emlica
21-08-13, 16:51
Hi everyone,
Just after anyone's advice on how you deal with being worried about something that definitely IS wrong! I guess that sounds odd! Basically I'm having problems after a tummy bug - nearly 2 months later I'm still not back to normal - and the doctor is sure that there's nothing sinister going on (and has done blood tests to check). Most of the time I'm happy to believe that, so I'm not suffering too badly with 'what if it's something worse?' type anxiety (though I do get a little bit of that - mainly worrying about coeliac or something else 'chronic', like some kind of long-lasting post-infective IBS, but that's just when I'm particularly down!).
Mine is more related to 'what if it doesn't get better and I'm stuck with this', and constantly trying to assess whether I do feel better one day than I did the day/week/month before. I get depressed thinking about how happy/healthy I felt before I got the bug, and feel a bit despairing when I'm only seeing tiny improvements (I have to compare how I felt at least a month ago to believe that there's any improvement at all). The thing is that I'm sure I feel worse when I think about it, inevitably, and I'm probably genuinely making my symptoms worse by thinking about them, since - I'm told - mood and things do actively affect your digestion. I overthink it, I know I do, and then I worry, and when I'm worried I don't fancy eating, which worries me more, and, I imagine, patchy eating habits aren't great for the digestion either.
Any advice would be much appreciated - I'm down because I've felt a bit rubbish for so long, and I know I'm starting to struggle generally as I can't enjoy things like I used to - not so much because of my physical symptoms as because mentally I'm always worrying about whether I feel OK or not. And that can't go on!
Just after anyone's advice on how you deal with being worried about something that definitely IS wrong! I guess that sounds odd! Basically I'm having problems after a tummy bug - nearly 2 months later I'm still not back to normal - and the doctor is sure that there's nothing sinister going on (and has done blood tests to check). Most of the time I'm happy to believe that, so I'm not suffering too badly with 'what if it's something worse?' type anxiety (though I do get a little bit of that - mainly worrying about coeliac or something else 'chronic', like some kind of long-lasting post-infective IBS, but that's just when I'm particularly down!).
Mine is more related to 'what if it doesn't get better and I'm stuck with this', and constantly trying to assess whether I do feel better one day than I did the day/week/month before. I get depressed thinking about how happy/healthy I felt before I got the bug, and feel a bit despairing when I'm only seeing tiny improvements (I have to compare how I felt at least a month ago to believe that there's any improvement at all). The thing is that I'm sure I feel worse when I think about it, inevitably, and I'm probably genuinely making my symptoms worse by thinking about them, since - I'm told - mood and things do actively affect your digestion. I overthink it, I know I do, and then I worry, and when I'm worried I don't fancy eating, which worries me more, and, I imagine, patchy eating habits aren't great for the digestion either.
Any advice would be much appreciated - I'm down because I've felt a bit rubbish for so long, and I know I'm starting to struggle generally as I can't enjoy things like I used to - not so much because of my physical symptoms as because mentally I'm always worrying about whether I feel OK or not. And that can't go on!