Hunger and tiredness increase pain?

Hi everyone

I always suffered more in general when I was hungry or tired, from when I was very young apparently. If I was hungry especially, I would get extremely anxious and short tempered, more than most! I realise this is fairly normally to varying degrees but in my case was extreme.

But now I have had this chronic problem with my throat and voice for nearly a year, with a variety of manifestations, and in many ways still struggling to accept TMS as the only cause of my problems. I feel little to no pain if I don't use my voice at all, but any voice use is extremely painful and all my muscles tense up and burn.

But something I've noticed is that the pain generally gets extremely bad the hungrier I get, and the more tired. Eating is like a massage for my throat so it can provide some relief just for that reason, but sometimes it's like my pain is reduced by 70% after a meal, especially after some sugar too. Which I find interesting, because surely if it was a physical problem this would not happen?

And yesterday I was in agony from speaking too much, and it seemed like my body was forcing me to sleep, and I never normally nap. But I slept for half an hour and woke with minimal pain.

What are other people's experiences with hunger and tiredness and tms pain. Of course both of these are huge factors in our mental well being, so it's interesting to see how they change our states of chronic pain. Does a huge change in pain levels from eating or sleeping mean that it's likely TMS? Interested to hear what you think...

 

I've definitely noticed a correlation with hunger. Eating a meal reliably reduces my pain, sometimes by quite a lot. The relief is short lived, usually not lasting more than a few minutes after eating. I guess it's the distraction, pleasure, comfort which brings the anxiety down and, thus, the pain. I guess that's sort of unremarkable, but it does continue to amaze me how immediate and reliable the effect is. I wonder if non-TMS pain would respond in the same way? Can we use this as evidence for TMS?

 

This seems to be related to the amount of "pushing vs relaxing" that we all have to be aware of. How nice to give yourself sleep. Sometimes our TMS drives us to do things which are very soothing, which otherwise we would ignore. It seems like your mind-body is helping you take better care of yourself. It might be possible to sense the need for rest when it is more subtle, and give yourself what is needed sooner...

 

hi,

sorry for my bad english. Im from vienna and i understand a lot, but writing is very difficult for me. i only want to say, that for me there is also a big relation between hunger. When read your post I thought, yesss! i it is tms ... my hip and leg pain must be tms ! If Im very hungery the pain hurts like fire and after my meal it feels better.
thanx for your describtion.

 

It is interesting to me how much relief it can bring. But of course my problem is in my throat so I have the added sensation of chewing and food going down which definitely relaxes the tense muscles in that area.

That's why I was interested in people with pain in other areas and how hunger or tiredness affected them.

It's interesting to hear people's experiences

 

One thing to consider is that hunger is one of our basic needs, and when awareness of that need arises, anxiety can kick in, and it seems like the anxiety over being hungry is the main source of the pain flair-up. So you have two options: 1) Get to a point where you always have food around so that the hunger doesn't creep up; or, 2) Practice calming yourself down by bringing that anxiety to your conscious mind. You can tell yourself things like, "I know that I am afraid that my basic needs are not going to be met. But in the past, being hungry has not led to major issues. I will eat when the opportunity presents itself. Everything is ok for right now." That calms down your nervous system. I think option 2 is a lot better in the long run because it takes away your need to control your external situation, which is a big issue for TMS-ers, and it forces you to take control of your internal response, which can be a huge source of power and strength if practiced!
I remember having pain flair-ups every time it rained because I hate getting wet and the worst feeling is getting caught in the rain without an umbrella. It's a total control thing for me. So I said to myself, Why don't you practice tolerating the uncomfortable feelings of getting wet and being out of control instead of demanding that you leave the house every day with an umbrella? If we don't practice option 2, then all we're doing is creating an intolerably high laundry list of things for us to be mindful of, ie how often we eat. So many people go the whole day without worrying about eating!