Anxiety right arm pain
The Anxious Mind and Body: Arm Pain Explained
Pain is almost always distressing. It doesn't matter if you know the cause of the pain or whether or not the pain represents something dangerous—pain can be distracting, upsetting, and make it hard to enjoy the things going on in your life.
When the cause of that pain is a mystery, it can become even more concerning. Those that struggle with arm pain often feel that their pain may be a sign of something more serious, and wonder if their pain is something that will ever stop.
Your Pain May Have a Meaning
Many people hope for a quick way to determine the cause of arm pain including ruling out anxiety as a cause. Unfortunately, there is no way to know—your doctor can rule out any other causes of recurrent arm pain and help you recognize if anxiety is the likely culprit.
Note that arm pain is unlikely to be the only sign of anxiety. It's often a part of a web of symptoms occurring intermittently and/or simultaneously with the pain.
Causes of Arm Pain From Anxiety
The causes of arm pain may vary, and different anxiety symptoms may cause different levels of arm pain. The most common causes of arm pain include:
- Muscle Tension The single most likely cause of arm pain is muscle tension. Anxiety causes muscles in the neck, shoulders, back, and arms to become very tense, and that pressure may result in varying levels of pain. Depending on the way you're sitting or standing, that pain may be more pronounced in some areas than others, and for many that pain is mostly limited to the arm area.
- Hyperventilation Pain Those suffering from panic attacks are prone to hyperventilation, and hyperventilation can cause a combination of chest pain and arm pain that mimics what someone would feel during a heart attack. That's one of the reasons that seeing a doctor is still important - it's always important to rule out any heart issues, even if you're positive it's anxiety.
Hyperventilation causes blood vessels to constrict, leading to sharp pains that may radiate down the arm. - Overcompensation Those with anxiety often alter their lifestyle and their behaviors based on how their anxiety makes them feel. In some cases, this may cause you to start sleeping or sitting in ways that lead to more pain even without realizing it. These changes can be completely unnoticeable to others, but if you start moving your hands and arms differently, pain may be the result.
- Over-sensitivity to Natural Arm Pain Arm pain also happens all the time. If you sleep on your arm in an uncomfortable position, or you don't exercise enough, or you accidentally tweak your arm a little - all of these can cause arm pain that is natural and usually, short-lived. However, those suffering from anxiety and panic attacks often can't help but focus too strongly on any pains, and thus think the arm pain is abnormal even when it is not.
- Psychosomatic Anxiety does have some unfortunate consequences, and one of them is that it's possible to feel pains that may not be there because your mind is looking for them.
Ask yourself if your pain started, or starting becoming more frequent after thinking about pain. A common example is when someone with anxiety learns about heart attack pains. Many people find that after they learn that heart attacks cause pain to radiate down the left arm and chest, they start to experience pain more often in these areas.
Anxiety Arm Pain Treatment
For those whose arm pain is caused by anxiety, there's no need to be too concerned. Anxiety cannot cause any long-term damage to your arm, and once you learn to control your anxiety the arm pain will go away. Three ways to reduce your arm pain include:
- Moving and massaging the arm.
- Distracting yourself from the pain.
- Taking painkillers.
These are only temporary fixes, but they'll reduce some of the severity of the arm pain and make living with arm discomfort easier. You'll also need to find a way to manage and cope with your anxiety.
Summary:
Anxiety does not affect the arms directly, but it does affect other issues like breathing, sleep, and more that can create or exacerbate other arm discomforts.
The same movements one would use to address any arm pain can decrease it in the moment, but only anxiety reduction has any chance of long-term benefit.
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Treatments and when to seek help
Anxiety and panic attacks can cause a range of physical symptoms, including pain. Some people with anxiety may experience left arm pain.
By treating the underlying mental health condition, a person may find that the pain improves.
Anxiety disorders are the most common form of mental illness. About 18.1% of the adult population in the United States experiences an anxiety disorder each year.
