Difference between gut feeling and anxiety

[sahara]

We all read the big C forums and how 'my dr said it was ok but I had a gut feeling and insisted on a second opinion and it was cancer!' Now please tell me I think I have a gut feeling but it could also be my anxiety. How do i tell the difference? X

[Andrash]

Because the aforementioned people from the cancer forums hadn't suffered from HA before their diagnoses, unlike us who do :) Therefore our gut feelings are forever compromised by anxiety and totally unreliable, so the doctors are our only hope :)

[Althea]

We all read the big C forums and how 'my dr said it was ok but I had a gut feeling and insisted on a second opinion and it was cancer!' Now please tell me I think I have a gut feeling but it could also be my anxiety. How do i tell the difference? X

My personal view is that you can't--you have to leave feelings pretty much out of the assessment or else give over to the anxiety. So if we're talking your breast cyst, for instance, can you articulate any reason why what you've found and they found isn't likely to be a cyst?

BTW, reading the cancer forums doesn't sound like it's doing you any favors--maybe go look at some kitten .gifs instead :).

[GlassPinata]

Health anxiety sufferers cannot trust their instincts or "gut feelings" when it comes to their health. We just can't. Our perceptions are awry.
We must rely on health professionals, and trust them. We cannot trust our own instincts, which will always tell us that something is seriously wrong, even when it isn't.

[sahara]

Tbh honest I don't read the forums anymore, or google! My dr And I joke about that when we see each other. It sadly though is comments I have read in the past that stick in my mind. I can't articulate any reason why the cyst isn't a cyst or why my mind is swinging between why my non cyst breast feels firmer than the other one or the other bumps I found in the non scanned one. Haha I can't tell u how close I was to google cyst scans, but luckily I have resisted. Google is just a bad place for health issues!

I am still left wondering about the gut instinct thing though. I think Andrash probably is right. It was a genuine curiosity question. One I ask myself every time I have a HA episode!

---------- Post added at 00:20 ---------- Previous post was at 00:19 ----------

And glasspinata!

[GlassPinata]

But it's true that, anxiety disorder or not, we're going to get some real disease someday.
I mean, it's inevitable.
Imagining that we're sick all the time will not protect us from real sickness, when it comes. And maybe we'll catch it at an earlier stage, because we're pathologically attuned to the slightest bodily changes or symptoms.

[Fishmanpa]

Because the aforementioned people from the cancer forums hadn't suffered from HA before their diagnoses, unlike us who do :) Therefore our gut feelings are forever compromised by anxiety and totally unreliable, so the doctors are our only hope :)

Very good point. I feared that what had going on was cancer after the first round of antibiotics didn't work on reducing the node in my neck but it wasn't until the second round of antibiotics didn't work that the "gut" feeling started. I knew it when I went to the ENT and asked him to be totally up front after his exam and he was, confirming my fears and gut feeling. I wasn't freaked out as I was expecting it. The biopsy nailed it down and dx'd the type.

What Andrash is saying is what I've seen here time and time again. With HA, your "gut" feeling meter is broken as everything is a gut feeling.

Positive thoughts

[sahara]

Isnt it terrible how our minds wont let it rest. If its not a mistake then the Drs have missed something or its a gut feeling. I hate this relentless anxiety an doubt. I think my meds aren't working to well either and I may need a change.