Dan21
27-04-14, 21:45
Hello all.
I’m in need of help/perspective more than ever before.
I’m an infrequent to moderate user of the NMP forums as I can usually keep my HA under control however I’m in the middle of what I consider to be one of, if not the worst episode I’ve ever experienced. I’m in what feels like a particularly dark and frightening place at the moment and feel one of the only few places I can turn to for (hopefully) some sensible words of encouragement is the forum here.
I guess like many of you, I’ve had the varying worries and anxieties about so, so many illnesses and diseases over the years – in the past I’ve convinced myself, utterly truthfully, that I’ve had bowel cancer, brain tumors, strokes, impending heart attack and throat cancer but the symptoms I have at the moment have been with me for so long that I genuinely do feel that there is something wrong. Please, any viewpoint would be really appreciated to try and help me see if I’m being blinded by my anxiety.
About a year ago, I started to get a twinge in my back; just lower than my right shoulder blade and just to the right of my spine. It’s never been ‘painful’ but I’ve noticed a mild discomfort that sort of comes and goes. It has always felt as if it’s muscular but I couldn’t say for sure. I seem to recall it starting after I lifted a large piece of wood by myself and it’s this that I keep trying to hold onto in my deepest, darkest moments. My job means I have to do some lifting every few days so I guess logic (if I was able to think logically) would say something along the lines of I injured a muscle in my back originally and as I never gave it time to heal properly, the lifting and stress I’ve since put on my back…for almost a year…has meant it continues to flare up to this day. As I say, if I was able to think logically….
The pain hasn’t got worse, nor has it become more frequent but the fact that it hasn’t healed or gone away started to ramp up my anxiety. At first, it was only slightly but when it was still aching at Christmas, I decided to go to the doctors and see what he said. My main reason for this was that I had spoken to someone about what was going on with my back and they rather unhelpfully told me an entire story about a close family friend of theirs who had exactly the same symptoms, they too thought it was problems with their back muscles when in-fact it turned out to be pancreatic cancer which they soon died from. For about a week after hearing this I almost had a breakdown. My anxiety went sky high, I cried, panicked and had to have two days off work – not because of the discomfort in my back, but because of my crippling HA. Eventually I got to see the GP where I explained I’m a chronic hypochondriac and that my HA was becoming more intense because of my recurring back problem. My GP is very good and said while he thought it was mechanical (muscular-skeletal damage) he would run blood tests to ‘put my mind at rest’. The blood tests came back and with embarrassing predictability, they were normal. He seemed very unconcerned and suggested a couple of stretching exercises that didn’t really help very much at all. Despite having blood tests coming back clear (which I guess would have flagged up at least something if it was more serious) and the GP being unconcerned, I’m still terrified that it’s some kind of underlying cancer-thing going on. All this despite nothing really changing – discomfort is still in the same area, feels sort of tender when you press the muscle…in fact the only thing that has gotten worse is my HA.
Things got so bad that my wife pleaded with me to go back to the GP and ask for a re-referral to my CBT therapist, which I did last week. I explained that I was still having discomfort in my back and he re-affirmed that the blood tests were normal and after another physical examination of my back, suggested I tried a book called Mind over Mood before I got back in touch with the CBT team. I agreed, went to the library and got a copy of the book yesterday. I’m hoping that it will help me try and gain just a bit of perspective or balance when it comes to everything that’s going on.
I don’t know why I’m so terrified about these sensations and discomfort in my back (which is actually making me feel tense in my neck, head and chest muscles too)…maybe it’s because this has been going on for almost 12 months now or maybe it’s down to the anxiety grinding me down to what feels like my lowest ebb in years. Maybe it’s because those around me (GP, parents, partner) seem so matter-of-fact about my symptoms, I have no idea but I’m fighting a battle with this f**king HA again and all I know is that I’m terrified that I might be genuinely and seriously physically ill.
I can’t tell if I’m stressing over nothing or if I should be worried. But then again you hear of people with muscular/disc/back problems that have gone on for years so maybe the GP is right that it’s mechanical????? I just don’t know what to think anymore…oh, and the GP has referred me to the local physiotherapist too.
I’m sorry for such a long post but I’m so scared and tired of worrying about the possibility this is cancer related.
Any encouragement or words of perspective would be more welcome than ever before. Thanks for taking the time to read.
