QMiller
26-01-17, 08:13
I'm completely horrified. After "conquering" my medical anxiety regarding MS, brain cancer, etc, I thought I was in the clear. Boy was I wrong.
I came down with a nasty virus the other day. I remember probably half a week ago waking up to a nasty sore throat. I didn't think much of it and went about my day. I woke up the following morning feeling a lot worse, but went out with my friends anyway. I got back in the evening and felt like complete crap, so I took my temperature. 101.5. I assume flu because that's been going around, and opt to watch and wait. The next day, I wake up feel much better. In fact, by mid day, my temperature is down to 98.9! Come night, however, my temperature is back up to 100-something, I feel horrible, and around midnight I begin getting excruciating pain in my right ear. I should mention that by now, my right eye is also in pretty bad shape. I get a doctor's appoint the following morning (which was this morning) because I'm starting to freak out. He assesses me and prescribes me a nasal spray, eye drops, and mucinex. Going to the doctor and having him NOT tell me I have super-cancer always ups my mood, and when he took my temperature he told me it was totally fine, so I went through the rest of today pretty happy. But sure enough, come night, now BOTH eyes are in bad shape (secondary pink eye[s] is the assumption) and right around half an hour ago my cough started feeling really nasty. Odd feelings in my chest, wheezing, etc. And my temperature is back up to 101.
I want to believe this is just a nasty cold (my flu test came back negative), but there are two things besides my general anxiety associated with being sick that are really fueling my fears.
1. My theory is that, because I'm gluten intolerant, eating nothing but gluten products for two straight days (horrible idea) suppressed my immune system, causing some bug that was probably already in/on/around me to become active. This actually isn't a theory based in anxiety, as it does seem to happen to me often if I eat a small amount of gluten, but normally I'll have cold symptoms for only a few days. My new anxiety-based extension to that theory is that eating so much gluten (in the form of naan, so darn good I couldn't resist) for two straight days really did numbers on my immune system and now this virus is just wreaking havoc on my body. It seems to me like the virus went up to my right eye, then my right ear, then the left eye, and now it's starting on my left ear and lungs. It really, really feels like that. It feels like this virus is allowed free reign because my immune system is deactivated by all the gluten I was eating.
2. The fact that my fever and severe symptoms exclusively occur at night really freaks me out. There's no particular thing I'm associating that with, but just in general it's so weird that it causes me great anxiety. Night and day right now really is "the difference between night and day" for me, not only in terms of how I feel-- I am literally sicker at night. Mid day I feel relatively good besides congestion and a light cough. My temperature is normal. Midnight, all my symptoms get worse and my temperature typically rises to around 101. Like I said this only scares me because I feel like some weird stuff is going on.
I know I might sound like this isn't effecting me much, but the last 3 days for me have been complete living hell. I feel horrified, depressed, helpless-- I keep having this vision of me going back into the doctor and telling him that it feels like the virus is just spreading through my body and blah blah blah, and him reacting negatively and becoming extremely concerned. I just want this hell to be over. I will literally never eat gluten again, not even a single cracker or anything.
I came down with a nasty virus the other day. I remember probably half a week ago waking up to a nasty sore throat. I didn't think much of it and went about my day. I woke up the following morning feeling a lot worse, but went out with my friends anyway. I got back in the evening and felt like complete crap, so I took my temperature. 101.5. I assume flu because that's been going around, and opt to watch and wait. The next day, I wake up feel much better. In fact, by mid day, my temperature is down to 98.9! Come night, however, my temperature is back up to 100-something, I feel horrible, and around midnight I begin getting excruciating pain in my right ear. I should mention that by now, my right eye is also in pretty bad shape. I get a doctor's appoint the following morning (which was this morning) because I'm starting to freak out. He assesses me and prescribes me a nasal spray, eye drops, and mucinex. Going to the doctor and having him NOT tell me I have super-cancer always ups my mood, and when he took my temperature he told me it was totally fine, so I went through the rest of today pretty happy. But sure enough, come night, now BOTH eyes are in bad shape (secondary pink eye[s] is the assumption) and right around half an hour ago my cough started feeling really nasty. Odd feelings in my chest, wheezing, etc. And my temperature is back up to 101.
I want to believe this is just a nasty cold (my flu test came back negative), but there are two things besides my general anxiety associated with being sick that are really fueling my fears.
1. My theory is that, because I'm gluten intolerant, eating nothing but gluten products for two straight days (horrible idea) suppressed my immune system, causing some bug that was probably already in/on/around me to become active. This actually isn't a theory based in anxiety, as it does seem to happen to me often if I eat a small amount of gluten, but normally I'll have cold symptoms for only a few days. My new anxiety-based extension to that theory is that eating so much gluten (in the form of naan, so darn good I couldn't resist) for two straight days really did numbers on my immune system and now this virus is just wreaking havoc on my body. It seems to me like the virus went up to my right eye, then my right ear, then the left eye, and now it's starting on my left ear and lungs. It really, really feels like that. It feels like this virus is allowed free reign because my immune system is deactivated by all the gluten I was eating.
2. The fact that my fever and severe symptoms exclusively occur at night really freaks me out. There's no particular thing I'm associating that with, but just in general it's so weird that it causes me great anxiety. Night and day right now really is "the difference between night and day" for me, not only in terms of how I feel-- I am literally sicker at night. Mid day I feel relatively good besides congestion and a light cough. My temperature is normal. Midnight, all my symptoms get worse and my temperature typically rises to around 101. Like I said this only scares me because I feel like some weird stuff is going on.
I know I might sound like this isn't effecting me much, but the last 3 days for me have been complete living hell. I feel horrified, depressed, helpless-- I keep having this vision of me going back into the doctor and telling him that it feels like the virus is just spreading through my body and blah blah blah, and him reacting negatively and becoming extremely concerned. I just want this hell to be over. I will literally never eat gluten again, not even a single cracker or anything.