Patients with several somatic diseases tend to listen closely to their bodies for signals of potential harm. For instance, those with cardiac pacemakers may feel like having arrhythmia while everything is correct. This mechanism is known to influence the onset of panic attacks. I have recently encountered a now to me group of patients, with so called inappropriate sinus tachycardia. This condition is poorly studied and, of course, there are suspicions that it may be psychosomatic. Any ideas?
Palpitations, Arrhythmias, and Awareness of Cardiac Activity
Arthur J. Barsky, MD, Annales of Internal Medicine, 1 May 2001, Vol 134, No. 9_Part_2>
Abstract: Somatic and visceral symptoms have a surprisingly weak relationship to objective measures of tissue pathology. This is exemplified by the poor correlation found between palpitations and cardiac arrhythmias. Many factors other than extent of disease influence symptomatic distress, and since symptoms are such a crucial feature of illness and of medical practice, much more investigation of these nonbiomedical influences is needed. Although experimental laboratory paradigms facilitate such investigation, there are problems involved in generalizing from laboratory findings to the reporting of the symptoms of disease in daily life. In studying the awareness of cardiac arrhythmias and of resting heartbeat, we have found that the palpitations of patients who somatize more and have more health-related anxiety and more psychiatric distress are significantly less likely to be related to demonstrable cardiac arrhythmias than are the palpitations of other patients. The accurate awareness of arrhythmias, however, is not associated with the accurate awareness of resting heartbeat. Even more surprising, a relatively large proportion of heart transplant recipients are accurately aware of their resting heartbeat. This work poses more questions than it answers. In so doing, it underscores some of the technical difficulties of conducting research in this area and shows how little is known about symptom perception, processing, and reporting.
Many papers related to hypersensitivity to somatic stimuli refer to IBS:
Pain Med. Nov 2010; 11(11): 1619–1627.
Ischemic Hypersensitivity in Irritable Bowel Syndrome Patients
QiQi Zhou, PhD,Roger B. Fillingim, PhD,Joseph L. Riley, III, PhD,and G. Nicholas Verne, MD
Thermal hypersensitivity in a subset of irritable bowel syndrome patients. Zhou Q, Fillingim RB, Riley JL 3rd, Verne GN. World J Gastroenterol. 2009
Affective disturbances modulate the neural processing of visceral pain stimuli in irritable bowel syndrome: an fMRI study. Elsenbruch S, Rosenberger C, Enck P, Forsting M, Schedlowski M, Gizewski ER. Gut. 2010 Apr;59(4):489-95.
As regards hypervigilans in general it refers to trauma.
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