It can be difficult to determine whether someone is having a heart attack or a panic attack. If a person’s symptoms include arm or chest pain, shortness of breath, nausea, dizziness, or sweating, they should dial 911.
Anxiety can cause pain in several ways. For some people, this pain might appear in the left arm.
According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, people with anxiety often experience chronic pain from muscle tension, soreness, or headaches. Tension or pain might occur in the arms as a result.
People who experience anxiety may also have panic attacks. Panic attacks, or anxiety attacks, are periods of intense anxiety. They can cause symptoms that are similar to those of a heart attack, such as chest pain, arm pain, a rapid heartbeat, and shortness of breath.
Additionally, anxiety and stress may make it more difficult for people with preexisting conditions, such as arthritis or fibromyalgia, to cope with the pain that they cause.
How a person treats this symptom will depend on the factors causing it. If the arm pain is due to anxiety or another mental health condition, treating this condition will improve the pain.
If there is an underlying physical health condition, a person will need to see a doctor for diagnosis and treatment.
Treating anxiety
Treatments for anxiety disorders include psychotherapy. Psychotherapy helps a person understand what is making them anxious and how they can deal with these triggers.
There are several types of psychotherapy that a person can try, and many therapists use a mixture of approaches. These approaches include:
- Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT): CBT works by identifying the thoughts and beliefs that make a person anxious. Then, a therapist teaches the person exercises and techniques to help them change these thought patterns.
- Psychoanalysis: This type of therapy focuses on uncovering the unconscious motivations behind a person’s thoughts and behaviors.
- Humanistic: Person- or client-centered therapy focuses on helping the person make decisions for themselves so that they can reach their full potential.
Stress management techniques may also help reduce anxiety in a person’s daily life. The American Psychological Association (APA) suggest the following:
- Meditation: Many studies show that meditation and mindfulness can help ease stress and improve anxiety, even in short sessions.
- Exercise: A 2018 review found that physical activity had a positive effect on anxiety overall and may be a helpful addition to standard treatments.
- Nature: Spending time outside and in natural landscapes may relieve anxiety. Looking at images and videos of nature may also help people recover from stress.
- Social support: Talking to empathetic friends or family members may help people with stress or anxiety to cope.
- Enjoyable activities: Hobbies and leisure can help relieve stress.
Some people may find it helpful to take medications for anxiety, such as beta-blockers or antidepressants.
According to the APA, research generally shows that psychotherapy is more effective than medication as a treatment for anxiety. It may take some trial and error for a person to find what works for them.
Treating muscle tension
If a person’s anxiety causes muscle tension in their left arm, they may benefit from short-term treatments that relax the muscles, such as:
- stretches
- massage
- warm baths
- progressive muscle relaxation
A person can also take over-the-counter pain relievers, such as ibuprofen, when pain arises. However, these treatments will not address the underlying anxiety that causes the pain.
If therapy, medications, or relaxation techniques do not help treat arm pain, another health condition may be responsible for this symptom. According to the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS), other causes of arm pain include:
- injury or trauma
- tendonitis
- frozen shoulder
- arthritis
- angina
Nerve pain or damage to the back or shoulder may also cause pain in the left arm.
In some cases, left arm pain is a symptom of a heart attack. Heart attacks occur when a blockage prevents blood flow around the heart. It is a medical emergency that requires immediate treatment.
The symptoms of a heart attack can include:
- pain and discomfort in the left arm, chest, neck, or back
- shortness of breath
- lightheadedness
- sweating
- nausea or vomiting
With a heart attack, the arm pain may set in gradually or begin suddenly. Usually, it will last a few minutes or come and go repeatedly.
Learn about other causes and treatments of left arm pain.
It can be difficult to distinguish between a panic attack and a heart attack. If a person has the symptoms of a heart attack, the safest option is to call 911 right away.
If someone has left arm pain due to anxiety or panic attacks, they may wish to speak to a doctor or therapist. These professionals will be able to talk through the treatment options and help the person begin to manage their anxiety.
