Question: I am a 53 year old female. I am in good health overall, with a history of GERD, and anxiety. My anxiety focuses on health concerns -- ie, I get extremely anxious over a symptom and obsess compulsively (OCD). For the past 3 1/2 weeks, I have had some minor pain in my right forearm (sometimes my elbow hurts on the inside edge, or when I'm using my mouse at work. Then, last week, I developed an odd feeling in 2 toes on my right foot - they feel sort of numb, like there's a thread around them. I have seen my GP and she is very thorough - she spent 30 minutes with me, and said that there's nothing in my symptoms that reflect a major problem - but I still continue to obsess. I have all sorts of fears about arthritis and other things. She felt my syptoms were not indicative of anything serious. I can't tell if there is really something to follow up on, or if this is OCD making my mind run crazy. Your thoughts?

Thank you. I guess what I am obsessing about is that this might be the onset of something serious like Rheumatoid arthritis. My doctor looked at my joints and observed no redness or swelling, and it really doesn't hurt when I bend my toes. She said she felt my OCD (and google, which put a lot of this into my mind) are leading me to conclusions that aren't substantiated, medically. Could that be true? Is that reasonable?

Okay, I think I understand. It sounds like you agree with the doctor that I saw. The pain I am experiencing is most likely nerve or minor muscle pain, and not typical of arthritis, and if it gets worse, I could follow up with a neurologist, but it is not something that I should be worrying about obsessively. Right?