Maurice
20-03-13, 01:22
Hello everybody,
I have been a keen observer of self-help forums like this one for a while now but this is the first time I decided to post.
If you are reading this: Thank you.
I am a medical student / junior doctor on the verge of begining his professional career.
I only have my licensing exam left to take and am already on practical rotations.
The problem is: Fears of disease are consuming my thoughts.
I have recently begun a PhD in Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis research and it is absolutley wearing me out.
ALS is a disease that I would not wish on my worst enemy.
For those of you who do not know what ALS is, please do NOT! look it up now.
It is the ultimate nightmare for every hypochondriac.
It starts with unspecific symptoms (twitches and weakness) and inevitably leads to a terrifying death. No one knows where it comes from and what to do to treat it. It slowly eats up your muscles while you have to sit back clear-headed and watch yourself deteriorate.
Until you either die from respiratory failure or, if you decide to go on a ventilator, are locked into your body for the rest of your tube fed and ventilated life. This is the topic of my thesis and I spend every day thinking myself into how these people must feel.
I assume that it is taking its toll on me.
My problems have always been similar.
If I see a patient I feel his pain. I have always been the one person on rounds that comes back after everyone has moved on, to smile, sit and talk to my patients to make them understand that they are safe.
Having worked on a few ICU's during my education I understand how debilitating fear can be and I try to take it away whenever I can.
I know that what my colleagues tell me is true. That in order to be able to do this job you have to distance yourself. Build a wall around you. Do not let things get to you. The problem is that I am terribly bad in that. I only have to watch a movie I like and I start behaving like its protagonist for a while.
Especially if I can identify with him.
Suffering just makes me sad. And I want to alleviate it.
I have had this problem for a while now and had been fairly functional until recently.
I understand medicine to the modest extent one can after med school and am confident in treating diseases.
I can be professional and focused when needed and react to emergencies rationally and fast.
But my fears are starting to interfere with my focus.
Maybe because I am trying to wrap my mind around an incurable, deadly disease.
This is where I stand today:
I am 100 percent convinced that I have ALS. I have all its presenting symptoms. Literally every single one.
My hand is atrophying(losing muscle mass+feeling weak).
My muscles are twitching all over my body. And my legs are exhausted day and night. I even have shortness of breath.
I went to two neurologists: No.1 understood my problem, ran an EMG and concluded that I was healthy and anxious. According to him every medical student has to have ALS at least once. This calmed me down for a week.
When I noticed my hand was still weak and soft, I went to a second neurologist.
No.2 examined me, ran an EMG and diagnosed me with two pinched (ulnar) nerves and a slight loss of muscle mass in my right hand. He did not want to hear about my twitches. Good: The diagnosis is not deadly. Bad: It does not explain the twitching(fasciculations) and frankly does not correlate with the degree of muscle atrophy without strong sensory symptoms.
Also bad: There is a real sign now.
You might understand the dilemma I am in.
I research this disease and feel that I know it. My doctors could not reassure me well since I am one myself and their exams were not very thorough.
(Although I would have acted the same if I was them, since there is no reason to assume a young,
healthy looking man is suffering from the early stadium of a deadly disease instead of a common one)
Nevertheless my symptoms continue. They can be unspecific or not. Fasciculations alone are very unspecific. So is hand muscle atrophy. Togther though they are specific. Although they might stem from two completley unrelated conditions, they are both there! And they are very real!
Weighing these possibilities is the battle I am fighting with myself nearly 24/7.
Not a single day goes by that I do not examine my hands.
I manage to function for a while(hours) and get drawn back by twitches, weakness or just from looking at my hands.
It is absolutely driving me crazy. Also: I know how ambigous and unspecific medical diagnoses can be. How biased they are by patient history and symptoms. If I tell any doctor the symptoms I perceive, he has to assume a first diagnosis of ALS. And there is no test to rule it out. You can just find sth. else or wait and see. Now what do I do? I do not want to run from doctor to doctor requesting more and more specific tests, but I also do not want to live with this uncertainty. This is one of the major contradictions of this behaviour : To constantly seek reassurance in a world where nothing is certain and everything is made to change.
I have rationalized and theoretically overcome my fears a 1000 times.
Still I am dying. Again and again. Every single day.
My body is hurting. I can feel and see the symptoms!
I have denied, raged, bargained, rationalized, been depressed and have accepted my imminent death.
From a disease I might not even have. And even if I did I should not be that obsessed.
What souuld I do? Thank you.
Whoever battles with monsters
had better see that it does not turn him into a monster.
And if you gaze long into an abyss,
the abyss will gaze back into you.
