lass
02-08-06, 21:17
Sorry, I do go on a bit, this is likely to be very long! I just feel I need to let it all out tonight and I've offloaded to my friends a bit too much lately, and I think they will get sick of me soon, so I thought I'd post on here instead!
I've been reading loads of posts and lots of people seem able to identify what triggered their anxiety in the first place - things like losing a loved one to an illness, or other stressful changes in their life.
I really can't say what has started me off. I've always been a cautious type of person, a bit of a worrier, but not how I am now. I used to be able to ignore any health issues for a few days before considering consulting a doctor - whereas now the slightest thing sets me off in a right old state.
I have been thinking about it a lot and I think maybe mine started when I cam I came back from a holiday at Disneyland Paris in February, and a friend of mine who has terminal cancer had been in hospital while I was away, and was very poorly. She had been diagnosed a year previously so I knew she was ill and that they could not cure her; however that was the first time she had been hospitalised and was very ill.
I saw her about a week later when she was back at home and she did look very ill, much worse than when I'd seen her last, and I think we all wondered then if "this was it".
A couple of days after seeing her, I then got a pain in my abdomen which came and went, but wasn't like a normal tummy pain; in fact I wondered if I'd pulled something or had a hernia as it was a very tight kind of feeling. I went to the doctor and she said I was constipated, and suggested some treatment and so on. I was fine for a couple of weeks until I read an article on bowel cancer and realised I had a change in bowel movements and my symptoms sounded the same as the girl in this article (by this time, I was fluctuating between constipation and diarrhorea). Since this point I've been a regular at the GP and I've been obsessed about my bowels.
The more I thought about it, the more I've convinced myself it could be something serious - my dad has bowel disease (colitis) and also bowel polyps which they remove, and I discussed this with my GP and polyps can be hereditary (left alone, polyps can turn cancerous).
My GP has been excellent and told me she thinks it's IBS but realises I won't relax until that's proven, so I've had blood tests (all normal) and am now having a sigmoidoscopy on Friday.
I'm also now due to have counselling soon (God help the poor counsellor, she'll have earache after me, you have probably realised by now that I do like to talk about it!).
I've tried 2 types of anti depressant but I've come to the conclusion that this isn't for me, and that I need to work through why I'm feeling like this and learn to deal with it. I do take St Johns Wort, some other herbal stuff and vitamins and minerals, and I do feel these help (more so than the anti depressents, but to be fair I haven't stuck with the meds for long).
I just think that lots of people have real, understandable, valid reasons for why their anxiety started; whereas I can only guess at mine by looking back to what happened around that time.
I can cope with most of my symptoms and accept them for what they are - anxiety. Since this started I've had pins and needles in my arms, hands, legs and feet (lasted for well over a week), tummy pains, terrible back aches, muscle aches, a kind of tension in my abdomen, shaking, dizziness, nausea, insomnia and most recently palpitations. However I am still not believing that my bowel problems aren't something more serious, and I worry that even after my sigmoidoscopy (which hopefully will be ok), I will still feel something is wrong and they've missed something, and I'll never get rid of this anxiety.
I really don't know where all this is coming from, except that I remember being so shocked when my friend was diagnosed as her symptoms were very minor and it took a long while before they discovered the problem - and when they eventually did, her ca
I've been reading loads of posts and lots of people seem able to identify what triggered their anxiety in the first place - things like losing a loved one to an illness, or other stressful changes in their life.
I really can't say what has started me off. I've always been a cautious type of person, a bit of a worrier, but not how I am now. I used to be able to ignore any health issues for a few days before considering consulting a doctor - whereas now the slightest thing sets me off in a right old state.
I have been thinking about it a lot and I think maybe mine started when I cam I came back from a holiday at Disneyland Paris in February, and a friend of mine who has terminal cancer had been in hospital while I was away, and was very poorly. She had been diagnosed a year previously so I knew she was ill and that they could not cure her; however that was the first time she had been hospitalised and was very ill.
I saw her about a week later when she was back at home and she did look very ill, much worse than when I'd seen her last, and I think we all wondered then if "this was it".
A couple of days after seeing her, I then got a pain in my abdomen which came and went, but wasn't like a normal tummy pain; in fact I wondered if I'd pulled something or had a hernia as it was a very tight kind of feeling. I went to the doctor and she said I was constipated, and suggested some treatment and so on. I was fine for a couple of weeks until I read an article on bowel cancer and realised I had a change in bowel movements and my symptoms sounded the same as the girl in this article (by this time, I was fluctuating between constipation and diarrhorea). Since this point I've been a regular at the GP and I've been obsessed about my bowels.
The more I thought about it, the more I've convinced myself it could be something serious - my dad has bowel disease (colitis) and also bowel polyps which they remove, and I discussed this with my GP and polyps can be hereditary (left alone, polyps can turn cancerous).
My GP has been excellent and told me she thinks it's IBS but realises I won't relax until that's proven, so I've had blood tests (all normal) and am now having a sigmoidoscopy on Friday.
I'm also now due to have counselling soon (God help the poor counsellor, she'll have earache after me, you have probably realised by now that I do like to talk about it!).
I've tried 2 types of anti depressant but I've come to the conclusion that this isn't for me, and that I need to work through why I'm feeling like this and learn to deal with it. I do take St Johns Wort, some other herbal stuff and vitamins and minerals, and I do feel these help (more so than the anti depressents, but to be fair I haven't stuck with the meds for long).
I just think that lots of people have real, understandable, valid reasons for why their anxiety started; whereas I can only guess at mine by looking back to what happened around that time.
I can cope with most of my symptoms and accept them for what they are - anxiety. Since this started I've had pins and needles in my arms, hands, legs and feet (lasted for well over a week), tummy pains, terrible back aches, muscle aches, a kind of tension in my abdomen, shaking, dizziness, nausea, insomnia and most recently palpitations. However I am still not believing that my bowel problems aren't something more serious, and I worry that even after my sigmoidoscopy (which hopefully will be ok), I will still feel something is wrong and they've missed something, and I'll never get rid of this anxiety.
I really don't know where all this is coming from, except that I remember being so shocked when my friend was diagnosed as her symptoms were very minor and it took a long while before they discovered the problem - and when they eventually did, her ca