Physical illness vs anxiety manifested illness

[Xiano]

I have had something called Cholinergic Urticaria. Here's an excerpt I took from the web explaining it better than I could:

Individuals with Cholinergic Urticaria often have no symptoms at all when they are not being exposed to a heat stimulus or increase in body temperature. Individuals can function normally and appear to be healthy. They only begin to exhibit symptoms when they are exposed to the heat stimulus (either passive or active).

When an individual is exposed to a heat stimulus (typically in the form of physical exertion, high room temperature, or emotional responses), then the person may begin to feel a stinging or itching feeling on the body. This may be randomly spread throughout the body, or it may begin in a localized area (such as the wrists, face, chest, legs, back, etc.).

This sensation often continues to worsen unless the individual can quickly cool down the body, which will stop a reaction immediately in most cases.

I have been to 7 different specialists. All of them didn't have a clue as what to do. Nor did they really seem to care to figure it out. After a couple / few visits they would say "Sorry nothing I can do for you." The last specialist I seen on my second visit told me it was in my head and that I should think about seeing a therapist.

Now I have had a long lasting relationship with an anxiety disorder. It can make you feel physically ill. During a panic attack you can literally think without a doubt that you are about to die. Then when the panic attack is over. You feel foolish. So it is the case that you can feel physically ill when experiencing anxiety.

However there was another time where I wasn't feeling anxiety at all. Instead my heart rate stayed at over 120 bpm for over a week. The doctor said he wasn't equipped to diagnose something like that. So I had to go to the hospital. Where they hooked me up to an ekg machine and the doctor said "You are physically fine. More than likely you've just been going through a lot of stress recently."

But is it really possible to feel no actual anxiety and just the physical illness that has manifested. A physical illness that could be that debilitating.

They say people with this type of delusion caused by anxiety. Will still believe it even if there is evidence to say on the contrary that it is false.

However then you run into a problem of well I have a seizure problem. And all the tests they performed they couldn't figure out what was causing the seizures. And they had never seen me have one. Yet they still diagnosed me with having a seizure problem and prescribed medication. Are my seizures a result of anxiety?

Is every unexplained physical illness suppose to be categorized as mental illness?

I can tell you when you suffer from a physical illness such as that. You will do anything to figure it out. I had ran out of options so when I would break out. I would just repeat to myself it's all in my head. Would try to relax. Eventually though the pain got to the point where you have to discontinue that belief and go cool off.

There was no mindfulness, toughness, or amount of belief that would even ease up the symptoms.

I suppose the "question" I am proposing is an impossible one to answer.

 

[ProxyAmenRa]

For some time towards the latter half of last year and the early part of this year I was feeling incredibly anxious and was having panic attacks. The anxiety was also causing me to feel incredibly ill and be more susceptible to colds or the flu. Acknowledging you have an anxiety issue to the first step. The second step is doing something about it. For me I just kept on doing things that made me feeling quite anxious until my brain learned that these activities were not a threat.

 

[Xiano]

For some time towards the latter half of last year and the early part of this year I was feeling incredibly anxious and was having panic attacks. The anxiety was also causing me to feel incredibly ill and be more susceptible to colds or the flu. Acknowledging you have an anxiety issue to the first step. The second step is doing something about it. For me I just kept on doing things that made me feeling quite anxious until my brain learned that these activities were not a threat.

Well I feel that's how I managed to control my anxiety and bring them down to pretty much unnoticeable levels. So considering I don't suffer from anxiety any more. I'm not sure how such a powerful illness could be considered anxiety driven. There are people out their that suffer from such diseases. Were they all manifested from a mental illness?

 

[ProxyAmenRa]

People who are stressed and anxious for a long time develop IBS. When the stress and anxiety leaves, they still have IBS... The body and mind do some strange things.

 

[Miss spelt]

In my limited understanding, psychosomatic illnesses are often associated with the onset of schizophrenia.

Good luck!! Don't stress about it. I don't know much of anything.

 

[nanook]

I strongly resent the idea of disease being "manifested" by the mind for symbolical reasons, to represent some suppressed secret in meaningful manner. In my worldview there is nothing that gives the mind so much fantastic power. But the mind does cause superficial conditions such as muscular constrictions of the whole body, which affects the way juices flow or it affects behavior, such as drinking and dehydration affects the way juices flow. Most diseases are caused by a form of pollution, in the sense that we consume something on a regular basis, that does not belong into the body and needs to be cleared out and when the cleaning process is constricted, the pollution accumulates and manifests as a more severe symptom than it usually would. The opposite effect is not unheard off: a constriction of sorts can put a detoxification process to rest and suppress symptoms that would normally arise in the process of mobilisation only. Nevertheless, the cause of a disease is something physical that is alien to the body. When sick it's usually the best to relax your body, create a comfortable temperature (your instinct might tell you if this is a warm or cool temperature at the time), take a break from eating, eat nothing but raw food (that means fruit), if you have to eat at all, drink enough water. Correlations between specific foods and panic attacks have also been observed, but i don't remember which ones. Many plants (possibly spices) contain weird stuff like alkaloids or opiates that affect the psyche and the body in terms of relaxation and constriction and metabolic throughput, animal products contain proteins which act like opiates and hormones. Look into the natural hygiene paradigm, these are the only people who care to observe causal connections empirically. Other groups, including ayurveda and mainstream medicine, are often invested in ignorance, due to attachments to their favorite foods or traditions or money. Of course this doesn't make the natural hygiene people infallible.

 

[Sinny91]

I would say that anxiety and other mental imbalances can and do cause physical effects.

I suffered with serious anxiety a couple of years ago, although I didn't realise it at the time.

Sometimes my body temp would fly off the charts, and I'd start having physical symptoms. A moderate tremor being one of them.

During one of these episodes people would ask me what was wrong and I'd reply 'I don't know, my bloods just hot'.

I've told the doctors that sometimes I have issues with my 'blood getting hot', and then me developing the tremor. The didnt offer any advice on the matter. (useless pillocks).

I can only put it down to anxiety or something of the like, because since I started controlling and reigning in my anxiety those symptoms calmed down substantially.

 

[Urakro]

Can you describe your seizures?
Did the heat anxiety symptoms start before or after you were medicated for the seizures?

 

[Xiano]

The seizures and the "heat" illness. I guess the best "scientific" explanation I can give of the illness is the part of the brain that regulates your core body temperature. When it detects a rise in temperature we naturally sweat or whatever to cool off. However in my case it releases too much of a certain chemical. And they attach to the mast cells in your skin. Causing them too release too much histamine causing the irritation to the skin.

But no I only brought up the seizure problem because it was an example of a doctor not being able to figure out the cause of them yet they don't declare it a mental illness. In this case with the cholinergic urticaria they are however seem to be declaring it as "it's just in my head".

I forgot where i was going with this reply.

 

[Deleted member 1424]

I believe the term you're looking for is 'idiopathic.'

The simple fact is that there is much we don't know as individuals and as a collective species. Medical science is still in it's infancy in my opinion. Plus medical professionals prioritize their time and you're not dying. You have to accept the fact that you don't know and might never. Shoehorning whatever mental/illness that catches your fancy as the cause for all your ills is foolish. Unfortunately, people aren't satisfied with non-answers, so they get told they have a mental illness or get over-medicated for symptoms.

I have had cold urticaria for the past 15 yrs and dermatographic urticaria for the past 3-4. I've largely concluded that apart from over-the-counter antihistamines, there is little point in seeking treatment.