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Random sharp and concentrated pains throughout body
Since I was a teen, I have had these random sharp pains throughout various parts of my body that will occur in concentrated bursts of pain in a particular area for short periods of time. Sometimes pain will re-appear in the same area throughout the day and other times it will appear at seemingly unrelated part of my body. For example, it happened today and began with concentrated burst of pain half way up my inner left thigh. This pain would intensify which would cause me to wince in pain and then release and then repeat all over again every 5-10 seconds for about a minute. This pain did not radiate anywhere but only within a specific point. Then this same stabbing sensation occurred half way up to the first knuckle of my right middle finger about 30 minutes later. Then immediately following this finger pain I felt pain in my right foot at the joint of my middle toe. I have no idea what causes this and both of my siblings report similar type of pain issues. Friends think this is quite strange. As a teenager, everyone called these "growing pains" but I am 30 years old and don't believe this title still applies. Any ideas on possible causes? A friend of mine recommended acupuncture but of course I cringe at the thought of needles.
I have been told I have fibromyalgia. I take gabapentine (aka neurotin) which has reduced the attacks greatly. I do not have anxiety issues. The cause is over active nerves but no one can get rid of it just treat the symptoms. Not sure how it gets started.
I have the exact same thing. I'm pretty sure these are anxiety symptoms.
My first memory of these pains is of telling a nurse that I got them. I was about 12 years old when I told her. I explained to her that I'd been getting them for a while, but I couldn't figure out the cause. I told her exactly what they were like: sharp pains that randomly occurred in random places on my body, usually on the tops of my hands, sometimes on the side of my neck, but occasionally it'd be a different place. The pains were sharp, stabbing pains, that would sometimes slightly throb, but they would not hurt exactly. They were just irritating. They would occur in the same exact spots from time to time. On the tops of my hands, the stabbing felt like it might be within a vein. I remember being worried that there was something stuck inside my vein, possibly a tiny clot or maybe a cluster of parasites, like bacteria or something similar. The nurse had no clue. She drew some blood to test. Results came back completely normal. There was nothing wrong with me. I've continued to have these pains throughout my life. I'm 28 years old now. Over the years, their occurrence has fluctuated. Sometimes I would go months without feeling a single stab, other times I would feel daily stabs. The locations of the stabs have changed over the years. Lately, I've been getting these pains constantly. They happen on my chest most frequently and on my forearms and thighs. They definitely don't seem random anymore. Their occurrence seems to be directly tied to my stress level. I'm in college, and as the semester has progressed, they have worsened accordingly. Finals week is next week; I'm positive they will subside after exams and summer break starts.
I've tried to find the answer to these pains for years to no avail. Fortunately, there is no need to feel alone, as this is a common symptom among people. I believe it is stress-related. I found a website today that seems to be describing our symptom. I points to anxiety as the cause:
http://www.anxietycentre.com/anxiety/symptoms/shooting-pains-anxiety.shtml
My first memory of these pains is of telling a nurse that I got them. I was about 12 years old when I told her. I explained to her that I'd been getting them for a while, but I couldn't figure out the cause. I told her exactly what they were like: sharp pains that randomly occurred in random places on my body, usually on the tops of my hands, sometimes on the side of my neck, but occasionally it'd be a different place. The pains were sharp, stabbing pains, that would sometimes slightly throb, but they would not hurt exactly. They were just irritating. They would occur in the same exact spots from time to time. On the tops of my hands, the stabbing felt like it might be within a vein. I remember being worried that there was something stuck inside my vein, possibly a tiny clot or maybe a cluster of parasites, like bacteria or something similar. The nurse had no clue. She drew some blood to test. Results came back completely normal. There was nothing wrong with me. I've continued to have these pains throughout my life. I'm 28 years old now. Over the years, their occurrence has fluctuated. Sometimes I would go months without feeling a single stab, other times I would feel daily stabs. The locations of the stabs have changed over the years. Lately, I've been getting these pains constantly. They happen on my chest most frequently and on my forearms and thighs. They definitely don't seem random anymore. Their occurrence seems to be directly tied to my stress level. I'm in college, and as the semester has progressed, they have worsened accordingly. Finals week is next week; I'm positive they will subside after exams and summer break starts.
