First post. Anxiety ruining my life

[Missy1981]

Hi I'm Sarah, I'm 35 and I've recently been diagnosed with anxiety disorder and PTSD. As a bit of background I nearly lost my son when he was 8 weeks old (he's now 3) he was rushed to intensive care where he stayed for weeks in PICU before finally being allowed home. (Touch wood) we've had no related scares since but I've never really gotten over what happened. I never addressed it either. I had flashbacks and would regularly break down in tears over it. It all came to a head this year as the same son developed a raised lymph node in his neck following chicken pox last Boxing Day. The node is still there a year later and is visible through his skin. I've been to countless doctors about it and they all say the same thing, that it's just a raised node and nothing to worry about. But over the last few months I've worked myself up into a frenzy about him as blood tests showed he had low iron. Then more blood tests showed he had high vitamin B12 levels. Doctor said this was because of the multi vitamins he was on to increase the iron. But I googled it (the worst thing!) and convinced myself he had Leukemia. I was also convinced he had Lymphoma because of his raised node and my health and state of mind spiralled out of control in about October of this year. I ended up in the waiting room of the doctors and suffered a huge panic attack. I thought i was dying! I broke down in front of the GP and she prescribed me Sertraline right then and there.
I was terrified of taking the Sertraline after again googling all the side effects but took the plunge about 5 weeks ago. Started on 50mg but had awful side effects so went down to 25mg. Recently went back up to 50mg about 2 weeks ago and am feeling ok side effect wise. My mum is also paying for me to have CBT which I'm on my 5th session of.

The problem is I can't stop my bloody anxiety. My mum even paid private for a top paediatric consultant to examine my son and he reassured me he's fine and definitely doesn't have cancer and is sending him for an ultrasound on 6th Jan (purely for my anxiety and not for his benefit) but I'm going out of my mind about the ultrasound thinking they will find something sinister.

To add to all of this I've had a strange pain/aching sensation under my left armpit for over a week now and yesterday discovered a raised lymph node on the back of my own neck!!! I can't actually believe it. I've been worrying about my son for over a year and now I'm stressing about myself. I've had a couple of night sweats which I'm fully aware could be the Sertraline but obv doctor google has told me I've also got lymphoma!

I'm just at my wits end. My family are losing patience with me. My husband is running out of ways to make me feel better. I just feel like anxiety is ruining my life. I'm off to the doctors as soon as they open on Tuesday to get the lump on my neck looked at but I know they will be eye rolling again as I'm there all the time.

Glad I've found this forum as recently all I feel is like I'm losing my mind and my once lovely life is slipping away from me :-(

[Buster70]

Hi there , sorry you are going through this but you are not alone in the way you are thinking just have a read through the posts on here we all have similar issues and on bad days we all think we are about to go crazy but don't , Google has a lot to answer for but we skip over the obvious and go straight to worst case , you've had the all clear on your son you need to start believing it and I know it's hard I've been through it , take care .

[Retsgard]

Hang in there with the Sertraline and cbt :)

[toothless]

Hi, I can really understand how you feel, I lost my child at 6 weeks old. It has had a massive effect on my mental health and also triggered health anxiety for my other children. For me it's the fear of what if I lose another one, even though the chances are slim it's happened before and everytime they got ill I paniced.

This year I started on mitazaine and it has taken months for me to feel better, but I have seen an improvement in my anxiety, so hang in there with your meds.

Recently my daughter fell and banged her head and she had to have it stitched up and then when we got home she started vomiting and I had to take her back to hospital and they gave her a brain scan and I was feeling awful panic but she was ok and I coped.

I think I will always panic a little when the kids are ill but I try to reassure myself and take each day at a time and deal with problems as they arise and practising mindfulness can help.

Hoefully the CBT will help you to deal with anxious thoughts and feelings.

[Missy1981]

Thanks for all your replies. I had a blood test done today for the raised node. Now I'm literally going out of my mind convinced its lymphoma. My whole neck hurts and I've started to get a sore throat too. I've googled like crazy and already I've found three different cancers I think it could be. I'm just sick of feeling this way.

My mum keeps telling me it's the Sertraline making me feel this way and that I should stop the meds but surely I should persevere as it's been less than 2 months x