Anxiety can cause pain in the left arm. If it is due to a panic attack or muscle tension, it is likely to be temporary, but people with anxiety disorders may also experience chronic pain.
Anxiety is a treatable condition. A doctor might suggest therapy, medications, or stress management techniques to help. Using massage or heat to relax the muscles may also relieve pain in the short term.
There are other causes of arm pain, so it is important to speak to a doctor. If someone has persistent pain, it could be a sign of another medical condition.
Heart alarm - For a healthy lifestyle! - Articles - Center of Modern Cardiology
Very often people complain of pain in the heart, but it turns out that the stomach hurts, suffers from osteochondrosis or stress has led to the development of depression. And the development of a heart attack is not recognized, they are attributed to the same stomach, osteochondrosis or even toothache. How to figure it out? Let's try to help.
angina pectoris. That was the name in the old days of the disease that we now call angina pectoris. A heart attack usually begins with a pressing or burning pain in the center of the chest (doctors say "behind the sternum") during exercise or stress, although it can develop at rest.
The pain is quite intense, can radiate to the lower jaw, shoulders and arms (more often to the left, but possibly both), to the neck, throat and back. Sometimes it disguises itself as bursting pains in the same areas or pains in the stomach (upper abdomen - epigastrium), simulating an intestinal disorder. The pain disappears at rest in a few minutes, and if you put a nitroglycerin tablet under the tongue (or spray a spray containing nitroglycerin) - almost instantly.
If such pain lasts longer than 20-30 minutes and its intensity increases, the development of a heart attack is not excluded. Timely assistance significantly reduces the risk of dying from a heart attack, so you need to call an ambulance team as soon as possible.
Recording an ECG during a heart attack almost always helps to make a diagnosis.
Heart attack cancelled. Very often, young women come to the doctor with complaints of pain in the heart. How could it be otherwise, because through the heart we pass all our troubles, worries and joys. In this case, there is usually no cause for alarm.
In young women, "heart pain" is often functional, meaning it is not caused by angina pectoris. Female sex hormones protect blood vessels from the formation of atherosclerotic plaques. And if you look, “heart” pains bother women not in the area where “angina pectoris” likes to settle, but in the left half of the chest, in the armpit or under the left breast. They are, as a rule, in the nature of discomfort, stabbing or aching pain, and can last from half an hour to several hours or even days.
These feelings arise for various reasons. Stress, sleep deprivation, overwork, premenstrual periods…and, as a result, an anxiety or depressive disorder.
The skeletal muscles are tense, on the shoulders they are compacted into painful lumps - “lumps of nerves”! Sometimes it is enough to have a short, but good rest, pleasant emotions.
In more serious cases, one has to seek help from a neurologist , a psychotherapist. Remember: the longer the depression lasts, the more difficult it is for the doctor to completely relieve you of discomfort, sleep disturbances and bad mood. However, in addition to stress, other reasons can lead to pain in the “heart area”.
"Bouquet of diseases". Osteochondrosis, a disease of sedentary people, leads to pinching of the nerve roots and the development of pain. If the thoracic spine is involved, then it is the heart that falls under the patient's suspicion - it pricks and pierces, lies on the chest with a lump or stone, catches with inhalations and sharp turns of the body, and aches for hours.
If such sensations occur during strong excitement, then the full impression of a heart attack can be formed.
But the true cause of the pain in this case is the tension of the muscles of the neck and back. Unlike an attack of angina, which is quickly relieved by nitroglycerin, pain medications, massage, kneading the back with hydromassage jets can help, shock wave therapy. During examination, changes in the vertebrae can be found on an x-ray of the spine. But the ECG, even at the time of the most intense neuralgic pain, will be normal.
Chest pain may occur during a cold if it is complicated by bronchitis. Coughing can add discomfort, since already on the second day of a hacking cough, in addition to the bronchi, pectoral muscles will add to the pain. If the cold is complicated by pneumonia and pleurisy, then with a deep breath and exhalation, changes in pain can be noticed. The pain increases with inhalation, when the lungs straighten and “rub” against the inflamed pleura, and decreases with exhalation.
