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Hypochondria.
Unexplained, shifting symptoms. Always something wrong.
Caused by weakness in your Base-Line?
Hypochondria is the plural form of hypochondrium.
Hypochondrium: Either of two regions of the abdomen, situated on each side of the epigastrium and above the lumbar regions, overlying the costal cartilages.
The hypochondrium ≊ The top of your Base-Line, where your rectus abdominis muscles attach.
Could this be the origin of the 'hypochondriac' label? A whole list of symptoms, pains and niggles. Always something wrong. Never feeling 'healthy' All because of of a misusage of the rectus abdominis and other main muscles of movement?
When little is found on clinical examination, having pains that are unexplained, leads to increased worry and mental stress.
Summary: What if I don't use my
main muscles of movement?
Self-doubt abounded. I was always in pain, always something wrong. I wondered if I was a hypochondriac - after all isn't pain said to be in the head and all my symptoms couldn't possibly real, could they?
Filling out medical forms - have you got X Y Z? "No, No, No" therefore there wasn't anything wrong with me - I must be healthy.
Results from a couple of blood-tests over the years were unremarkable. Nothing to see, no evidence to explain the pain and other symptoms.
The thoughts of 'what if it's...?' with lumps and bumps, chest pains and coughs. Over the years the worst-case scenario was always lurking in my mind.
I was stressed and depressed, I hardly expected to feel physically great. I thought the depression was a fundamental flaw with 'me', I never considered it was because of my body.
"How are you?" was a horrible question to be asked (especially when I knew the person asking actually cared). I usually answered with a superficial "Yeah, OK, fine." If I stopped to think about how I was, the tidal wave of everything wrong would have overwhelmed me and who really wants to hear all my woes? Pretending I was OK (not showing weakness or admitting I was hurt) was a trait from my early childhood. Gritting my teeth and getting on with it, never asking for help but sometimes resentful that help wasn't offered - I was in so much pain couldn't someone just see that??
There was always something causing me pain, shifting aches and symptoms. I tended not to mention specifics, I used my 'bad back' as the covering term from my early teens. I didn't want to come across as a hypochondriac/melodramatic attention seeker with all my symptoms, aches and pains.
I did a lot of research into my symptoms, for example all the different muscle syndromes - psoas, piriformis, tight TFL etc. Everything was sore - could I really have them all? I tried various muscle release techniques but I couldn't bear the pain they caused.
I felt like a fraud, like I was making it up somehow. Without much to see wrong, I had no
The pains and other symptoms were real. My body was wrecked, tense and restricted, constantly generating pain signals. I know that now that I have healed.
my fibromyalgia, pain & depression
Many months into healing (when I knew I had discovered the reason for my pain) I still had that strong feeling of self-doubt. Picking up a frying pan and crying out in pain. I had no audience, no reason to be faking, yet I still felt I was being overly dramatic despite the searing pain shooting up my arm. Acknowledging my pain was real, and forgiving myself (accepting it wasn't my fault), were bit steps in my journey back to physical adn mental good health.
What can YOU do to help yourself?
Read this website. Keep thinking about how you use your body.
Some cases of 'hypochondria' may be purely psychological but unless you are in peak physical fitness with a full range of natural movement then I would not rule out a physical source for any perceived pre-occupation with health and many other 'mental' issues associated with pain and tension. If your body in not in a good condition then how do you expect to feel well?