I've tried to find the answer to these pains for years to no avail. Fortunately, there is no need to feel alone, as this is a common symptom among people. I believe it is stress-related. I found a website today that seems to be describing our symptom. I points to anxiety as the cause:
http://www.anxietycentre.com/anxiety/symptoms/shooting-pains-anxiety.shtml
HYPERMOBILITY SYNDROME.
Statistically some of you will have it and there is a simple set of initial tests you can do at home which will give you all that you need to get a referal to a rheumatologist if you're in the UK - if you're elsewhere I don't know what the deal is but at least you'll now be clued up if you meet the criteria on the beighton scale and it's on the hypermobility syndrome website linked at the bottom.
Officially called Joint Hypermobility Syndrome, but that is a terribly misnomer because it affects vastly more than the joints because it's primarily a genetic excess of collagen and collagen is the most common protein the human body - even our bones are fifty percent collagen. Statistically this is what some of you are suffering from because over a million people in the UK have it but diagnosis rates are depressingly low, with estimates ranging between 0.5 to 3% of sufferers receiving the correct diagnosis - and even then it can take years and years. It's also known as Elhers-Dhanlos syndrome type iii - hypermobility type, which is actually the old name for it.
In addition to random pain of every conceivable type appearing suddenly or slowly, anywhere on the body, lasting from miliseconds to weeks and ranging from barely noticeable to excruciating, it is an utterly horribly condition which totally controls your life if you have it bad. I only have moderate HMS but it doesn't stop there.
around 75% of people with hypermobility syndrome also have some autonomic nervous system problems,and given how many processes in your body are automatic it doesn't take long to realise that there are literally thousands of things that can go wrong: with me it's mainly vertigo and balance problems, a bladder that tells me it needs emptying every ten minutes - which has been the case since before I started school - sudden attacks of blurry vision, spontaneous attacks of fight or flight - i.e. the physical symptoms of a panic attack but in the total absence of any stressor, numerous other annoyances too many to list, but the worst of the lot is excessive sleepiness which necessitates 12-14 hours a day + usually one or two naps and I am nearly always tired. I also have chronic fatigue (not syndrome, just fatigue that was clincally chronic) for over four years but eventually got it under management with vitamin B12 Injections - and it took more than three years to get my GP to give it to me monthly, which is what I need, and that was only through the fact that I'm a professional scientist who had access to all the top medical databases and thus could present my doctor with proper medical papers rather than print-outs from "Doctor Google" and the fact that the British Council for Standards in Haemotology published new guidelines in 2014 stating that the standard test is up to 35% inaccurate.
But that's secondary stuff. In the last hour I've had acute burning pain in my achilles tendon,, throbbing/pounding ache in my left thigh, clenching in my chest - which I used to think was a heart attack every few weeks before I got diagnosed - my jaw currently feels like I've just been punched, my right knee like someone's rammed a knitting needle into it, my shoulders feel like a giant is standing on them, and my second toe on my right foot both feels like it's in a vice and the BONE is itching.
http://hypermobility.org/
Statistically some of you will have it and there is a simple set of initial tests you can do at home which will give you all that you need to get a referal to a rheumatologist if you're in the UK - if you're elsewhere I don't know what the deal is but at least you'll now be clued up if you meet the criteria on the beighton scale and it's on the hypermobility syndrome website linked at the bottom.
Officially called Joint Hypermobility Syndrome, but that is a terribly misnomer because it affects vastly more than the joints because it's primarily a genetic excess of collagen and collagen is the most common protein the human body - even our bones are fifty percent collagen. Statistically this is what some of you are suffering from because over a million people in the UK have it but diagnosis rates are depressingly low, with estimates ranging between 0.5 to 3% of sufferers receiving the correct diagnosis - and even then it can take years and years. It's also known as Elhers-Dhanlos syndrome type iii - hypermobility type, which is actually the old name for it.