The doctor will recommend an X-ray of the lungs, listen with a phonendoscope for wheezing in the lungs.
Do not forget about the stomach, pancreas and gallbladder. A common cause of chest pain is intercostal neuralgia, herpes zoster, and in women - mastopathy. Regular palpations of the mammary glands must be carried out by women after 30-35 years, and if there is pain or induration, consult a doctor who will most likely refer you to an ultrasound of the mammary glands and mammography.
Gender matters, because it is in women that “heart pain” during examination turns out to be a mask of other diseases, and in men over 40 any “gastritis, osteochondrosis attack or sore tooth” may turn out to be a first-time developed heart attack. A timely visit to the doctor is necessary if the heart is at risk.
On the other hand, all the pains in the chest should not be blamed on the poor heart either.
Let's try to figure it out, analyze our feelings and try to distinguish between an attack that can threaten health and functional pain.
- Stitching or aching pain in the left side of the chest, which does not give anywhere?
- The pain begins and goes away gradually, lasts a long time, for hours, and even days, if you are stressed?
- Physical activity does not cause or increase discomfort in the heart area, and sometimes even relieves it?
- The pain does not go away after taking nitroglycerin, but subsides with sedatives?
If you answered “yes” to most of the questions, you probably don't have to worry about your heart.
If so, complete the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and the CES-D questionnaire. Perhaps the stresses in your life have led to the development of depression and the consultation of a psychotherapist will relieve your "heart anxiety".
Deceptive symptoms
The body reacts to most disturbances and failures with pain and other unpleasant sensations. The first reaction to them is unambiguous - the sore spot indicates the disease itself.
Commentary for Domashniy Ochag magazine was given by Evgeny Avetisov, general practitioner, medical director of the European Medical Center.
"The right shoulder hurt, which means it blew out or turned awkwardly." Do you know that a diseased liver can give an alarm in this way? And pain in the liver, quite possibly, causes renal colic. By the way, liver diseases are often manifested by the so-called chronic fatigue syndrome, and the liver itself, as an organ devoid of nerve endings, suffers “silently”.
Or, for example, cardiac arrhythmia, as well as depression, indigestion, insomnia, excessive sweating, hair loss, impaired nail growth, skin changes can be caused by a violation of the thyroid gland. With this disease, in general, a very difficult situation, because the thyroid gland affects all metabolic processes, it can affect any organ. This is the reason for such a variety of manifestations in the form of a wide variety of symptoms that can mask or mimic many diseases.
We asked the expert about some symptoms that can mislead us (but not attentive doctors!)
Symptom: Chest pain
At first glance: problems with the heart.
In fact: very often heart problems cause pain not in the chest at all, but, for example, in the left shoulder, in the left elbow, in the left hand, on the left side of the neck, etc. And real chest pains can be the result of intercostal neuralgia. Or lung disease - if a sharp pain in the chest is accompanied by shortness of breath, this may be a sign of pneumothorax, when a sudden rupture of the lung occurs for no apparent reason.
A person can live without being aware of the peculiarities of the structure of his lungs, and suddenly - after active sports or a strong attack of coughing - there is a sharp pain in the chest, coughing, shortness of breath - a feeling of lack of air. One lung stops functioning.
Acute pain in the chest can be caused by Tietze's syndrome - an inflammation of the junction of the ribs with the sternum. Such an indisposition is quite common, it is not dangerous to health, although it is accompanied by painful sensations, in this case, the diagnosis is usually made easily.
Pain in the middle of the sternum sometimes indicates problems with the esophagus - its inflammation, damage to a sharp bone, for example, fish, as well as a hernia of the esophageal opening of the diaphragm.
Symptom: Lower back pain
The most obvious: sciatica ("lumbago").
In fact: May be a sign of kidney disease, such as pyelonephritis, a gynecological disease in women, most often such pain is caused by problems with the spine or muscle spasms.
