Obsessed about my neck/throat

[AllIhaveisme]

As I said in another post, I'm new and I've had several lymph nodes swelling for the last 9 weeks. Since this started, I have developed an obsession about the nodes, which turned into an obsession about my neck. I'm constantly checking it and feeling it. To the point. I cause myself pain and stiffness and who knows.... maybe more nodes or bigger ones at least. I can't seem to stop. Now I have this click I hear and feel when I swallow. Its annoying and when I swallow a lot checking to see if its still there, it starts to get sore. I'm so tired of this, I just want this to go away!!!!!

[anthrokid]

Hi there,

I'm in my fourth year studying psychology, and whilst my focus is youth and child psychology, I have ample experience myself in suffering from anxiery and panic, as well as having studied it extensively for the last 4 years of my life.

I used to have similar obsessions, but rather than my lymph nodes, I was paranoid about fever (silly, I know). To the point where I would take my temperature every ten minutes, you know, just in case it had changed dramatically from the other 100 times I'd taken it in that day, haha. What you're describing is an obsessive-compulsive symptom of anxiety. And you're right, it is hard to stop, expecially because we get ourselves so anxious that we feel like we HAVE to check it, just in case. This isn't considered too bad until it comes to the point where it affects you, which it sounds like it is given that you are distressed by it and tha you are causing yourself some extra pain and stiffness.

Generally, one of the easiest courses of action to take is to write down every time you touch/feel your neck in a day and the time. Once you have a number of times that you touch/feel it in the day, as well as the time intervals, you can conciously work to reduce these. For instance, if you are checking your neck 10 times in an hour, try to reduce it slowly to 8, then 5, then 2, until eventually you'll be checking once an hour. It could be more than this, or less, this is just an example. Give yourself a numeric goal (i.e. I will only check 5 times this hour) and try your best to stick to it. Maybe you could do something like only check every second or third time you think about checking your neck.

It will take some time to get under control. From experience, it took me quite a while to reduce my temperature checking. Fortunately, I got to a point where I actually lost my thermometer, and now haven't been able to check my temperature for about 2 years, haha.

I'd also suggest taking a look in the OCD forum. There may be further posts there from people with similar obsessions, or more ideas as to how you can reduce acting on them. I obviously don't know your medical background, so I don't know whether you have spoken to your GP about this, or whether you have a psychologist/therapist. But I would recommend talking to your GP to see if they can help ease your mind and make some suggestions as well.

Best of luck!

[AllIhaveisme]

I really, really appreciate your post. In one of my many Googling frenzies, I came across info on OCD and anxiety and that's what I figured it was. I have been seeing my GP ongoing through all this and the in house psychologist I've seen twice, but I'll make another appointment today. Again, thank you very much!

[anthrokid]

You're welcome :) Great to hear that you've got adequate support. Pleased to hear that you're making another appointment. It's always worthwhile to check in when you notice something new going on to try and get control of it early. Seeing the in house psychologist again may be really beneficial given your new display of OCD like symptoms, as they can go through some CBT like therapy (which just works on changing your thought patterns - very useful in OCD which is thought based).