I seriously think I am dying

[Peter_Scott]

Hi I seriously think I am dying, for very good reason. I would love reassurance from you guys as I do not know where to turn.

I did post here a bit about my medical history when I joined. I live in the UK, am male.

OK I have always had health anxiety, it has ruined my live big time. About a year ago I had what was called Transient Global Amnesia, I saw a neurologist who put it down to a change in my migraines I had since a child. Also I had various numbness and twitching in my muscles. All these symptoms I had also had a few years back. A CT brain scan was done, negative, a MRI Brain Scan showed a small legion near my brain stem, but they thought this was not important. A few moths later and I started loosing my appetite and had nausea 24/7, I started loosing weight like 10-20kg. I went to my GP who ran blood tests and sent me to a GI doctor, again many tests including the camera nothing was found. I have now not eaten sold food for about a year.

Now about a month ago things started a turn for the worse, I started to get daily headaches, with occasional migraines, I saw my GP a couple of times and she says that it it Anxiety or Stresses causing them. Don't get me wrong I am very stressed as I feel I am going to die.

Do others know how I feel, I can't find out I am really ill or I am going to die, I could not cope, I would top myself, I would prefer not to know, does that make sense?

My daily headaches are not that bad, they are not normally there when I wake, which I know brain tumour ones are, and they do not get worse when bending down, sneezing etc. My neck seems saw and the pains seems to travel from there to my temple and above my right eye, this can trigger a migraine with me. They used a camera to look at the back of my eyes to see if the optic ring was swollen, this can be caused by high pressure due to a tumour but all looked fine they said. Does this sound like a stresses headache? I have had this before, on and off for many years. My Dr will not do another brain scan saying that my symptoms do not indicate it. I can not go privately as I have no insurance and have no savings left.

Please help as I am at the end of my tether.


Peter

[Trish]

Hi Peter i'm so sorry you are suffering, HA is the most awful illness

Did i read in your post that you haven't eaten solids for a year?? If so what are you living on, your body needs fuel.

There's not much i don't know about brain tumours, my husband is on his 3rd! Never once did he have a headache, his 1st one they found was because he had a fit and a MRI was done.

Anxiety & stress is what i think you are suffering, you have had many tests and your GP obviously thinks the same.

I do not suffer headaches, but my daughter does and gets them quite often, but her job is again stressful so she puts them down to that.

I do hope you feel better real soon.
Hugs
Trish.

[gypsywomen]

if you are not eating properly for a start you will get bad heads plus it will affect all your functions i would say eat small meals at regular interval's,during the day as this will help

[samc100]

So all scans etc are not showing anything up? Then it is most likely stress. Never to be underestimated on how destructive it can be.

I think you need to go back to basics. Believe it is stress related. So you need to help your body and mind repair. You do need to eat. Work with a DR / dietican on how to do this. As already said little and often.

Do you know what causes you stress or is it all HA? Do you take any meds gorcthe stress? Do you do any alternative therapies?

I think you need to start breaking this cycle. And it's hard to know where to start. Write down honestly what you want/ how you can help yourself etc and talk to your Dr.


You are not dying. You are struggling. Good luck xxxx

[oldgraymare]

in the first couple of months of my health anxiety, i stopped eating solids as well, living off of gatorade, soup broth and meal replacement drinks. I have never in my life felt so sick. If you haven't eaten solids in a year, then you are not doing yourself any favours. I'm sure you know this but your body AND your mind needs nutrients to function properly. i would highly recommend you do everything you can to start introducing solids into your diet again. i know its extremely hard to eat past the anxiety, but if you just keep trying your brain will eventually learn that there is no danger and it will get a lot easier. i still have no appetite, but i eat three meals a day at least if it kills me, and its becoming less and less of a struggle to do so, even with all the stomach and intestinal upset i experience.
if you are not on any meds or in therapy i suggest you investigate your options right away. you dont have to suffer, you dont deserve it.
you have had some pretty extensive testing, just keep that in mind when you do feel anxiety and panic, that everything you had done was clear. again it wont help immediately but if you keep reminding yourself, you're going to find it easier to come down from the panic.
good luck!

