15 Years of Anxiety, Sciatica-Like Symptoms and Dizziness / Anyone Else?
I’m trying to understand whether anyone has experienced a similar combination of symptoms.
I’ve been dealing with anxiety/panic and strong health-related hypervigilance since around 2011. Over the years, I’ve developed a lot of physical symptoms that seem to interact with the anxiety.
I also developed chronic lower-back/right glute and piriformis tension after a back injury around 2018–2019. Since then, I’ve had sciatica-like sensations: tension or strange sensations going from the glute/hamstring toward the calf, sometimes without behaving like typical sciatica.
The most confusing symptoms for me are the dizziness and instability. It’s usually not spinning vertigo. Instead, it feels like:
Swaying or being pulled backward
Feeling unstable when standing or walking
Feeling like I might faint
A heavy or detached feeling in my head
Internal trembling/vibration, particularly around my upper back/neck
Neck and upper-back tension that seems to make the sensations worse
The symptoms can become much stronger when I focus on them or become anxious. Then the sensations scare me, which increases the anxiety and muscle tension, creating a vicious cycle.
This has been going on for about 15 years, and I’m trying to understand whether there are other people with a similar pattern—particularly people who have had anxiety/panic + chronic muscle tension + sciatica-like sensations + non-spinning dizziness/imbalance.
Has anyone experienced something similar? If so, what eventually helped you understand or manage it?