Jelly Legs

[airsick365]

I'm trying to convince myself that I'm not alone in this jelly legs thing... Can someone shed some light please? Weak or (perception of weakness), heavy legs and cold legs feet. Can anyone share their experience with this please? Thank you

[Agora1]

Hi airsick365, jelly legs or not, know that they will carry you all the same, one step at a time. They are feeling weak, heavy and sometimes cold because of the tenseness of the muscles. When anxious we are always clenching our muscles whether it's our jaw, hands and even legs. We are fearful and so the muscles are tight and tense causing these symptoms. To relieve yourself of these sensations, using a total body relaxation therapy can help bring back the circulation by allowing your muscles to relax.

It is not dangerous but the feeling can feed into our anxiety making the muscles tighter. Our nervous system is already over sensitized. By doing a tense and relax progressive muscle relaxation, you will get to know what your body feels like when in a relaxed mode. Takes practice but in time you will no longer have this feeling in your legs. One step at a time

[airsick365 in reply to Agora1]

Thanks for the reinforcement and confidence. Your advice is very helpful. How do I do the total body relaxation therapy?

[Agora1 in reply to airsick365]

Hi airsick, I would recommend tuning into YouTube and listen to the suggestions in relaxing your body from head to toe.

2 that I found helpful are:

"Body Scan Meditation" by UNH Health & Wellness

"15 min Meditation/BodyScan" by Living Better

Wishing you peace and calm. x

[Jeff1943 in reply to Agora1]

Thanks for that detailed reply, Agora1, I too get jelly legs sometimes, you start to put it down to age and weight but there's always that lingering feeling that it's more. Your description of how anxiety tenses leg muscles was most reassuring.

When I don't think about weak knees I can walk all day but the minute I start 'testing' for it I start looking for the next bench. Your wise words puts things into perpective.

[airsick365]

I just feel so horrible. And I'm adding lots of stress to my wife. She's very loving and supportive but I know it's affecting her more and more. She wants the man she married. She wants that person back. I was fearless and now I'm fearful... No doctor or therapist seems to help. It's just like this is normal.

[HelloPanda23 in reply to airsick365]

What specifically are you afraid of? The symptom, or a fatal disease?

[airsick365 in reply to HelloPanda23]

The anxiety and difficulty in controlling it. The panic. I'm a very healthy individual (Thank God) based on a ridiculous amount of testing and labs and exams, etc. So physically I'm good. It's just the mental health with this anxiety and panic disorder that produces all kinds of physical manifestations or not even really manifested but perceived. So I'm always thinking of "what if" and when I work myself up or something triggers a panic attack I feel a host of things that might not even be real but my brain tells me so.

[HelloPanda23 in reply to airsick365]

That's a super good sign. You're not stuck in a hole and you can easily get better. To do this, stop worrying about how your legs feel and overall waste your time doing rhings you enjoy. If you dwell on your legs feeling jelly, then the worse your legs will feel. Accept that this is part of your fear and try to ignore it. I have a fear of getting a disease that will make it impossible for my legs to move, and will paralyze me (not going to give names because it may put you in the same situation I am in with my fear of this disease). It has caused me bits of leg pain throughout the month, but it's gotten better. This means that I don't have the disease, but yet my fear is still there. It's a tough hole to get out of, and I feel your pain.

[airsick365 in reply to HelloPanda23]

Thanks for sharing and the tough love. That's exactly what my wife tells me. "stop dwelling....."

[HelloPanda23 in reply to airsick365]

Trust me, you have nothing to be scared of. If you don't have health anxiety and you're not afraid of having a terminal illness, then continue living your life calmly. Before I searched up the disease that I am now afraid of, I had a normal anxiety disorder. I'd simply randomly get anxiety and even its symptoms sometimes (like naseua, vommitting, loss of appetite, heart racing, and etc.) My mistake was trying to make myself feel better about my illness through searching up other diseases people had that were far worse than mine. That's when I messed up, so please don't do this either. Good luck!

[Krn210]

I used to suffer from the jelly leg feeling a lot! Like most of my days at one point were consumed with worry over my legs. Like the previous posters have said, your legs are fine. I noticed that once I stopped asking myself all the time how my legs felt the less and less they felt weak.