Lung cancer fear meltdown

[justdontknow]

I don't check in here very often, but just read the smoking poll/thread and do find it very interesting the number of people with HA that smoke.

I suffer from HA all the time, but it's mild and fairly controllable. Just knowing that I have anxiety (as opposed to something terminal) does help most of the time!

I'm 37, and male, smoke about 10 a day and give up regularly only to crumble and resume as soon as things in life get a little tricky. I even fear that I start smoking to fuel my HA as stupid as that seems.

Every year or so I go into complete uncontrollable meltdown with the fear of lung cancer. I get chest pain, back pain, sore throats, hoarseness, small amounts of blood in my sputum etc. I have all these symptoms now and had to leave the dinner table tonight halfway through the family meal because of the fear.

My biggest fear is of telling my young children that I'm going to die. They're too young to understand.

I can't work out why it happens only once a year with this severity, although obviously all year round too, but controllable.

[nikkinoo]

Hi there,
I know just how you feel and totally sympathise with you. I am going through the same thing at the moment. I gave up smoking about 10 days ago due to my fear of lung cancer following a bout of sinusitis and being blocked up and finding blood in my sputum. Even though I have been to the doctors twice and explained all this and after being told that my lungs are clear and it was only a sinus bug I am still so very scared in case the symptoms come back. I feel totally out of control. I am unable to sleep or think straight and am making things miserable for everyone around me. I hate myself so much at the moment. I have had all these symptoms a couple of times before and have gone into full blown panic and the doctors always say it is a sinus problem. I try and comfort myself by saying I was in this position before and I am still here now, so maybe the doctors are right! Maybe you could use this same technique if you say you feel like this severely once a year. I thought I had my anxiety under control and this was like a bolt out of the blue. I went from being happy and reasonably confident to a shivering wreck over night. I know I am being selfish focusing on myself, but I cannot seem to stop it!
Take care and let me know how you get on.
Kind regards Nikki. :-)x

[justdontknow]

Nikki - hi. Read your thread but didn't want to highjack it.
If you want to cheer yourself up a little, do an 'advanced search' for the previous threads that I've started - one in 2006 and one in 2007.


Blood in (thinking of a polite way to say it) nasal/sinal gunk is one thing, in sputum coughted up from chest and lungs is another.
However, I am still here...

[snowdrop]

I have this too justdontknow, i smoke about 10 a day, cut right down from 20 as I had read (googling!) that getting lung cancer from smoking will be dependant on the amount the person smokes, obviously the more they smoke the more likely they are (I am not stating this btw).

I have been worrying for a couple months now that I wont get away with it and all the ads etc make it worse, plus the pics on the packets completely freak me out.

I plan to quit real soon as I just feel guilty now every time i light up and it fuels me with dread. The enjoyments gone...i just have to deal with the addiction.

I dont want to tell my kids I am going to die either..worse still that I made it happen!

Give me a shout if you want a quit buddy!

[justdontknow]

I can completely relate to all that doomandgloom.

To add to my symptoms my lower back aches (and also the top of my thigh every time I take a step).

I cannot snap out of the 'knowledge' that I have lung cancer, even though I've been in this position before. It might be real this time. People with health anxiety still get ill for real!

Feeling sick and nauseous with the worry - how will I explain it to the children? How will they manage when I'm dead?

[Peggysl]

Hi There
I can sympathise with you 100%...I have stopped smoking 3 times over the last 30..the longest being for 9 years. Can you I believe I actually started again after that?
I have now stopped again for about 7 months after smoking for about a year and I'm convinced that much of my panic relates to the GUILT of smoking! That actually was a big help (believe it or not!) in helping me to stop.
Try to stop or at least cut down.
I am worrying myself sick at the moment over strange chest xrays.........have posted a thread, and had ct scan yesterday. No news yet.........
Good luck! It's hard but not impossible...and lots of support here.
Pegs X

[seeker]

Hi everyone
I totally felt like this, so much so that I have actually managed to stop smoking for three years (pretty much - I still have the odd one I'm out), and it has helped me feel less anxious. Now I just need to stop taking the nicotine pills and the alcohol!

I can breathe much more easily and don't get as many coughs or wheezing!

If you can, I really would recommend stopping smoking - I know how hard it is though!

Seeker

[justdontknow]

And here I am again, 3 months or so later, with the same problems.
Have thrown away cigarettes and lighter today.

[blondie47]

Hate to tell you, but even after you've quit, you'll always have that anxiety. Once a smoker, always a smoker as far as lung cancer goes -- I think the rule of thumb is anything under 100 cigarettes in a lifetime they consider you a "non-smoker", anything more you are considered a smoker, whether it be former smoker or current smoker.

I quit 9 years ago and worry more about lung cancer now than I did when I was smoking. I think smoking masked a lot of the anxiety I had, either that or I was just too young and stupid to imagine it might happen to me.

If there is one thing I do tell my kids is NEVER to be stupid like me. Because when you are young you think there will be a cure by the time you are old, or it won't happen to you, or who cares what will happen then? But when you are 40 and up, your past mistakes come back to bite you in the butt. Sad reality, that is.

I guess the best any of us can do, former smokers and current smokers, is do the best we can to be healthy, just for today. That is my new motto, one day at a time. I've been doing this for 2 weeks, just thinking of today only, and it seems to be working.