[wiskersonkittens]

Peter -- you have done the most important thing you can do and that is going to see your physicians and getting tests run. The good news is, they have found nothing wrong with you. It is SO hard for those of us who suffer health anxiety to believe this -- i am guilty of it, too. But, there does come a time when we have to believe them. Getting to that point can be a battle.
What I found particurly interesting in your post is that you stated you haven't eaten solid food in a year. Is that still going on? You also stated you aren't eating much at all. Sweetie, it's no wonder you have headaches! Your body is probably lacking certain things that would help you feel better. In turn, you're worrying about your headaches (and, I, too have had them in my temple area to the back of my eye and my last eye exam was perfect) causes you to panic and makes everything worse, which causes you to panic more . ... your a hamster on a wheel so to speak. Everything keeps going around and around.
I once read a book called THE WORRY CURE and it was wonderful. So, allow me to pose a question to you that it suggests asking yourself in moments like this -- do you have any proof what you are going through is dangerous? Well ... on the bright side, you can answer "No" to that because you have seen your doctors and they aren't worried. How do you know you are dying? You've never died before, so you don't know what it feels like, right? Again, your doctors would know more than you (and even me because I have the same fear once in awhile when I get really strange symptoms) if you appeared to be on your death bed. So, that's another thing in your favor.
I think you need to step back from this and look at it from a different persepctive. What is going on in your life right now that is causing this physical angst? You have had a trigger of some sort and it is something that is hard to deal with on an emotional level, so you, like all of us, turn it inward. As I have often stated, physical pain is easier to deal with than emotional. Maybe if you can figure out what the trigger is you will finally have the resolution you need for this.
I do hope you get to feeling better soon, and I'm here if you need to talk. Wiskers ~

[racdun]

I had bad headaches for months last year, temple area side of head and back of neck. After numerous trips to doc and repeats for painkillers which did nothing only make me sick I went to a massage therapist. She showed me that by pressing on a certain spot at the back of my head how I could reproduce the pain that I was feeling. So after a 3 massages and she put back in two vertebrae that were out of place in my neck havent had one since.
Just thought I would reply since I know how upsetting and worrying daily headaches can be. Take care
Rachael

[countrygirl]

Severe tension in your neck can cause all the pain and headaches you are suffering and the more you suffer the worse the tension and so on and so on. I have herniated disc and arthritis in my neck and have had your symptoms on and off mostly on for past 18 yrs together with weird crawling sensations in head and scalp and pulling sensations in face and sudden intense pressures in head face etc. I too have had numerous mri scans of head face and neck and was told that for whatever reason be it damage to my neck or tension from worrying about the symptoms the effect is the same and pain the same.

On a basic level you have what you think are symptoms of something serious like a brain tumour but the Dr are certain you have no signs of anything serious going on- it took me along time to accept the difference between a symptom and a sign in Dr language!

The longer you do without solid food the harder it will be for your oesphagus to cope with solids so suggest you start with sloppy nearly liquid food and work up at stretching your food pipe - have had experience of this with someone who was on liquid diet for 3 months and when tried reintroducing solids kept choking but this is completely normal so don't give up just persevere.

[Peter_Scott]

Thank you for your replies and reassurance they are great.

I had a couple of days without a single head pain, but about a hour or so after starting work this morning there is a lingering pain in my RH temple and above my RH eye, in the brow area, also my neck is a little tense and tender, it can help if I roll my head/neck, does this sound like tension? I have always had migraines and I seem to remember my mum who was also a sufferer used to get relief from doing this. Am I right in thinking tension can trigger a migraine style headache? Are there any good relaxation tips for the neck and head?

As for eating, no I have had very little solid food for about a year, I have eaten things like cereal, brown bread, and ensure drinks. I am so frightened of being sick, I think it is a phobia, I really dread the thought of being sick, I think I may die if I do, I know it is pure silly. This is another reason I avoid solid food, if I was sick it would already be liquid and it would be safer, if that makes sense.

Apart from the headaches I have no pain at all, I get burning in my lower stomach,and if I miss eating every two hours, even if it is only rice crispies my stomach burns and I feel so sick I can NOT eat anything for the rest of the day.

I have asked for a follow up with a GI doctor, but this will not be until April.

I so wish I could break this, and stop the headaches and stomach problems, as I have dealt with my panic attacks, and also know I must NOT keep going to the doctors for reassurance as I KNOW it does not to my health anxiety any favours.

Any thoughts from you would be great, thanks

Peter

[Typer]

Seems like your nerves are frazzled after years of tension and fear upon fear. You are in a vicious circle (as am I)

I read a blog which I will try to find, about a man who had suffered from HA all his adult life and his main fear was brain tumour due to his life long sets of headaches.

he had tranquillisers for one week. Apparently his GP wanted him to experience life without fear, just to show him what that could be like. The experience showed him that everything, even his headaches were psychosomatic.

He went on and had acupuncture and Chinese herbs and these sorted out his headaches ad nerves. He reported that he felt okay and he just goes back and has some acupuncture now and then. If I can find the blog, I will post it here.

Either way, guess all of us understand how scary and disabling all this fear can be. Hugs