First post I've made here - Health anxiety absolutely destroying my life

Hello all, this is my first post here, so apologies if I don't format my post correctly. I'm also in a pretty heightened sense of anxiety at the moment so apologies if it isn't layed out well.

I'm writing as I'm looking for some support, and I think I'll also print this out as a history of my issues and symptoms to show to my new doctor.

I'm a 16 year old Male from the UK, with no family history of cancer or anything like that, though, my grandfather passed of a sudden heart problem.
I'm somewhat underweight.

I'm also going to preface this with this; this will most likely be a very long post discussing all of my health anxiety issues that I'm having, so a huge thank you to anybody who reads this, and a huge thank you to anyone who replies.


My health anxiety is completely destroying my life and I feel as if it is the sole purpose for my anxiety and severe depression. It's getting to the point where it is an accomplishment that I have got out of bed, let alone trying to leave the house.

I've had varying degrees of health anxiety all of my life, it was a lot easier when I was younger, but the past 10 months have been absolutely horrible, almost unbearable. This 10 month spree of HA started from an episode of heart palpitations with a high heart rate that occurred on a Sunday night. I had a few that day, and whilst looking up heart palpitations on google (at that time, I didn't really consider googling symptoms as much of a problem as compared to now) and instantly had some more while looking them up. I layed in my bed for hours waiting to feel better, and haven't been quite right since then.

After this episode, I went to my doctor and had an ECG, chest X-ray and bloodwork. They came back fine, aside from raised bilirubin levels which does worry me a lot. I had a liver ultrasound scan a while back when this problem first occured, and nothing was found.

At this time, the only symptom present was heart palpitations.

After a bit of time, I began getting pretty bad chest pains, usually on the left side of my chest, they're very tight. Sometimes they can change position. Some of the time they also occur when breathing in deeply. For a few days I also had a really really uncomfortable feeling in my chest along with heartburn.

I saw the doctor again, he was very dismissive of me and did no other tests, listened to my chest for a few seconds and said I was fine. So I was on my way and dealt with these issues for weeks, pretty awful to live with. I had so many different thoughts going around my head of what it could be and my life was honestly really difficult and still is. I still have these thoughts.

Over the course of probably about 1-2 months I started developing other weird feelings and pains over my body. One huge one was a feeling of breathlessness. I decided to cut caffeine almost completely out of my diet and the palpitations seemed to have stopped, and then I felt really good for a couple of days. However, the chest pains remained and it was still really hard to cope. I got random stomach pains on occasion, a bit of constipation sometimes and a loss of appetite. However, my loss of appetite was weird at times, sometimes I was super hungry but felt really sick when I tried to eat, or smell or even see food. Sometimes to this day I have episodes like that in which I feel like I'm going to faint.

I had a few more doctors appointments in which I was dismissed fairly rudely and nothing came of them. The chest pains continued, sometimes accompanied by dizziness and other aches and pains, and also tightness. However sometimes the chest pains are really weird and I have a slight ache in my top row of teeth, when the teeth are touched the chest pain and tightness gets worse, I've had that issue minorly in the past and it just seemed to have went away, but I get this fairly frequently now.

About 5 months ago, I had a fairly bad general sense of feeling unwell along with the chest pain and occasional palpitations. I noticed raised lymph nodes in my neck and on my hip which are still raised to this day, sometimes I feel as if they are changing in shape weirdly. This scared and worried me a lot, I basically thought I had lung cancer or something at this point. My quality of life was awful, I had convinced myself I had many awful diseases and health problems and lived like I did. I rarely left the house. It was awful.

I also had a really bad feeling of phlegm in my throat, and when I swallowed it felt like it was moving over something, really weird sensations. One morning I coughed up a bit of yellow phlegm and went to the walk in centre at the local hospital. I was told I most likely had a viral infection and to drink plenty of fluids. I did so and symptoms seemed to ease in about 1.5 weeks. Chest pains still continuing.

Gradually I started doing a tiny bit better in terms of how I lived, I went out a bit more and had some good days where symptoms were not too bad. I feel as if part of this is due to the fact that I started a relationship with my girlfriend, she has helped, and still does help a lot.

