Trauma-related chronic muscle guarding/armouring or functional freeze — does anyone else experience this?
Hi everyone ❤️
I’m 25F, and I’ve been dealing with a chronic pain cycle for around 5 years, with almost two years of remission in between the years 2022-2024.
I’m posting because I feel incredibly alone in this experience and would really love to hear from people who have experienced something similar.
My pain started after medical trauma and emotional abuse at the age of 20. I have two possible theories about what might be happening, although I know I can’t say for certain what the underlying mechanism is.
My first theory is chronic protective muscle guarding or “armouring.” I wonder whether my body learned to remain physically tense as a protective response to trauma, and whether this pattern continues even when I’m no longer in danger.
My second theory is a functional freeze response, possibly involving dorsal vagal shutdown, alongside persistent peripheral muscle guarding and peripheral sensitisation. I wonder whether feeling trapped, emotionally overwhelmed or unsafe contributes to a shutdown/freeze state, with my body physically clenching and maintaining a cycle of pain. I’m not sure whether these concepts fully explain my symptoms, but they seem worth exploring given how strongly my pain responds to my emotional state and environment.
My pain patterns:
- The pain is concentrated in my upper body: shoulder blades, upper/mid-back, spine, inner elbows and forearms.
- It switches sides — sometimes right-sided, sometimes left-sided, and occasionally bilateral.
- When both elbows/arms hurt, my back sometimes feels better, almost as if the pain shifts between areas.
- During bad flares, I sometimes experience unusual sensations in my left ring finger and palm, such as warmth, burning or a strange foreign feeling.
- Flares often follow emotional stress, panic, emotional abuse or feeling trapped. Sometimes, though, the pain returns for seemingly no reason.
One of the strangest things is how strongly my pain responds to my environment and emotional state.
- Exercise: During exercise, I feel no pain, and I can experience relief afterward too.
- Dancing in clubs: Dancing and being immersed in music can make my pain almost disappear.
- Social connection: Spending time with people, travelling, staying in hostels and feeling free can eliminate my pain by around 90% - 100%
- Remissions: I previously had almost two years without pain when I stopped obsessing over a particular phobia and stopped with Dr google. This year, I’ve also had several remissions lasting few weeks but unfortunately, the pain keeps returning.
- Lorazepam (Ativan): During severe flares, lorazepam 3 mg has eliminated my pain. I realise this doesn’t prove the cause, but I find the response interesting.
Massage provides temporary relief, but the pain returns relatively quickly. I’ve also tried more than 50 acupuncture sessions with almost no lasting improvement.
I’ve had quantitative sensory testing (QST), which was completely normal, with no allodynia or hyperalgesia.
Because of these patterns, I wonder whether my pain involves persistent peripheral muscle guarding, peripheral sensitisation, a trauma-related freeze response, or some combination of factors. I’m particularly curious about the relationship between physical tension, the autonomic nervous system and the way pain changes when I feel safe and connected to others.
I know that terms like dorsal vagal shutdown and functional freeze are used in different ways, and I’m not claiming that either has been medically established as the cause of my pain. I’m trying to find people who recognise this particular pattern and might have found ways to improve it or completely eliminate their chronic pain.
I’d especially love to hear from anyone who experiences:
- Chronic pain concentrated in the upper body rather than widespread throughout the body.
- Pain that switches sides or moves between the arms and back.
- Pain that almost disappears during exercise, dancing, socialising or when feeling safe.
- Flares following emotional stress, panic or interpersonal conflict.
- Long periods of remission followed by the pain returning.
- Temporary or significant relief from somatic movement, TRE or relaxation.
- A feeling that their body is physically bracing or clenching during periods of emotional shutdown or freeze.
Most importantly, has anyone found a way to make the relief last? Have you found approaches that helped reduce the constant guarding or break the cycle of pain returning whenever life becomes stressful?
I’m really struggling at the moment. The pain is exhausting, and I’m going through a lonely phase in my life and im currently been unemployed for months cos of the distress caused by tge pain. It’s especially difficult when I can feel almost completely normal in certain situations, only for the pain to return again as if I never had chronic pain.
I also have health anxiety, so I’d really appreciate responses focused on personal experiences and practical things that helped, rather than jumping to diagnoses so if terms like fibromyalgia and central sensitisation can be avoided that would help me alot not to be triggered as those diagnoses/mechanism have been ruled out. I’m trying to understand my experience without spiralling into more health anxiety.
If anyone has experienced something similar, I’d genuinely love to hear your story. Even knowing I’m not the only person going through this would mean a lot. ❤️
Thank you for reading.
