Can someone help me figure something out?

[Amir2490]

A while back, Shrublet took the initiative to write a list of of common anxiety symptoms and their causes. For a while now, i've been having buzzing/vibrating feelings in both my legs. Sometimes i feel them in my calves but they also have the tendency to radiate upwards to my thighs. I've been experiencing this since early May. Can someone help me figure out what is causing this?

I've had a slew of blood tests but the only abnormalities they found were high cortisol levels and low sex hormone levels. I read somewhere that high cortisol levels can cause muscle twitches as well as other symptoms. Could that be it?

I've been on Celexa for 6 weeks. For the first 4 weeks, I felt better. I had more energy, felt less sore, had better mornings, less lightheadedness and less twitches. But I somehow feel like the pills stopped working or maybe I just fell back into old habits. My therapist says that i'm still too hypersensitive to my symptoms but I simply don't know how not to be.

I had a brain MRI on Saturday but I'm gonna have to wait 3 weeks for the results. Sigh.

[CoolCalmAndCollected]

I think medications like Celexa do funny things to your nerves.  That is my 2 cents' worth.

I think it's harmless, though.

[sixpack]

I'm a vibrating person.

Last October my left thigh started vibrating one day.  It vibrated like that most notably when I was relaxing.  By December---March it was both of my feet all of the time.  I got my all clear on my MRI in FEB and it still took a month to stop vibrating.  Then in May (or was it June) my left sole of my foot was twitcing and vibrating.  I was brushing my teeth when I noticed it the first time.  It was quite odd.  As soon as I quit paying it any mind, it stopped.   

Vibrating/Buzzing/Twitching are all exceedingly common with anxiety.  Until your mind can logically and emotionally accept this, your body won't be able to really relax.  When you get all keyed up it takes a long time for the body to calm down.  When you set a time limit on how long it takes, it really means you haven't really accepted that it is from anxiety.  Even meds can't solve the whole anxiety issue.  Meds are best when used as a help.  Meds help you calm your mind enough that you can start to logically think again.  It helps to stop the overthinking. BUT if you don't really believe that you are suffering from somatic (physical) anxiety---your body reacting to stress physically--- then the meds are not going to help you.     

I've had a slew of blood tests but the only abnormalities they found were high cortisol levels and low sex hormone levels. I read somewhere that high cortisol levels can cause muscle twitches as well as other symptoms. Could that be it?

the fight or flight chems are adrenaline and cortisol.  I bet a lot of us here would have higher than normal levels.  Anxiety causes the fight or flight response.  Which means lots of adrenaline and cortisol being released into your bloodstream.  I don't know how long those chems remain elevated in the bloodsteam though.

My therapist says that i'm still too hypersensitive to my symptoms but I simply don't know how not to be.

That goes back to your not really deep down believing that your aches/pains are caused by anxiety.

And for me,  I know that stress causes aches/pains.  But even though I know that, I get oddball pains etc when I get stressed.  The thing I do know is change the way I think about it.  The oddball symptoms are caused by my mind/body and not an organic disease.

[Amir2490]

Thanks for responding Sixpack.

I just hope that my Brain MRI will come back clean in the next three weeks so I could put this thing to rest. I'm still a little concerned that a Brain MRI will not be conclusive enough to write off MS since I'm not getting my spine checked. You mentioned that you heard somewhere that lesions start in your brain usually. I did a bit of research of my own and read that MS is diagnosed when patients have more than one lesion on at least two of the three components of the CNS. (Brain, Spine and Optic Nerve).

What keeps me remotely optimistic is that I don't have any vision problems and i haven't experienced L'hermmites sign.

Forgive me if i sound like a broken record. It just feels like i'm taking 2 steps forward and 3 steps backward. I thought I was past reassurance seeking and googling but i keep falling back on these old habits.

Sixpack, are you sure I can say with certainty that I don't have MS with a clean Brain MRI?

[shrublet]

Sixpack, are you sure I can say with certainty that I don't have MS with a clean Brain MRI?

I can tell you with (99.9999 +/- 0.0001)% certainty right now that you don't have MS. So my answer, at least, would be yes.

[sixpack]

AMir I'm not a doc.  But over the years I've been convinced I've had MS.  I've seen 4 doctors about it.  One was my internist and three have been Neuros.  I've had two brain MRIs.  I don't have MS.  I've also had spinal MRI's because I have disk issues. 

Nothing you've mentioned on the forum or our pms give me any reason to believe that you have MS.

I had a lot of scary stuff happening to me that convinced me I had MS, beyond a shadow of a doubt.  But I still don't.  I was wrong, really wrong.

Looking up stuff about MS will always give you the scariest of information.  As a matter of fact this last time I got cleared, and actually believed it by the way  , I allowed myself to google, google, google MS.  And the first thing I said was, "Thank God I didn't google before I got the all clear!"  There was soooooo much on those sites that I could attribute to me.  Some of the stuff was dead on and some of it I had to push my little square peg into the round hole, but nonetheless, I could see most of the stuff fitting into what I had experienced.  AND yet I don't have MS.     

[Amir2490]

I just dont know how to kick this thing. 5 months and still going strong. I'm in therapy, i'm exercising and im on medication.

I hate whining but i can't remember what it feels like to be happy.