In addition to random pain of every conceivable type appearing suddenly or slowly, anywhere on the body, lasting from miliseconds to weeks and ranging from barely noticeable to excruciating, it is an utterly horribly condition which totally controls your life if you have it bad. I only have moderate HMS but it doesn't stop there.
around 75% of people with hypermobility syndrome also have some autonomic nervous system problems,and given how many processes in your body are automatic it doesn't take long to realise that there are literally thousands of things that can go wrong: with me it's mainly vertigo and balance problems, a bladder that tells me it needs emptying every ten minutes - which has been the case since before I started school - sudden attacks of blurry vision, spontaneous attacks of fight or flight - i.e. the physical symptoms of a panic attack but in the total absence of any stressor, numerous other annoyances too many to list, but the worst of the lot is excessive sleepiness which necessitates 12-14 hours a day + usually one or two naps and I am nearly always tired. I also have chronic fatigue (not syndrome, just fatigue that was clincally chronic) for over four years but eventually got it under management with vitamin B12 Injections - and it took more than three years to get my GP to give it to me monthly, which is what I need, and that was only through the fact that I'm a professional scientist who had access to all the top medical databases and thus could present my doctor with proper medical papers rather than print-outs from "Doctor Google" and the fact that the British Council for Standards in Haemotology published new guidelines in 2014 stating that the standard test is up to 35% inaccurate.
But that's secondary stuff. In the last hour I've had acute burning pain in my achilles tendon,, throbbing/pounding ache in my left thigh, clenching in my chest - which I used to think was a heart attack every few weeks before I got diagnosed - my jaw currently feels like I've just been punched, my right knee like someone's rammed a knitting needle into it, my shoulders feel like a giant is standing on them, and my second toe on my right foot both feels like it's in a vice and the BONE is itching.
http://hypermobility.org/
2 Comments
I am very happy to be wrong because I have just discovered that the terminology has changed and the term joint hypermobility syndrome has been dropped.
I also have ehlers danlos syndrome hypermobility type and I get these stabbing pains (along with a thousand other symptoms) so yeah anyone reading this might want to take a look and see if it sounds like them.
I'm very sorry for what you're going through. I have a similar situation but I'm affected to a lesser degree. I want to tell you all about Sahaja yoga, something that can change your life forever and I cannot stress enough on how it's the greatest of all gifts bestowed upon us. I don't know if you're a believer but it doesn't matter as long as you try it out before tossing it aside as irrelevant. It's empirical and has a complex system which is explained by logic and reason and not blind faith. Sahajayoga is meditation where a person in the state of thoughtless awareness causes the residual energy lying dormant at the base of his spine to rise up and travel through a channel where the 7 energy centers lie. As it rises up it aligns these centres or chakras into a perfect form where they resume their proper functions exerting control over the body and powering up the system to ward off diseases. This is the primordial power that remains inactive until recollected in a state of Sahaja meditation. Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi ( Mother) has taught us the practice of meditating in collectivity for the greater good of mankind. Please do not consider this propaganda as this comes from a person who was tied to her bed by her ailments until Sahajayoga came along. It will give you peace, hope and direction if you so much as give it a go. There are many frauds in the spiritual business that exhort money and distort the truth. But Sahajayoga gives you results first and then you see the truth for yourself. You establish its credentials through genuine experience that rids you of your ailments and shortcomings whatever their nature might be. I wish for people to find some reprieve where doctors fail to provide it. Anyone reading this, I want you to give it a try and see your life become better as the days of pain and suffering are left behind for a healthier, happier tomorrow. I want for us to be free of all mental strain and physical suffering and lead a life we all deserve.
Just got it. I Googled Lexapro helps Fibromyalgia and NOW THIS SECOND I will start taking my meds again.
I'm writing this very moment with a lot of pain. I have been weaning off Lexapro but I guess I will never leave them.
These pains make me cry like a child and I didn't have them for sooooo long. Hope I am giving someone a some hope.
I'm writing this very moment with a lot of pain. I have been weaning off Lexapro but I guess I will never leave them.
These pains make me cry like a child and I didn't have them for sooooo long. Hope I am giving someone a some hope.
I have this as well and am wondering if it may be Hashimotos or a food intolerance, such as to gluten, sugar or dairy.As I know this can cause inflammation in the body.
1 Comments
Possibly, but I think my pains are caused by stress (check out my comment below). I think this website describes the pains accurately:
http://www.anxietycentre.com/anxiety/symptoms/shooting-pains-anxiety.shtml
http://www.anxietycentre.com/anxiety/symptoms/shooting-pains-anxiety.shtml
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