Then came the stomach and bowel problems that I am experiencing.
I have a fair few symptoms which the doctor thinks is most likely IBS. The biggest problem is that when I have a bowel movement, I never feel like I've completely finished. I also have a fair amount of pain, and sometimes a burning sensation when I go. I also experience some stomach cramps and pains too, along with abdominal noises, mainly after breakfast. Seems that I sometimes have flare ups with these symptoms.

There isn't really much else to say aside from the issues which I'm currently very worried about.
My main worries are still with the lymph nodes and chest pains.
At night, when really tired, I sometimes experience a really weird shaking feeling, where my whole body starts shaking, mainly felt in my chest, and it feels like I'm shaking with my heartbeat. It's really very scary for me, and it makes me worry a lot.

The main issues that I'd say I'm worried about are:
Cancer - Lung, liver, pancreatic, esophageal, bowel or lymphoma, but all cancer in general really
Heart issues - another huge worry for me, not sure on anything specific, but always worried about heart disease, bad valves, or heart attacks.
MS - I get muscle twitches and random pains all over my body at times in varying degrees, isn't as big as my other worries, but still there.

Health anxiety is completely ruining my life, it's really very unbearable, especially the chest pains, like the ones I'm currently experiencing as I write this. Due to dealing with this for so long, I think it's caused me pretty bad depression too, I have had suicidal thoughts at times. I can barely leave my house most days.

I'm almost convinced there is something very seriously wrong with me, and it's really very scary and drastically destroys any quality of life.
I'm just honestly at a loss right now for what to do, it's just so overwhelming for me, sometimes I feel like I'm just waiting to die.
I'm terrified and living in fear of cancer, and its just crushing me emotionally and physically. If it isn't cancer I'm worried about, it's heart disease or failure and stuff like that.

Over the course of dealing with this, I've been referred to CBT, and currently on a waiting list for that, and starting anti-depressants in a few months/weeks.

A huge thank you to anyone who read all of this, and a huge thank you to anyone who replies, seriously, thanks.

And apologies if I rambled too much or didn't set it out too well. Not sure if I'll show this to my new doctor who I'll be seeing in a week or so, I changed GP practices as I have felt very dismissed and not taking seriously at all. Hoping my new doctor will help me a lot more than them.

Thank you.

Hi. :)

First of all it's great you're about to start therapy/medication. That will help I'm sure. :)

Chest pains are a symptom for me as well, alongside with weird sensations in my arms. I've learnt that these are most likely caused by my back - have you considered that? I even went to A&E as I was scared I was having a heart attack or what - the pain was really bad. The doc assured me it was my back, so I did as she told me and now I'm much better. Anyway, that doesm't have to be your case, it's just to illustrate the simplest cause is the most likely one. You're 16, without any heart disease, not even overweight. Don't worry. :) I get twitches all the time, no big deal. :)

It's good you've changed your GP - best of luck with the new one. :)

You'll get better. :)

Palpitations, aches and pains (including chest pain), dizziness, muscle twitches and bowel problems can all be caused by severe anxiety! Once you've started your counselling and medication, you might find your physical symptoms improve as you get the anxiety under control.

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Originally Posted by sheslostcontrol

Hi. :)

First of all it's great you're about to start therapy/medication. That will help I'm sure. :)

Chest pains are a symptom for me as well, alongside with weird sensations in my arms. I've learnt that these are most likely caused by my back - have you considered that? I even went to A&E as I was scared I was having a heart attack or what - the pain was really bad. The doc assured me it was my back, so I did as she told me and now I'm much better. Anyway, that doesm't have to be your case, it's just to illustrate the simplest cause is the most likely one. You're 16, without any heart disease, not even overweight. Don't worry. :) I get twitches all the time, no big deal. :)

It's good you've changed your GP - best of luck with the new one. :)

You'll get better. :)

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Hello, thanks for your reply.

It could be my back as I spend a pretty large amount of time sitting at my desk, with a bad posture.

Thanks, all the best :)

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Originally Posted by braginskaya

Palpitations, aches and pains (including chest pain), dizziness, muscle twitches and bowel problems can all be caused by severe anxiety! Once you've started your counselling and medication, you might find your physical symptoms improve as you get the anxiety under control.

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Hey, thanks for your message, it's pretty reassuring.

Hang tough - we're warriors! You'll lick it.