LG18
15-10-16, 00:44
Hi,
I've just joined the forum, came across it from other users posts.
I have OCD and health anxiety, 19 year old male.
My worry is concerning my girlfriend, and it's the worst worry I've ever had.
It as the worry about the possibility of her having a brain tumor.
It all started when we were on holiday.
She get a sudden attack of vertigo that left her bed bound for several days.
She was physically sick and couldn't walk. After a week or so she was able to walk around as symptoms lessened, and by two weeks she was almost back to normal.
When looking at the symptoms and from research, it looks like she had a type of vertigo known as vestibular neuritis.
Initially it didn't seriously worry me, until later a month later where she got another attack of vertigo, but this time different.
This attack of vertigo was significantly less severe, only happening when she moved he head quickly or looked upwards, or when she got out of bed.
It was down to change in positions, and we identified it as another type of vertigo called BPPV.
Through further research I found that BPPV can be brought on by a previous episode of vestibular neuritis.
Another month went by, and then she had a third episode. Same BPPV type.
This time she went to the doctors.
He had a look in her eyes and said he couldn't see any sign of swelling, and said he thought it was BPPV.
He referred her to both an ENT specialist, and for an MRI scan.
And here was where it began.
As soon as she was referred for an MRI scan, the brain tumour worries started kicking off.
I started to research rigorously and excessively online, trying to find out if there were any links between the vertigo and brain tumors.
To my horror, there were.
I found a website called "treaty.com", which essentially pulls all of the people who mentioned the words brain tumor and vertigo together and brings up all the posts.
There were lots of people who had bad vertigo, been diagnosed with a specific type of vertigo like BPPV or vestibular neuritis, and then had an MRI and it came back that there was a brain tumor.
My stomach dropped, and I didn't know what to do with myself.
I was so terrified, lost my appetite, withdrew etc;
I then began to delve deeper into symtoms of brain tumor, and found that depression was a big one.
My girlfriend has been unexplainably depressed for about a year now.
She said she feels empty and numb, and has a lot of trouble concentrating and also feels "disconnected".
Looking up what she described, again, I found plenty of people with these symptoms that had brain Tumors.
She also has OCD and very bad anxiety that bring its own symptoms like really tight chest and so on.
There were also other things of concern, like the fact she sometimes gets eye strain (she wears glasses).
She often gets very emotional for little reason sometimes.
She has some back and shoulder pain.
She's had neck pain in the past.
I've grouped all of these things together - the vertigo, the depression and anxiety, the other symptoms mentioned above - and am absolutely terrified I'm going to lose the girl I love so much.
I keep getting intrusive thoughts and playing it all out in my mind.
She has the MRI scan tomorrow and I'm finding excruciatingly difficult to cope with the prospect.
I just don't know what to do. I don't know whether this is all on me, whether I'm piecing all this stuff together unnecessarily when it isn't related, or whether there's legitimate cause to be seriously worried.
She's not as worried as I am, she's more worried about doing the scan and what that entails.
As you'll know, everything just feels so real when you're worrying.
I've had many a health worry in the past that felt totally real when it was happening and turned out to be nothing at all, so I just don't know how legitimate my worry should be with this.
I've never had anxiety this bad, as I say, and I've had a LOT of really, really bad OCD problems.
I feel like maybe I'm over thinking, but then also that maybe there are too many symptoms, correlations and coincidences for it to just be nothing?
Has anyone else had experience with any or many aspects of the above? What do I do? Can anyone relate?
I'm so scared.
Thanks very much for listening.
I've just joined the forum, came across it from other users posts.
I have OCD and health anxiety, 19 year old male.
My worry is concerning my girlfriend, and it's the worst worry I've ever had.
It as the worry about the possibility of her having a brain tumor.
It all started when we were on holiday.
She get a sudden attack of vertigo that left her bed bound for several days.
She was physically sick and couldn't walk. After a week or so she was able to walk around as symptoms lessened, and by two weeks she was almost back to normal.
When looking at the symptoms and from research, it looks like she had a type of vertigo known as vestibular neuritis.
Initially it didn't seriously worry me, until later a month later where she got another attack of vertigo, but this time different.
This attack of vertigo was significantly less severe, only happening when she moved he head quickly or looked upwards, or when she got out of bed.
It was down to change in positions, and we identified it as another type of vertigo called BPPV.
Through further research I found that BPPV can be brought on by a previous episode of vestibular neuritis.
Another month went by, and then she had a third episode. Same BPPV type.
This time she went to the doctors.
He had a look in her eyes and said he couldn't see any sign of swelling, and said he thought it was BPPV.
He referred her to both an ENT specialist, and for an MRI scan.
And here was where it began.
As soon as she was referred for an MRI scan, the brain tumour worries started kicking off.
I started to research rigorously and excessively online, trying to find out if there were any links between the vertigo and brain tumors.
To my horror, there were.
I found a website called "treaty.com", which essentially pulls all of the people who mentioned the words brain tumor and vertigo together and brings up all the posts.
There were lots of people who had bad vertigo, been diagnosed with a specific type of vertigo like BPPV or vestibular neuritis, and then had an MRI and it came back that there was a brain tumor.
My stomach dropped, and I didn't know what to do with myself.
I was so terrified, lost my appetite, withdrew etc;
I then began to delve deeper into symtoms of brain tumor, and found that depression was a big one.
My girlfriend has been unexplainably depressed for about a year now.
She said she feels empty and numb, and has a lot of trouble concentrating and also feels "disconnected".
Looking up what she described, again, I found plenty of people with these symptoms that had brain Tumors.
She also has OCD and very bad anxiety that bring its own symptoms like really tight chest and so on.
There were also other things of concern, like the fact she sometimes gets eye strain (she wears glasses).
She often gets very emotional for little reason sometimes.
She has some back and shoulder pain.
She's had neck pain in the past.
I've grouped all of these things together - the vertigo, the depression and anxiety, the other symptoms mentioned above - and am absolutely terrified I'm going to lose the girl I love so much.
I keep getting intrusive thoughts and playing it all out in my mind.
She has the MRI scan tomorrow and I'm finding excruciatingly difficult to cope with the prospect.
I just don't know what to do. I don't know whether this is all on me, whether I'm piecing all this stuff together unnecessarily when it isn't related, or whether there's legitimate cause to be seriously worried.
She's not as worried as I am, she's more worried about doing the scan and what that entails.
As you'll know, everything just feels so real when you're worrying.
I've had many a health worry in the past that felt totally real when it was happening and turned out to be nothing at all, so I just don't know how legitimate my worry should be with this.
I've never had anxiety this bad, as I say, and I've had a LOT of really, really bad OCD problems.
I feel like maybe I'm over thinking, but then also that maybe there are too many symptoms, correlations and coincidences for it to just be nothing?
Has anyone else had experience with any or many aspects of the above? What do I do? Can anyone relate?
I'm so scared.
Thanks very much for listening.