The GABA also gave me palpitations. But I don't think either of them "damaged" my nervous system. I would never have tried Paxil had these "natural" solutions worked for me. Now I am hoping that after I come off the poison a combination of CBT, exercise, chamomile tea and looking on the bright side of life will save me from mental hospital.

[robert12]

Originally Posted by Timinjapan

I'm sure psychiatric drugs can result in physical damage to the nervous system. You don't have to try to convince me of that. I certainly feel that my nervous system has been damaged by anxiety and further damaged by Paxil, but I'm relieved that apparently many people make a full recovery from both of these things.

Also, I tried both GABA and l-theanine before I went on Paxil, and both sent my tinnitus into the stratosphere. The GABA also gave me palpitations. But I don't think either of them "damaged" my nervous system. I would never have tried Paxil had these "natural" solutions worked for me. Now I am hoping that after I come off the poison a combination of CBT, exercise, chamomile tea and looking on the bright side of life will save me from mental hospital.

I wish you the best of luck on your recovery. i'm in bad shape as well from many withdrawals from many years of various psychiatric drugs that were never supposed to be given to me. i think we all under-estimated the destruction of these horrific drugs. our world is a scary place with many scary people who do lots of harm.

[Kay2020]

Originally Posted by robert12

i was told by a pharmacologist/internist that psychiatric drugs are 1000X more dangerous and destructive than street drugs.

I think it is criminal for Doctors to tell you this behind close doors and let other "Doctors" prescribe them and basically ruin people's health and lives. What kind of doctors who knows and acknowledge this and not speak up. Cowards or greedy doctors possibly.

[Timinjapan]

Robert, I know you've suffered much and it's still going on for you. I wish you a good recovery that gets you to a place where you can be at peace and enjoy some happiness. And I wish our good wishes had the power to heal. Well, maybe they do.

If you hadn't experienced all that medication, you would probably have had no idea of how horrific it can be. At 52, I was still naive enough to give Paxil a try, and keep taking it when it was giving me weird symptoms for the first two months, all on doctor's orders. It's amazing how easily we defer to authority figures.

I hope your damage will heal over time. I really do.

[scotty]

If ssri's caused permanent damage, no one would recover. Lets not make the situation more scary than it already is. The brain recovers and speculation only creates fear that does nothing for anyone.

No anxiety doesn't cause "disease", but it can give you symptoms of every disease in the book, especially when you keep looking at the book. No one knows definitively what these drugs do, but thousand and thousand recover quite nicely, and so will you if you don't let your mind get stuck in the "I'm damaged forever" mode.

i was told by a pharmacologist/internist that psychiatric drugs are 1000X more dangerous and destructive than street drugs. nobody knows exactly how they work.

If they don't know how the drugs work they can't make statement that they are dangerous and destructive. I'm not defending the drugs, but trying to be a voice of reason.

[julleri]

Thank you so much for your thoughts, everyone! I need to reply, but I can't at the moment. Just wanted to post this thank you and to let you know I'll be back later with more questions/thoughts about this a little later. Oh, and for the American PP users - have a happy 4th! Looks like a rainy one here (in Phoenix, AZ of all places! lol).