Hi, there!

I'm new-ish to this forum but was reading through some threads and thought I'd share something I've been struggling with in hopes of perhaps some reassurance.

First and foremost, I have horrendous health anxiety. So much so that it practically rules my life. I've had numerous health issues during the past year and it's sent my anxiety the worst it has ever been in my life. I was diagnosed with temporal lobe epilepsy a year ago, and have been having ongoing tests on swollen lymph nodes that won't go down for a year now. But, more recently, I've been having abnormal bleeding and very irregular periods/no periods at all.

I came off the pill almost exactly a year ago now, the same time I started my epilepsy medication (lamotrigine) because the two can't be taken together. I had a couple of normal periods, and then in the new year it just all went very strange. I would have no period at all, or just one day of spotting, or numerous weeks of spotting. My doctor told me it could be the pill leaving my system, but now it's been a year I'm thinking it's something worse.

Since coming off the pill, I rapidly gained a tonne of weight. I'm constantly bloated, literally all of the time (which I know is a symptom of ovarian cancer - something I can't seem to get out of my mind) and I've broken out in horrendous acne that won't budge. I had a blood test last month to check for hormone imbalance but nothing abnormal showed.

I have currently been bleeding/spotting (whatever it is - I should also mention that I don't get any pain whatsoever) for nearing a month and a half straight, and of course my health anxiety has convinced me it's something really bad. I've also been getting clots with this, but I always used to have that with my periods when I was on the pill too, and I know that's quite common. I have an ultrasound on my ovaries on Friday, which I am worried about. My doctor has mentioned it could be PCOS, but is it normal to really be spotting this frequently if it were to be that? (Also a GP I saw before mentioned the possibility of pregnancy or STI's - I just want to confirm that it is 100% neither of those things)

I'm 22, so I know I'm very young to be thinking about something as sinister as "the c word". But, my family history is quite bad. My gran died of ovarian cancer when she was 54. My mom died of melanoma when she was 28 (and first got it when she was 19) so I'm always incredibly wary of all of that and it does really panic me.

I know I just need to wait for my scan now, but honestly I've been really struggling to cope, and if anyone has perhaps had a similar experience with a positive outcome it might make me feel a little less alone.