Is your anxiety worsening your MS or
Your MS worsening your Anxiety?

ANXIETY CAN BE TREATED SUCCESSFULLY

Anxiety is often caused by Multiple Sclerosis and its symptoms and our adjustments to the changes it forces us to make. To a certain degree this is unavoidable and even appropriate. MS is a real, dangerous, and often debilitating disease that offers much to fear.

The fears, worries, and anxieties that can come as a result of having MS also can cause damage themselves. Much can be done to manage them. Leaving them untreated or ignoring them is a mistake that can have both immediate and long term consequences.

Anxiety is something that those of us with Multiple Sclerosis very frequently experience, either in our normal everyday lives or due to specific problems related or unrelated to the disease. To give you a better idea of what we are dealing with, research results indicate that 90% of MSers experience anxiety.

To start with, I would like to show you Random House Webster's Dictionary definition of Anxiety:

“Anxiety is "distress or uneasiness of mind caused by fear of danger or misfortune." It is "a state of apprehension and psychic tension occurring in some forms of mental disorder”

This “distress or uneasiness of mind “touches each of us at different levels. For example, brides and grooms are usually anxious before the wedding day. A speeder is generally anxious when the lights of the police cruiser start flashing in the rear view mirror. You can be anxious before an argument, before a test or before speaking in public.

The anticipation of any bad news or unwanted event can cause it and like everyone else, those of us with MS have all of these anxieties.

When we get anxious there are frequently physical events that go along with it. Some of the most frequent are:

1. Muscle tension
2. Trembling
3. Stomach upset (or butterflies)
4. Nervous tics





UNIQUE REASONS TO CAUSE ANXIETY IN MS

1. MS is a recurring disease: MS goes into remission and returns in relapses. For some MSers, it is a progressive disease, steadily reducing your abilities.

   In all types of the disease, predictability is very low. This means that on any day, at any moment, on any morning, the disease can raise its ugly head. A new lesion can develop at random in the brain and the symptoms that result from it may make themselves known. In other words, the anticipation of a random return of the illness is a significant cause of anxiety

2. The progressive nature of its course and the accompanying concern about prognosis: The fear to the unknown, to what tomorrow is going to be like is a normal fear for regular folks, but for those of us living with MS it can be much worse and very disruptive and even dangerous.
   

   This is often the first big question brought to discussions about Multiple Sclerosis by the newly diagnosed:

   • What are the chances for getting a "good" type of MS, versus a type that would require a wheelchair in five or even one or two years?

   • What percentage of people with MS can work for the rest of their lives?
   • What is going to happen to me?

   Questions like these cause a great deal of concern, made worse by the fact that there are no clear answers.

   For many, a clear diagnosis of MS takes many years. For others, the diagnosis comes with many unpleasant, intrusive, and potentially painful medical tests, each of which causes distress and worries of their own.

   For those of us that have received a definite diagnosis, the doubts and fear appears whenever a new symptom emerges. This can cause fear or panic. What does this new symptom mean? How long will it last? Will it get worse? Will it be permanent? A single new, perhaps even innocent symptom can trigger a flood of old anxieties. Will I be able to keep working? Can I support my family? Will I be able to walk? Is this the symptom that signals a drastic worsening of this disease?

   The truth is that, being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis brings fear to the fore, harboring the anticipation of negative events.

   ANXIETY CAN BE A VALUABLE SIGNAL

   I went out in the heat to look at the progress of a construction we are building next to our home for a few minutes the other day. I was nervous about doing so because the kind of MS fatigue I have carries over into the next day if I do too much. While I was outside, my wife was next to me. I was hot, but it was initially pleasant.

   Then I stumbled slightly and my nervousness began. My wife made a comment saying that I probably shouldn't be out in the heat. I remained looking at the progress but my apprehension worsened and I started thinking "you shouldn't be doing this." "It's too much for you." Finally when my knees started notably wobbling after about 20 minutes, I listened to my body and went back to our home to put on my cooling vest.

   The nervousness felt and the flood of warning thoughts is often a signal to tell us something is wrong. When we know what the signal means and listen to it, anxiety serves an important function. If we are nervous about a meeting, we will prepare more for it, or we will increase attention and concentration to pay attention to hints we could have missed in a relaxed state.

   SIMPLE WAYS TO MANAGE ANXIETY

   1. Develop a plan to manage your particular type of MS: For example, learning how to deal with MS fatigue effectively is a particularly helpful way to keep these feelings and thoughts at bay
   2. Getting the most information about the disease and understanding it as best you can is a good start to keep these worries reasonable and within bounds.

      Knowledge is power = more control = less fretfulness

   3. Talking to people close to you should also help. Especially, talking to other MSers is a great way to reduce your fears.
   4. Finding a team of trusted professionals to monitor and provide care for the illness and its symptoms can also go a long way in reducing painful fears and concerns.

   DON'T IGNORE MORE SERIOUS SIGNS OF UNEASINESS

   Sometimes it can get out of control. Someone with an intense fear of relapse can live in constant dread of the next returning symptoms.

   Staying too long in a state of worry can cause:

   • Serious digestive problems
   • Muscle aches
   • Other discomforts such as MS headaches and other MS symptoms can get worse.
   • It can make us irritable and interfere with our ability to relate comfortably with friends and family who are important to us.
   • Finally, it can paralyze us.

   MEDICAL SYMPTOMS THAT CAN COME FROM ANXIETY:

   • Palpitations
   • Pounding heart
   • Accelerated heart rate
   • Sweating
   • Trembling, shaking
   • Shortness of breath
   • Feeling of choking
   • Chest pain or discomfort
   • Nausea or abdominal distress
   • Dizziness
   • Unsteadiness
   • Feeling lightheaded or faint

   Important: Panic attacks and other forms of distress often produce symptoms very much like those of Multiple Sclerosis: symptoms such as numbness or tingling sensations for example.

   When these symptoms show up, it is important to consult your doctor. If no physical cause is found and it is thought to be the result of nervousness or concern, treatment by a mental health professional should be consider.

   Symptoms range from a concern that reflects a period of adjustment and is expected to resolve with support and time, to more serious disorders like obsessive-compulsive disorder that can be lifelong and debilitating.

   Those of us with Multiple Sclerosis are not immune to any one of these disorders, but often our anxiety falls into the category of adjustment, or the exacerbation of agoraphobic or social phobias that may be exaggerated because of the life changing conditions of our particular type of MS.

   
   
   

   Go to top of the page
   
   Go back from Anxiety to ms-multiple-sclerosis-symptoms Home page
   
   

   Go to the MS'ers Place
   
   

   
   
   About Me | Privacy Policy | Disclaimer | Contact Me
   
   
   
   
   

   New! Comments

   Have your say about what you just read! Leave me a comment in the box below.
   Copyright © 2009-2012 All Rights Reserved.

   
   SBI!