What is this?

For the past three months I've this horrid sensation that whenever I sit I feel suffocated. More specifically it feels like a belt is tightened around my abdomen. When I breath in there's resistance and it feels hard to inhale. My abdomen feels so tight and there's significant bloat (gas). My massage therapist says that my abdominal muscles are so tight.

My brain has been playing the devil recently and I'm in no doubt that this is TMS. It's a nasty sensation and although I know I'm not in danger (i.e. a life threatening symptom) it reduces my quality of life dramatically.

Has anyone felt a similar sensation?

Thanks in advance,
Mike

 

Yes! I’ve had it. Many times. It’s caused by adrenaline and anxiety. If you haven’t read a book by Claire Weekes, I highly recommend it. She’s a lifesaver! She’ll explain everything. I listen to parts of her books every single day.

Here’s two of her books free on YouTube:

 

Hi Diana - Good to hear from you again. Do you mean 'Hope & Help for Nerves'? I heard the audio book last week. It's a good book. However, these symptoms have been with me constantly (24/7) for the past three months. I experience it even if I'm not anxious and I feel at calm. I feel the biggest abuser in my life right now is my subconscious brain and I want a divorce from it! Just need to find a good lawyer who can process the legal separation. The relationship we used to have was a good one and now it has turned into a cruel selfish partner and I don't want to be part of it any longer! It's not serving me anymore.

 

Ha! I hear you! When you get an overly sensitized nervous system, you don’t necessarily feel anxious. People have different symptoms, including yours,and they can last for months.

 

Mike, I have similar sensations, maybe a little higher, it's right around where my ribs begin both back and front. This sensation comes and goes and has lessened over time. I use a Physio therapist and he has suggested it's all from anxious breathing, and I think he's absolutely right, agreeing with @Diana-M . Meditation has helped, and now I am also doing Qui Gong because you breathe with co-ordinated movements which makes you more aware and slows the breath, and takes your mind off of your stress and physical obsessional thinking because it involves so many other movements. You might find it enjoyable and relaxing (it's not very taxing). If you click on my avatar photo you should find my page with a list of options for movement - all of which incorporate the idea of slowing the breath and easing anxiety. Play around with some techniques and perhaps you'll find something enjoyable.

 

Hello, fellow Brit!

I agree with what everyone is saying in reply to you about anxiety. In addition, I would say that the sensation that you describe (above) is also indicative of anger/rage. Unless my experience of anger/rage is different to everyone else's (and I reckon it won't be) what happens to me physically when I am consciously aware of being angry and would like to express it or I am about to express it, is a feeling of like a belt tightening around my abdomen, just as you describe; it's an automatic 'girding'. It's a physical tension/bracing that happens just before you express anger; the 'girding' is in preparation to propel the 'explosion' of expressing the anger/rage. If the anger/rage is expressed and released the 'girding' subsides, but when it's not expressed and released it can stay with you. TMS is 'tension' - that's, of course, what the 'T' stands for in TMS - and Dr Sarno said that TMS is caused by rage/anger. And so often we are not consciously aware of our rage/anger, but I believe that our bodies nevertheless still 'gird' in response and recognition of it. In addition to what is angering and enraging you, look too for what has and/or is irking you... even the niggling irritations in life are rage/anger/anxiety making. Don't dismiss anything irksome as being too trivial to be enraging you... just because we feel we 'should' be okay with something that in the great scheme of things is relatively minor and 'no big deal', our brains far from always see it in that way.