Has anyone had a long HA obsession with just one illness?

[Sophi123]

Evening all,

I notice that a lot of people come on here suffering with a different ailment or symptom each week or month. I used to be like that, so understand how that feels, but for the last 6month to a year I've been obsessed solely with cervical cancer.

I think the difficulty is that I do genuinely have symptoms or 'sensations' as I'm trying to now label them (good CBT tip there) - I do genuinely suffer from hip pain and pain down there, sex is painful and I have got more discharge than wabs normal for me.

And I'll go through days where I'm quite rational - the smear test was only borderline and theyre not worried, the symptoms have been going on too long to be serious, it is probably tension, IBS etc etc. But then I have days like today where I'm a mess again - 'sensations' are bad without me thinking about them even, I start thinking how the combination just is very worrying, how I should probably push it further with the doctor etc etc. And then all my energy goes into trying to rationalise what I should do.

Has anyone else had something like this where, as much as you feel you are tackling your HA, the difficulty is the symptoms still are there and you don't have answers. Is it really OK to just sit there and ignore it.....

Don't know if this makes any sense to anyone. It just feels like I've got to a point where my HA is generally pretty good, but as long as the symptoms are there (and they're not going even when anxiety does) then I'm never going to be able to fully recover am I? And is it right to just ignore symptoms that exist even if they're not 'serious' hmmmmm x

[mcmd]

I've been going through something quite similar over the last 4 months. I saw a gynecologist twice after right sided hip and groin pain. He could not find any problems but suggested I saw a physio.

We found that the hip and groin sensations were referred pain coming from my lower back. I had physio for this and the pain eased off. It maybe worth getting checked out by a physio. Hope you feel better.

[Krypt0night]

I've been dealing with worry about some sort of intestinal cancer for some time now, mainly because I've been having issues with that area/digestion/etc. for over a year now. It's extremely hard for me to just say "It's only HA" when the symptoms are there greeting me daily. I can't simply tell myself "It's probably just your HA" when I know it's not in this case. Something is wrong, but I (and the doctors) just don't know what yet :(

[MyNameIsTerry]

Well if you look at one of the international defining standards guides, the World Health Organisations (WHO), they created the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD).

ICD-10 lists Hypochondriasis as:

A. Either one of the following:
A persistent belief, of at least six months' duration, of the presence of a maximum of two serious physical diseases (of which at least one must be specifically named by the patient).
A persistent preoccupation with a presumed deformity or disfigurement (body dysmorphic disorder).
B. Preoccupation with the belief and the symptoms causes persistent distress or interference with personal functioning in daily living, and leads the patient to seek medical treatment or investigations (or equivalent help from local healers).
C. Persistent refusal to accept medical advice that there is no adequate physical cause for the symptoms or physical abnormality, except for short periods of up to a few weeks at a time immediately after or during medical investigations.
D. Most commonly used exclusion criteria: not occurring only during any of the schizophrenia and related disorders (F20-F29, particularly F22) or any of the mood disorders (F30-F39).

The US is due to start using ICD-10 later this year.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), currently DSM-5 which renames this to "illness anxiety disorder" was the American creation but it has a different classification that clashes with the ICD e.g. BDD is excluded in DSM but included in ICD-10.

DSM-IV criteria stated:

A. Preoccupation with fears of having, or the idea that one has, a serious disease based on the person's misinterpretation of bodily symptoms.
B. The preoccupation persists despite appropriate medical evaluation and reassurance.
C. The belief in Criterion A is not of delusional intensity (as in Delusional Disorder, Somatic Type) and is not restricted to a circumscribed concern about appearance (as in Body Dysmorphic Disorder).
D. The preoccupation causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
E. The duration of the disturbance is at least 6 months.
F. The preoccupation is not better accounted for by Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Panic Disorder, a Major Depressive Episode, Separation Anxiety, or another Somatoform Disorder.

So, if you go by the ICD-10, having only one illness that you focus on would fit fine. This does make me wonder where it leaves everyone else though?

[wnsos]

Yeah, even when my mind strayed to other things, it always came/comes back to one thing.

[penguinbop]

Yes i was wondering the same thing the other day. I used to have a lot of fears that switched but the last 6 months or so have mainly been focused on a brain tumour. I find it hard to ignore the symptoms and I used to attribute them too different things but as they got worse and more frequent i obsessed over having a brain tumour and i hardly think about other illnesses.

[Sophi123]

Still finding it near impossible to get on with my life :(.

As much as I am trying to engage in CBT and sticking off google/less checking etc the problem is my symptoms still exist - particularly the pubic and hip pain, increased discharge and pain with sex.

I'm waiting for a referral to a gynaecologist, but have already been waiting about 7 weeks and I continue to waste whole evenings or days obsessed with the fact I have cervical cancer.

Until I can get rid of the actual physical problems I just can't see how it would be sensible to stop pushing for more investigations and answers (should I be forking out for a private consultation??).

Just fed up with all this and fed up with not knowing where to turn/how to get on with my life :(