Medical News

Is there a connection between anxiety, panic attacks, and fibromyalgia? Oh yes, I believe there is a huge connection, and it’s not what you might think.

Some people might say that sustained anxiety or many panic attacks could cause fibromyalgia or weaken the emotional state to a point where people could get fibromyalgia. Some other people may think that fibromyalgia causes panic or anxiety. I can see why someone would think both of these, but I think it’s not quite that simple.

Based on my experiences with anxiety and fibromyalgia in my own body, I believe that the same thing that causes anxiety and panic also causes fibromyalgia, and that is the reason why many people have both, not because one causes the other.

Now, I do believe that fibromyalgia, at a basic level, is caused by, among other things, a build-up of stress chemicals in the tissues of the body, and stress chemicals are released when a person is feeling anxious or in a panic, so that might make it seem like I believe that anxious feelings are causing the fibromyalgia. However, it’s not that simple.

When someone feels anxious, there are many, many responses that happen within the body, and all of them are meant to supply energy to overcome a threat. When the threat is never overcome or never goes away, and the anxiety and panic keeps happening or goes on over days and weeks and months and years then all of these responses contribute to the state described as fibromyalgia. Get rid of the responses, and over time the body can reverse the fibromyalgia all by itself – but in order to get rid of the responses, you must first get rid of what is causing it all.

So what is causing it all? Some sort of threat? Well maybe – the threat of not enough money, not enough security, no control. Maybe very real physical threats such as an abusive or violent situation. However, in my experience, fibromyalgia and panic and anxiety are all caused by a person having a perception of no freedom and no power about the things that are important to them.

In my recovery process, I first discovered that I did have a little bit of power over my fibromyalgia and I could make myself feel a bit better with certain processes like stretching and massage. As I felt better I gained a little bit of a sense of power within my own body. As I got healthier my emotional states improved in ways that I wasn’t even trying to improve, like I gained confidence in my abilities, and I became happier. Eventually, I realized that every time my emotional state dipped down into anger, fear, panic, or anxiety, my body paid for it. (I always felt much more sore on emotionally ‘bad’ days).

Anger is actually a response, I believe, to a perception of powerlessness. So if you get angry easy, good. If you never get angry, well, you’ve got some work to do. If you can move through powerlessness to anger and then to something that feels better (worry, frustration) a couple of times, well then you’ve learned the process to feeling better from everything.

Once I realized how my extreme negative emotions were actually indicators of what my thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes were, I could start changing my thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes into ones that felt better. First I was mad a lot, cuz it felt better than fear and powerlessness. Then I spent a lot of time in frustration and worry, because that felt better, and then, eventually I felt well enough that these days I am consistently in states of enthusiasm and joy. There was only one time I was able to jump right from fear to joy (within about half an hour) – mostly I had to work at it and the changes were more gradual and over time.