If THIS isn’t exactly it then idk what is

Hi guys,
I’ve had an experience over the last month and especially the last week that genuinely made me giggle thinking how weird it is that even when we have this much evidence staring right back at us we STILL have to fight the logic side of our brain so hard to convince it that some/all of it is just our brains playing whack-a-gopher with symptoms. Here’s how it went:

-started having knee pain that most likely WAS a real repetitive stress strain at first but stayed after it should’ve already been gone
-a couple weeks after that, started having tendinitis all over my arms literally out of nowhere
-since at this point I already know about TMS, I started “experimenting” by looking for the patterns and doing little tests to see what the symptoms would do:
-my first “test” was resting my writing arm for 2 days and using only my right arm to do everything I could. I basically let my left arm totally play dead those 2 days. During those 2 days, BOTH my arms felt worse, and they would both stop/start hurting at the exact same time and in the same amount. I then went back to typing, drawing, etc. as I usually would and lo and behold, my arms felt BETTER after a whole day of using them normally
-then I took that idea and applied it to my knees too and found out it was the same thing. For both my arms AND my legs, I can have a day where I rest them all day and still get pain, and then right after that have 3 days back to back where I use them perfectly normally and don’t hear a peep from them
-I also noticed they will take turns - it’s rarely both areas hurting a lot at the same time.

now here’s where the really crazy part started a few days ago. As you read this think about every part that doesn’t make sense realistically - it’s almost funny:

-starting about a week ago I started feeling a weird dizzy/“off” sensation really similar to the one I felt at the beginning of the year (my first symptom ever). It mostly would only happen at night.
-Saturday: I moved a couple of suitcases but nothing that would have been big/heavy enough to actually hurt me at all. That night, my arms randomly started feeling worse for a bit. Then my friend and I went out for smoothies/grocery shopping, I was in a better mood, and the arm pain felt a lot better.

Sunday: knees were hurting most of the day even though I spent the day at home lounging. Not a peep from my arms even tho I was doing homework/on my phone all day. That night, I felt the weird dizzy sensation start back up again for a while. I did my best to ignore it by drawing (now that my arms felt better) and chitchatting with my friend online. I get in bed and feel my lower back/hips/ham muscles start to hurt which hasn’t happened in months. It lasts about an hour and a half then goes away.

Monday: my knees and hips are burning a lot and my hamstring muscles again feel super tight and kinda painful to the touch. Even though I spent most of the day before resting my legs as much as possible.
I spend all day in class drawing, typing and am on my phone a lot, but no pain in my arms at all. That night, my roommate practices guitar for about an hour and my ears start to hurt (another symptom of mine where I get nerve pain in my ears but only in response to certain sounds it seems like - it’s called hyperacusis but I like to just call it ear pain/nerve pain). I check with a noise measuring app and it’s only like 30-40 db. I get to the end of the day and realize heyyy there was no dizzy weird feeling at all today bc I was focused on so much else in my body.

Tuesday (today): woke up and the part of my body I was focusing on most was my ears bc I thought maybe they would be sore today from last night. After about half the day went by and my ears were fine I stopped focusing on them so much and then realized I hadn’t had any pain in my arms or knees at all today AND no dizziness. About an hour after realizing that, my arms start to hurt. Knees were way way better than yesterday despite the fact that I walked 2000 MORE steps. Ears were fine despite the fact that I drove my car on the freeway with music and went to eat in the busy school cafeteria again which both were WAY louder than my roommate strumming her guitar.

I hope this makes someone who reads it feel a little less alone and/or crazy because it really IS crazy how much the symptoms move around lol!

 

@lucky_li0n_d@wg

Your post will help others feel less alone and see a similar 'craziness' of their symptoms, which points to those symptoms being of mind/body origin.

It's a question now of when you are going to be convinced enough about this yourself to stop 'symptom-watching' and redirect all of that energy into doing the psychological work instead.

 

Yeah its annoying asl.

I'd try to focus as much as possible on the things youre doing to improve in the long run, and not as much on the way your symptoms change from day to day