—Nietzsche—
I have been a keen observer of self-help forums like this one for a while now but this is the first time I decided to post.
If you are reading this: Thank you.
I am a medical student / junior doctor on the verge of begining his professional career.
I only have my licensing exam left to take and am already on practical rotations.
The problem is: Fears of disease are consuming my thoughts.
I have recently begun a PhD in Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis research and it is absolutley wearing me out.
ALS is a disease that I would not wish on my worst enemy.
For those of you who do not know what ALS is, please do NOT! look it up now.
It is the ultimate nightmare for every hypochondriac.
It starts with unspecific symptoms (twitches and weakness) and inevitably leads to a terrifying death. No one knows where it comes from and what to do to treat it. It slowly eats up your muscles while you have to sit back clear-headed and watch yourself deteriorate.
Until you either die from respiratory failure or, if you decide to go on a ventilator, are locked into your body for the rest of your tube fed and ventilated life. This is the topic of my thesis and I spend every day thinking myself into how these people must feel.
I assume that it is taking its toll on me.
My problems have always been similar.
If I see a patient I feel his pain. I have always been the one person on rounds that comes back after everyone has moved on, to smile, sit and talk to my patients to make them understand that they are safe.
Having worked on a few ICU's during my education I understand how debilitating fear can be and I try to take it away whenever I can.
I know that what my colleagues tell me is true. That in order to be able to do this job you have to distance yourself. Build a wall around you. Do not let things get to you. The problem is that I am terribly bad in that. I only have to watch a movie I like and I start behaving like its protagonist for a while.
Especially if I can identify with him.
Suffering just makes me sad. And I want to alleviate it.
I have had this problem for a while now and had been fairly functional until recently.
I understand medicine to the modest extent one can after med school and am confident in treating diseases.
I can be professional and focused when needed and react to emergencies rationally and fast.
But my fears are starting to interfere with my focus.
Maybe because I am trying to wrap my mind around an incurable, deadly disease.
This is where I stand today:
I am 100 percent convinced that I have ALS. I have all its presenting symptoms. Literally every single one.
My hand is atrophying(losing muscle mass+feeling weak).
My muscles are twitching all over my body. And my legs are exhausted day and night. I even have shortness of breath.
I went to two neurologists: No.1 understood my problem, ran an EMG and concluded that I was healthy and anxious. According to him every medical student has to have ALS at least once. This calmed me down for a week.
When I noticed my hand was still weak and soft, I went to a second neurologist.
No.2 examined me, ran an EMG and diagnosed me with two pinched (ulnar) nerves and a slight loss of muscle mass in my right hand. He did not want to hear about my twitches. Good: The diagnosis is not deadly. Bad: It does not explain the twitching(fasciculations) and frankly does not correlate with the degree of muscle atrophy without strong sensory symptoms.
Also bad: There is a real sign now.
You might understand the dilemma I am in.
I research this disease and feel that I know it. My doctors could not reassure me well since I am one myself and their exams were not very thorough.
(Although I would have acted the same if I was them, since there is no reason to assume a young,
healthy looking man is suffering from the early stadium of a deadly disease instead of a common one)
Nevertheless my symptoms continue. They can be unspecific or not. Fasciculations alone are very unspecific. So is hand muscle atrophy. Togther though they are specific. Although they might stem from two completley unrelated conditions, they are both there! And they are very real!
Weighing these possibilities is the battle I am fighting with myself nearly 24/7.
Not a single day goes by that I do not examine my hands.
I manage to function for a while(hours) and get drawn back by twitches, weakness or just from looking at my hands.
It is absolutely driving me crazy. Also: I know how ambigous and unspecific medical diagnoses can be. How biased they are by patient history and symptoms. If I tell any doctor the symptoms I perceive, he has to assume a first diagnosis of ALS. And there is no test to rule it out. You can just find sth. else or wait and see. Now what do I do? I do not want to run from doctor to doctor requesting more and more specific tests, but I also do not want to live with this uncertainty. This is one of the major contradictions of this behaviour : To constantly seek reassurance in a world where nothing is certain and everything is made to change.
I have rationalized and theoretically overcome my fears a 1000 times.
Still I am dying. Again and again. Every single day.
My body is hurting. I can feel and see the symptoms!
I have denied, raged, bargained, rationalized, been depressed and have accepted my imminent death.
From a disease I might not even have. And even if I did I should not be that obsessed.
What souuld I do? Thank you.
Whoever battles with monsters
had better see that it does not turn him into a monster.
And if you gaze long into an abyss,
the abyss will gaze back into you.
—Nietzsche—