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Physical pain from CPTSD
mmatcha_latte
Posts: 178 Member
Hello everyone, I'm 38 years old and I've had severe depression and anxiety for nearly my entire life, as far back as I can remember. I was also diagnosed with CPTSD years ago and only recently started therapy specifically for that, EMDR therapy. I have a lot of trauma in my past that I'm trying to heal from, including SA and DV. It took a long time to feel ready to face all of this.
Within the past couple of years the physical pain has become worse and worse to where it is often excruciating and debilitating at times. My entire body often feels tense and every muscle aches with pain. I've developed a lot of stomach pain as well and I often have problems with my throat feeling tight. I have a lot of trouble sleeping because of flashbacks and nightmares of my trauma, which I'm sure contributes to the other physical problems because I am not getting enough rest. I also struggle with agoraphobia so I have not been to a doctor in years, but my therapist is trying to encourage me to go because she thinks I might have fibromyalgia.
Lately the anxiety induced nausea has been so bad that I can barely eat anything, my stomach is just in constant knots, my throat feels constricted, and my body is always tense and braced for panic.
I don't often hear people talking about the physical problems associated with mental health issues. Does anyone else here struggle with these things too? There is no one in my life, aside from my therapist, who understands these problems, so it is nice to be able to discuss them here.
Within the past couple of years the physical pain has become worse and worse to where it is often excruciating and debilitating at times. My entire body often feels tense and every muscle aches with pain. I've developed a lot of stomach pain as well and I often have problems with my throat feeling tight. I have a lot of trouble sleeping because of flashbacks and nightmares of my trauma, which I'm sure contributes to the other physical problems because I am not getting enough rest. I also struggle with agoraphobia so I have not been to a doctor in years, but my therapist is trying to encourage me to go because she thinks I might have fibromyalgia.
Lately the anxiety induced nausea has been so bad that I can barely eat anything, my stomach is just in constant knots, my throat feels constricted, and my body is always tense and braced for panic.
I don't often hear people talking about the physical problems associated with mental health issues. Does anyone else here struggle with these things too? There is no one in my life, aside from my therapist, who understands these problems, so it is nice to be able to discuss them here.
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Yes! I have and do.
I would like to offer some hope. I have been able to greatly reduce my pain by trying different things for each individual problem. I've been able to find solutions to several of the different issues and am feeling much better than I was a few years ago.
Here are some of the things I've done:
Physical therapy: for back pain, migraines and bursitis in my hips. They gave me exercises to do at home and helped me adapt them to my individual needs.
Prescription medication: I'm super sensitive to meds and so I can't tolerate many of them, but I was able to find a couple that helped. The main one is a medication for the migraines that were making me want to kill myself when they got bad.
Vitamins & supplements: my mom's experience inspired me to experiment with vitamins and supplements. She's in her 80's and only takes a couple prescriptions, which is far less than the national average of 22 for 80+ year olds. I only use ones that have been proven by long-term general use to be safe and that come from suppliers that have been verified by a 3rd party. I search up "supplements for xyz" and try them one by one to find the ones that help.
Other solutions: I also have searched up and brainstormed other possible solutions and implemented the ones I can afford. For example, a sleeping wedge has greatly reduced the amount of pain I suffer from heartburn.
I hope you can find some answers. My life was miserable when I was in constant pain and I'm doing so much better since I was able to reduce my physical pain.0
