Back Pain Community

Hello everyone,

I've been putting off going to the doctor and asking for advice (I know, bad) because I honestly don't know where to start or even what kind of doctor to go to. My symptoms are insane and almost impossible to pinpoint, I often think I'm imagining it all.

To give some background, I'm a 27 year-old woman, pretty fit (I was never overweight), with a so-so lifestyle. I say so-so because, after being a dancer for 14 years I decided to go down a different professional path and I went from very active to barely active at all (again, bad).

My problems started last year, when I was finishing up a PhD that had kept me very inactive. When I wasn't sitting down studying I was too tired to do anything else, so I used that time mostly for sleeping. So yes, I was VERY sedentary. In any case, after almost two years of this horrible lifestyle I started getting mid-upper back pain, sort of between the shoulder blades, which was achy feeling, therefore easy to attribute to bad posture and long periods of inactivity.

I didn't think much of it, since the pain was rarely there and when it was it was barely noticeable, until I started getting other symptoms. The only way I can describe what I'm going through is "random pains". I can have pain in the knee one minute, in the elbow the next minute, then in the calf, then in the thigh, then in the little finger of my left hand and so on. It moves around and it's not always present. I can go for months with no pain and then it comes back in the same random pattern. It also isn't on just one side, it's everywhere.

At times, I can also get numbness and tingling, but that's rare and happens much less than the pain. Muscle twitches also happen from time to time. The only constant is the mid-upper back pain, which is almost always there, along with tensions in the muscles there. It only gets worse with activities such as vacuuming. For some reason, after vacuuming it aches much worse.

Before you judge me, know that I'm planning to go to the doctor, but I'm just curios if anyone has any idea of what could be wrong with me. I literally feel like an old lady whose every bone and muscle aches. When I lay in bed, my legs feel heavy. When I sit on a chair, my knees hurt. When I lean over, my back hurts. I'm going out of my mind, really. It also doesn't help that I have anxiety and I'm a hypochondriac.

So... does anyone have any clue about my predicament?

Thanks!