androidz
06-11-16, 17:07
TL;DR: I had unexplained anxiety and a lot of physical symptoms for 2-3 years. Doctors told me everything was related to anxiety and nothing else, that it was all in my head. It turns out I had parasites for who knows how long and after treating them, I'm starting to feel normal again for the first time after so long.
Hey everybody, I used to visit this forum regularily for the past couple of years and I posted regularily for a while. I'm 26 now, and I've been suffering from anxiety, more specifically health anxiety for about 3 years. It sort of came out of the blue, I used to be normal and after some bad stuff happened in my life I developed this condition.
However, at first it wasn't so bad, I mean, I was worried about possibly getting an illness but I was able to dismiss it and forget about it relatively easily. It was only since 2 years ago that my condition started progressively worsening, reaching a very debilitating point, and I started developing physical symptoms too. Abdominal pain, nausea, weakness, fatigue, brain fog, muscle aches, arthritis, headaches, weight loss, abnormal bowel movements... and others. At first I was not very concerned, I simply went to doctors, they ran batteries of tests, but these always came back normal so they couldn't give me an answer that would explain my symptoms. The only slightly abnormal results I had was mild eosinophilia and 1 of my liver enzimes was slightly elevated. This, in turn, only fueled my anxiety even more. They simply told me it was all in my head, and attributed everything to anxiety and just brushed me off as a hypochondriac, eventhough the pain I felt was very real, and extremely debilitating at times. Not gonna lie, even I started believing that it could just be all in my head, and that I'd have to live with this pain for as long as I had anxiety.
This was until this very last week, when after a bowel movement, I noticed something very strange. If you get queasy easily I suggest you don't read this next part. I saw a long, spaghetti shaped figure in my stool. I separated it from the stool with two small wooden sticks, and after close inspection, it was... a piece of tapeworm. Here's a photo I took (http://puu.sh/s8xjO/603b79d65c.png) (WARNING: GRAPHICAL). So, yeah, parasites, you can clearly see the segments and all. I went to the doc, they sent it out for analysis and it was indeed a subspecies of tapeworm. They gave my one (1) pill to take that same day, which I did, and shortly after the parasite got eliminated. Now I have to take a few more pills for another week to kill any possible remainings.
How didn't any doctor think about this possibility in two years? No idea. How, or where did I even get infected? Also no idea, because I've always been VERY careful when cooking meat and washing my hands. I suppose it must have been eating outside somewhere. But after putting all the pieces of the puzzle together, the doctor explained me it's very likely all my symptoms were being caused by this little guy. They live in the gut, eating the food that you ingest and stealing your vitamins and minerals, depriving you from essential nutrients and releasing toxins into your bloodstream, which in turn causes long-term chronic fatigue, brain fog and anxiety, aside from abdominal cramps, bloating, allergies and itchiness (thus my eosinophilia) etc.
A few days after I got rid of the tapeworm the brain fog disappeared almost completely for the first time in two years, and I can feel my energy coming back to me. My anxiety is also fading away. Every day after each meal I used to get anxious, now not so anymore, on the contrary, a very calming sensation of relaxation comes to me after eating. This is great, but at the same time very frustrating how I've been sick with something "common" and so easy to treat for so long without any MDs being able to find it.
After I recover completely I'll have to make up for all the lost time. I'm still going to continue visiting this forum every now and then to try to help people out, because this condition has allowed me to learn how it is to live with chronic anxiety, and I know it sucks very very much.
If this story rings a bell to you and you have had these same symptoms for a very long time (upper abdominal pain, chronic fatigue and lack of energy etc.) it wouldn't be a bad idea to get tested for parasites, just in case. They're very easy to treat, but if not treated they can very easily mimic other diseases and cause anxiety. Especially if you eat a lot of beef and pork, or if you're a farmer or spend a lot of time with animals. Who knows, you might get "lucky" (I'm not saying that having parasites is good, though) and be in the same train that I was.
See you around!
Hey everybody, I used to visit this forum regularily for the past couple of years and I posted regularily for a while. I'm 26 now, and I've been suffering from anxiety, more specifically health anxiety for about 3 years. It sort of came out of the blue, I used to be normal and after some bad stuff happened in my life I developed this condition.
However, at first it wasn't so bad, I mean, I was worried about possibly getting an illness but I was able to dismiss it and forget about it relatively easily. It was only since 2 years ago that my condition started progressively worsening, reaching a very debilitating point, and I started developing physical symptoms too. Abdominal pain, nausea, weakness, fatigue, brain fog, muscle aches, arthritis, headaches, weight loss, abnormal bowel movements... and others. At first I was not very concerned, I simply went to doctors, they ran batteries of tests, but these always came back normal so they couldn't give me an answer that would explain my symptoms. The only slightly abnormal results I had was mild eosinophilia and 1 of my liver enzimes was slightly elevated. This, in turn, only fueled my anxiety even more. They simply told me it was all in my head, and attributed everything to anxiety and just brushed me off as a hypochondriac, eventhough the pain I felt was very real, and extremely debilitating at times. Not gonna lie, even I started believing that it could just be all in my head, and that I'd have to live with this pain for as long as I had anxiety.
This was until this very last week, when after a bowel movement, I noticed something very strange. If you get queasy easily I suggest you don't read this next part. I saw a long, spaghetti shaped figure in my stool. I separated it from the stool with two small wooden sticks, and after close inspection, it was... a piece of tapeworm. Here's a photo I took (http://puu.sh/s8xjO/603b79d65c.png) (WARNING: GRAPHICAL). So, yeah, parasites, you can clearly see the segments and all. I went to the doc, they sent it out for analysis and it was indeed a subspecies of tapeworm. They gave my one (1) pill to take that same day, which I did, and shortly after the parasite got eliminated. Now I have to take a few more pills for another week to kill any possible remainings.
How didn't any doctor think about this possibility in two years? No idea. How, or where did I even get infected? Also no idea, because I've always been VERY careful when cooking meat and washing my hands. I suppose it must have been eating outside somewhere. But after putting all the pieces of the puzzle together, the doctor explained me it's very likely all my symptoms were being caused by this little guy. They live in the gut, eating the food that you ingest and stealing your vitamins and minerals, depriving you from essential nutrients and releasing toxins into your bloodstream, which in turn causes long-term chronic fatigue, brain fog and anxiety, aside from abdominal cramps, bloating, allergies and itchiness (thus my eosinophilia) etc.
A few days after I got rid of the tapeworm the brain fog disappeared almost completely for the first time in two years, and I can feel my energy coming back to me. My anxiety is also fading away. Every day after each meal I used to get anxious, now not so anymore, on the contrary, a very calming sensation of relaxation comes to me after eating. This is great, but at the same time very frustrating how I've been sick with something "common" and so easy to treat for so long without any MDs being able to find it.
After I recover completely I'll have to make up for all the lost time. I'm still going to continue visiting this forum every now and then to try to help people out, because this condition has allowed me to learn how it is to live with chronic anxiety, and I know it sucks very very much.
If this story rings a bell to you and you have had these same symptoms for a very long time (upper abdominal pain, chronic fatigue and lack of energy etc.) it wouldn't be a bad idea to get tested for parasites, just in case. They're very easy to treat, but if not treated they can very easily mimic other diseases and cause anxiety. Especially if you eat a lot of beef and pork, or if you're a farmer or spend a lot of time with animals. Who knows, you might get "lucky" (I'm not saying that having parasites is good, though) and be in the same train that I was.
See you around!