There is even such a special diagnosis - pain in the lower back.
Symptom: Upper abdominal pain
The most obvious: diseases of the stomach (gastritis), especially if the pain is associated with eating, the symptoms of a duodenal ulcer appear in a similar way.
In fact: such pain can be a sign of a heart attack, if the process develops in certain parts of the heart, the pain is “redirected” to the stomach area. It can also be a sign of gallbladder disease, rarely inflammation of the pancreas (pancreatitis) or intestines. And yet - a manifestation of radiculitis or lower lobe pneumonia. To make a diagnosis, the doctor needs to take into account other additional manifestations.
Symptom: Shoulder pain
The most obvious: a disease of the shoulder itself - damage to the joint, ligaments due to overload or injury.
Actually: shoulder pain is caused by damage to the cervical spine.
It can also be a sign of heart or lung disease. By the way, pain in the cervical spine sometimes mimics a heart attack - they can cause severe pain in the heart.
Changes in the cervical region helps to accurately diagnose MRI.
If we talk about the right shoulder, it is rare, but it happens - when the pain indicates a problem with the gallbladder, which irradiates to the right shoulder joint. And the pain in the left shoulder is a possible irradiation of the pain of the stomach or lungs.
Symptom: Headache
The most obvious: increased blood pressure, vascular problems, migraine.
In fact: in 90% of cases, causal relationships are also violated here. Pressure rises with any discomfort - a headache, especially severe, especially if a person is alarmed; it rises because the head hurts, and not vice versa! You need to know that a headache due to high blood pressure occurs only when the numbers are very high.
With a pressure of 140/90, there may not be a headache.
Much more often headache occurs due to problems with the upper spine, neuralgia of the occipital nerve is associated with its exit to the first vertebrae. Very often it gives headaches, especially in the back of the head, temples.
Inflammation of the sinuses - sinusitis, frontal sinusitis - are also likely culprits of headache, which is localized in the forehead, eye sockets and cheekbones. Headache can be caused by a viral infectious disease, for example, herpes lesions of the nerves: occipital, trigeminal.
Vision problems also provoke a headache - people with myopia and astigmatism, especially pronounced, often experience severe pain in the forehead and temples when they are forced to read a lot, work at a computer, due to visual overload.
Headache may be associated with anemia (lack of hemoglobin), but this is rare.
As for the increase in intracranial pressure, this diagnosis is made quite often in our country: in order to make it, in fact, you need to insert a probe or do a spinal puncture.
Symptom: Joint pain
The most obvious: inflammation of the joints (arthrosis).
In fact: on the one hand, indeed, pain is often caused by degeneration of the articular cartilage. As well as an inflammatory process that develops right in the joint.
But it can also be a sign of reactive changes when the infection develops elsewhere, such as in the urogenital organs or in the gastrointestinal tract. Due to the work of the immune system, this inflammation does not manifest itself in the intestines (there is no diarrhea or disorders), and the pain is “transferred” to the joints. In this case, it is simply pointless to treat only the joints - this will only help relieve symptoms for a while, and then the process resumes.
Pain in the joints is sometimes caused by chlamydial infection, salmonella, shigella - different pathogens that "dig in" in different places, without even causing the classic symptoms of their disease - shigellosis or salmonellosis.
Psychotherapist's commentary
Natalia Rivkina, Head of the Psychotherapy Clinic of the European Medical Center:
Heart stone
Feelings of physical discomfort, which, as it seems to a person, are caused by a somatic disease, in fact, can be caused by neurotic conditions or mental stress. The likely cause is depression. One of the symptoms of moderate to severe depression is retrosternal pain, a feeling of heaviness in the region of the heart. Often these symptoms are confused with heart disease, manifestations of angina pectoris. How to explain this connection? With depression, such conditions arise as mental anguish, and it gives this feeling, which in everyday life we call "a stone in the heart." Often such experiences can be accompanied by a feeling of physical pain in the region of the heart. Pain is a subjective sensation. A person really feels it and experiences suffering.