I’m in need of help/perspective more than ever before.
I’m an infrequent to moderate user of the NMP forums as I can usually keep my HA under control however I’m in the middle of what I consider to be one of, if not the worst episode I’ve ever experienced. I’m in what feels like a particularly dark and frightening place at the moment and feel one of the only few places I can turn to for (hopefully) some sensible words of encouragement is the forum here.
I guess like many of you, I’ve had the varying worries and anxieties about so, so many illnesses and diseases over the years – in the past I’ve convinced myself, utterly truthfully, that I’ve had bowel cancer, brain tumors, strokes, impending heart attack and throat cancer but the symptoms I have at the moment have been with me for so long that I genuinely do feel that there is something wrong. Please, any viewpoint would be really appreciated to try and help me see if I’m being blinded by my anxiety.
About a year ago, I started to get a twinge in my back; just lower than my right shoulder blade and just to the right of my spine. It’s never been ‘painful’ but I’ve noticed a mild discomfort that sort of comes and goes. It has always felt as if it’s muscular but I couldn’t say for sure. I seem to recall it starting after I lifted a large piece of wood by myself and it’s this that I keep trying to hold onto in my deepest, darkest moments. My job means I have to do some lifting every few days so I guess logic (if I was able to think logically) would say something along the lines of I injured a muscle in my back originally and as I never gave it time to heal properly, the lifting and stress I’ve since put on my back…for almost a year…has meant it continues to flare up to this day. As I say, if I was able to think logically….
The pain hasn’t got worse, nor has it become more frequent but the fact that it hasn’t healed or gone away started to ramp up my anxiety. At first, it was only slightly but when it was still aching at Christmas, I decided to go to the doctors and see what he said. My main reason for this was that I had spoken to someone about what was going on with my back and they rather unhelpfully told me an entire story about a close family friend of theirs who had exactly the same symptoms, they too thought it was problems with their back muscles when in-fact it turned out to be pancreatic cancer which they soon died from. For about a week after hearing this I almost had a breakdown. My anxiety went sky high, I cried, panicked and had to have two days off work – not because of the discomfort in my back, but because of my crippling HA. Eventually I got to see the GP where I explained I’m a chronic hypochondriac and that my HA was becoming more intense because of my recurring back problem. My GP is very good and said while he thought it was mechanical (muscular-skeletal damage) he would run blood tests to ‘put my mind at rest’. The blood tests came back and with embarrassing predictability, they were normal. He seemed very unconcerned and suggested a couple of stretching exercises that didn’t really help very much at all. Despite having blood tests coming back clear (which I guess would have flagged up at least something if it was more serious) and the GP being unconcerned, I’m still terrified that it’s some kind of underlying cancer-thing going on. All this despite nothing really changing – discomfort is still in the same area, feels sort of tender when you press the muscle…in fact the only thing that has gotten worse is my HA.
Things got so bad that my wife pleaded with me to go back to the GP and ask for a re-referral to my CBT therapist, which I did last week. I explained that I was still having discomfort in my back and he re-affirmed that the blood tests were normal and after another physical examination of my back, suggested I tried a book called Mind over Mood before I got back in touch with the CBT team. I agreed, went to the library and got a copy of the book yesterday. I’m hoping that it will help me try and gain just a bit of perspective or balance when it comes to everything that’s going on.
I don’t know why I’m so terrified about these sensations and discomfort in my back (which is actually making me feel tense in my neck, head and chest muscles too)…maybe it’s because this has been going on for almost 12 months now or maybe it’s down to the anxiety grinding me down to what feels like my lowest ebb in years. Maybe it’s because those around me (GP, parents, partner) seem so matter-of-fact about my symptoms, I have no idea but I’m fighting a battle with this f**king HA again and all I know is that I’m terrified that I might be genuinely and seriously physically ill.
I can’t tell if I’m stressing over nothing or if I should be worried. But then again you hear of people with muscular/disc/back problems that have gone on for years so maybe the GP is right that it’s mechanical????? I just don’t know what to think anymore…oh, and the GP has referred me to the local physiotherapist too.
I’m sorry for such a long post but I’m so scared and tired of worrying about the possibility this is cancer related.
Any encouragement or words of perspective would be more welcome than ever before. Thanks for taking the time to read.