Lung cancer fear - nail clubbing

[Hopeyet]

For months now I've had an on and off cough. I put it down to a dust allergy or something like that. A couple of weeks ago I became convinced I had lung cancer and I ended up Googling it - never a good move. I have a number of worrying symptoms.

These include tiredness and dry eyes, which I put down to having a toddler and working on the computer all day, but also clubbed nails. This can be a totally harmless genetic trait, but it's also a symptom of heart and lung disease, apparently.

I don't know what to do. I've booked an appointment at the local surgery, but it's only with nurse practitioner (who was extremely dismissive last time I went in with a concern) and it's not until next week.

EDIT:
Well, it seems I might be wrong about the clubbed nails! Viewed from the side, my finger nails have a distinct hump and a slightly downward pointing tip. I got rather worried when a diagram appeared to show this as a sign of clubbing. I've since carried out the Shamroth window test (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydbiG06D3E4) and it looks like I don't have clubbing after all.

I still want to get checked out due to the prolonged cough, but it shows just how badly health anxiety can take hold. I must have done the above test five times now and I still keep doing it to reassure myself I don't have clubbing (incidentally, if anyone reading this does, Wikipedia says it's harmless in a majority of cases).

I'm really fed up with this now. I've had varying degrees of health anxiety for nearly a decade now. Sometimes, like this morning, it can be quite a pronounced 'attack' - not quite a panic attack, but close. The rest of the time it never quite goes away, though. I'm just recovering from what appeared to be a rather nasty chest infection (possibly also explains the lingering cough!) and although it went on for weeks I didn't dare go to the doctor for fear that I would be giving in to the anxiety if I did. Thinking about it, that was bonkers. Irrespective of what was causing it, I was coughing my guts up for the best part of a month - I should have gone to the doctors if I wanted to go, rather than avoiding it.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Yes, I think you have worked this through to rationalise it. If there is a legitimate need to see your GP, see them. If you are going because you want to resolve the chest infection you suspect you have, that's fine. It's going because you suspect you have a chest infection but are worrying about lung cancer that's when it's the anxiety taking over.

Lung cancer normally produces symptoms at stage 3 & 4. At stage 4 would you quite quickly become ill once they showed up. It certainly wouldn't come & go as you are observing and since you have a chest infection in play already, you have something obvious to point too rather than the unlikely event of a chest infection and then a completely separate case of lung cancer just happening to show itself right afterwards.

You also touched on an important bit too - wanting to do something. If you can want to do something rather than be driven to it by your anxiety, that is you taking control.