My long story and my current fear: Stomach/Eosophigal Cancer

[Gordknight]

Thanks in advance to all those that sit through my long story. Maybe here I will find the support and relief that I need to counter this terrible illness of Health Anxiety.

I am a 32 year old white male in generally good shape.

About six years ago I was confronted with my own mortality for the firs time. My whole head was in terrible pain and I was losing weight quickly, had night sweats and everything. AFter a few weeks of getting worse my room mate took me to the ER. They were testing me for every type of cancer that is more common in 26 year olds. At the end of the day they found that I had an abscess tooth, and I had no pain in my tooth because my family has a strange genetic condition where the nerves in our teeth dont work properly. Great for dental work, bad for infections. The docs told me that had I not caught it within the next few days it would have been likely that the infection would have spread to my brain and killed me. So BAM there I was for the first time confroted with the realization that I was not invincible. That I could die any day. And thus started my Health Anxiety.

Three years down the road from then was my next huge panic. While attending school for my Masters degree I was under a lot of stress. My stomach started acting up. Heartburn, reflux. change in stool appearance and bowel habits etc... stomach growling, stomach pains for weeks. I was convinced after googling of course that I had colon cancer. Went into a panic and it got worse and worse. Finally after I had every test done I went and had a colonoscopy done. Results were clean as a whistle. I was diagnosed with IBS. Finally with some Zantac, Aloe Vera Juice and stress management I started to recover.

Fast forward to October of 2014. My new fear was Melanoma skin cancer. I promptly was thinking that I could overcome this and that I had never been right about my health anxiety fears in the past. So I went to a dermatologist and got a few spots removed. Then I got the call that one of them was indeed Melanoma. Great news for a guy with health anxiety and a deathly phobia of cancer right? Luckily they caught it early. Stage 1a. 95-97% 15 year survival rate. Less than 1% chance that it could have spread already and a 1/50 chance I could develop another one later in life. And if I do chances are I will catch it even earlier than this one. All good news. Needless to say though, October to February were the worst and most stressful months of my life.

I then went to an old freinds house for a weekend to take my mind off all of it. We had a blast. I finally was able to destress. A little too much I think as I drank heavily each night I was there. Approximately 4 nights in a row. I hadnt even done that in my early twenties.

Well now over the last 5 weeks I have had stomach pains that come and go, insane indigestion with a little heartburn. The heartburn isnt often but when its there it hurts. I burp like crazy all day and it gets worse regardless of what I eat or drink. Even water does it. I thought at first it was my IBS but I dont remember having to have to burp this much. And of course you know what I did. Google. According to Google I have Stomach or Esophagus cancer.

In the past I had been getting better at squashing these fears, but ever since actually being right one time and getting diagnosed with a cancer its harder than ever. I have an appointment with a GI on thursday and I am going to demand an endoscope procedure done as I know its the only way Ill ever get peace of mind. I know its more likely I have gastritis, IBS flareup or a bacterial infection than cancer but my mind will not listen. Its hell. I feel like my entire life goes on hold every time that something like this comes up. Damn dr google. It also doesnt help that a good friend of mine two years younger than me died of lymphoma two weeks ago, and that my cousin who is 6 months younger than I am was just diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer. It just feels like the statistics are all BS right now seeing so many young people including myself get cancer.

How do I get out of this hellish mind prison?

[kayleighb22]

I'm sorry to hear about the melanoma. I think you have to see it as this, a mole is something that you can see, its there, you can't imagine it and it can't be caused by anxiety. where as your other symptoms can have many other causes, anxiety being one of them.

[VickyC]

Gordknight I can identify with your issues. As far as I knew I never had health anxiety for the first 30 years of my life (I'm now 34). But within a 6 month period I lost a good friend who was my age, and my husband lost a work friend who was our age. Both had young children. I won't go into what was wrong with them as don't want to fuel anyone's anxiety, but I think it's fair to say those two events suddenly threw up a massive awareness of my own mortality. Since those two horrible events I found myself thinking about the two friends concerned a lot. Definitely more than was healthy. And I would begin to have thoughts pop into my head about being diagnosed with a terminal cancer and having to leave my children without their mother. At the time the rational part of me would win through and the troublesome thoughts didn't bother me too much. However, recently my mother in law has been diagnosed with a serious illness and I think it's the straw that broke the camels back for my health anxiety. I've rambled a bit but what I'm trying to convey is that for people like us who are prone to anxiety, hearing about someone (or having first hand experience if it's a friend or family) passing away from an illness is enough to send our health anxiety sky rocketing.
Unfortunately, we will all come across sad news as we go through life. But it's worth remembering that just because it's happened to someone you know, it doesn't mean it's going to happen to you.

[skippy66]

You have to come to the realisation that worrying about the future can't change it. Bad things happen all the time and we have to accept that this is sadly part and parcel of life.

We were all 'dead', or not existing, for 13.6 Billion years (the age of the Universe). Its hard to go back beyond that as time did not exist, so it's the point at which our understanding ends. Suffice to say that the Universe may have been there forever, and may be there forever in the future. We exist for not even a blink of an eye in cosmic terms - the whole human race I mean, and individually we do not even exist for a blink of an eye in terms of the history of the human race. When we die we will return to the non-existent state we have ALL been in for at least 13.6 billion years. I don't remember it being too bad...

Hopefully you can see the point I'm trying to make. If a doctor told you you were going to die on Sunday would you spend the next few days a nervous wreck or would you go out there and enjoy every single minute of the rest of your life? I'm telling you that you will probably die in 50-60 years - are you going to spend it a nervous wreck or are you going to go out and make the most of the tiny little cosmic moment we have?

Realising the above is what helped me beat my health anxiety for good. By the way I'm the same age as you & also a male who suffered with HA for 8 years.