emlica
24-09-13, 13:52
I'd been suffering with a bit of HA about some digestive problems I'd been having: I was convinced that my symptoms (mainly slightly loose BMs, gas, bit of nausea, lack of appetite) were the sign of something nasty, and not, as my doctor thought, just a slow recovery from a stomach bug combined with the effects of the anxiety itself.
It took two months, but at the start of September I did start to see some slight improvements, and it had been two weeks since I'd had a dodgy BM, so things were looking up, and I was feeling loads better about life in general. I had been worried that the start of my period would set things off again, as I often get dodgy guts at that time of the month, but days 1, 2, and 3 passed with no nasty symptoms. I felt SO positive, was properly looking forward to things again, started to think it was all back to normal and I'd be fine.
*Little* bit previous, it turns out. Today, day 4 of my period, things haven't been so great on the digestive front. Now, I take painkillers for period pain (paracetamol and some codeine) and logically I know that under otherwise normal circumstances, my bowels can be a little bit dodgy around this time in my period. The logical bit of me says that's all it is, perhaps combined with some mixture of food stuffs that my belly hasn't liked (since things have been looking up, I've been less careful about what I eat!), but I can feel I'm getting all anxious and a little bit weepy about it again, and I desperately need to stop myself getting back into that loop, as I'm sure the anxiety makes it all worse as well. I just don't know how to make myself believe that it's not worth worrying about.
The worst thing is the feeling of disappointment - you know, things had been really nearly back to normal so this feels like such a step backwards and I'm getting scared that it's going to keep going backwards again. Trying to persuade myself that having one day of my digestive system being a bit dodgy is nothing to worry about at all - to be honest, even before my tummy bug and all the worrying, I'd have the odd day where things weren't great, so I think I've always had a sensitive tummy or whatever - but it's not really working...
It took two months, but at the start of September I did start to see some slight improvements, and it had been two weeks since I'd had a dodgy BM, so things were looking up, and I was feeling loads better about life in general. I had been worried that the start of my period would set things off again, as I often get dodgy guts at that time of the month, but days 1, 2, and 3 passed with no nasty symptoms. I felt SO positive, was properly looking forward to things again, started to think it was all back to normal and I'd be fine.
*Little* bit previous, it turns out. Today, day 4 of my period, things haven't been so great on the digestive front. Now, I take painkillers for period pain (paracetamol and some codeine) and logically I know that under otherwise normal circumstances, my bowels can be a little bit dodgy around this time in my period. The logical bit of me says that's all it is, perhaps combined with some mixture of food stuffs that my belly hasn't liked (since things have been looking up, I've been less careful about what I eat!), but I can feel I'm getting all anxious and a little bit weepy about it again, and I desperately need to stop myself getting back into that loop, as I'm sure the anxiety makes it all worse as well. I just don't know how to make myself believe that it's not worth worrying about.
The worst thing is the feeling of disappointment - you know, things had been really nearly back to normal so this feels like such a step backwards and I'm getting scared that it's going to keep going backwards again. Trying to persuade myself that having one day of my digestive system being a bit dodgy is nothing to worry about at all - to be honest, even before my tummy bug and all the worrying, I'd have the odd day where things weren't great, so I think I've always had a sensitive tummy or whatever - but it's not really working...