Things can get THIS BAD - and be OK

[skippy66]

I heard an interesting story last week. A perfectly healthy 18 year old friend of a friend was having dinner with her family recently when she suddenly couldn't function properly. She lost the ability to speak instantly. She reached for her cup of water and knocked it over. She basically lost control of her limbs, voice and felt dizzy with tunnel vision.

Obviously terrified their daughter was having a stroke or similar, her parents called an ambulance and she was rushed to hospital immediately. They kept her in for 3 days and ran a whole range of tests….

But after Day 1, she was feeling normal again and wanted to leave the hospital. All her symptoms had vanished. She wanted to go home but they wouldn't let her.

All the tests came back COMPLETELY NORMAL and she was discharged on Day 3. She has been ABSOLUTELY FINE since the episode, which was a couple of months ago. They had no idea what caused it, why it happened when it did, and why it simply went away.

I think there's an important message here for you if you have health anxiety. Symptoms can be this bad and turn out to be nothing. If that was me I would be 100% convinced I had a stroke, mini-stroke or brain tumour, but no - things like this can just happen for no apparent reason. There is nothing sinister about it. Hopefully this story will make you understand that your symptoms can get INCREDIBLY bad, but not be a sign of any underlying disease or life-theatening condition. The human body is not perfect, like a car weird problems come and go. You need to accept that, and as soon as you do the fear of your symptoms will reduce, and your health anxiety will go away.

Hope this helps.

[Eyji1]

Good story. This is true.

[Fishmanpa]

Skippy,

Great post. I went back and looked at your past posts and saw where you were in relation to where you are today. It's an amazing testament to what one can do when they set their mind to beating this beast called anxiety. I would urge other members to take note and learn from it.

Look back at your own posts and you'll see a reminder of where you've been and where you are now. Hopefully, it's inspiration enough to take the bull by the horns and do something about it.

I know when I'm struggling and feeling frustrated and down concerning my recovery from cancer, I only need look at my posts from last March through May (on the cancer forums) to see how far I've actually come and it brings perspective to my situation. I still struggle much but I'm a hell of a way better than I was ;)

[Gotagetthroughthis]

If you have health anxiety reading that just makes you think, "fuk I can suddenly just lose all function of my body, not be able to speak or do anything, really? fuk? now im really panicking". I know that's how it could make me react when im in a really bad place with health anx.

Just because it wasn't a disease or stroke that suddenly caused you not to be able to function doesn't mean its any less horrible at the time. Just means that now it can happen to her again at any time for some unknown mysterious reason. Very reassuring. NOT.