silver_shoes
28-02-17, 01:33
Hi,
I have got myself into a bad place with my health anxiety, due to having been physically quite unwell recently, and am wondering if there is anyone else out there who has been through anything similar. Warning - this is going to be a long post, I'm sorry but I really am suffering, and I might be graphic about my bowels lol so I apologise in advance x
I have posted on here before; I have HA caused by previous episodes of ill-health, misdiagnoses and therefore I am now a 35 year old who feels like I cannot trust what the medical professionals tell me (also being suddenly, seriously ill 16 years ago which is something I recovered from physically but don't think I have ever got over mentally in all honesty) so when I - or any of my loved ones - am/are unwell I dwell on the worst possible diagnosis and outcome. I have had some health challenges over the years and during these times, because of my HA, I have wound up in a complete state emotionally - during one particularly bad time in 2015 when I felt very poorly with bad vitamin D deficiency, and couldn't get a diagnosis initially, I was googling the Dignitas clinic. I feel very stupid saying that.
What probably doesn't help is that by profession I am a medical secretary, with the majority of my previous work having been in Gastroenterology, so I have spoken to and typed letter for some of the sickest patients and so I know about medical investigations and bowel diseases.. and some of the worst outcomes. Sometimes a little knowledge is not always the best thing!
I have had IBS (predominately diarrhoea when I have a flare up) for a long time, probably since I was about 20. It does affect my life quite a lot but I tend to just get on with it and generally my flare-ups, although quite bad, are short-lived. I had the symptoms on and off for a few years until I was formally diagnosed with IBS by a GP in 2006. It can be triggered by eating the wrong foods and fizzy drinks, stress... anything really.. it isn't a nice thing to live with, as any fellow sufferers I am sure would agree. I drink lots of peppermint tea which can sometimes help but normally I just ride out the symptoms and they are short-lived.
Recently, I've been having an awful time. At the start of Feb I suddenly came down with what I was told was a gastroenteritis bug - I had a bout of terribly watery diarrhoea which was not at all like my normal IBS, very bad and felt poorly in myself. I felt nauseous but didn't actually vomit. Due to how poorly this made me feel and the speed at which it developed, I spoke to the GP on the phone and she told me it was likely to be a bug and would pass soon. Unfortunately, it carried on for a week, during which time I felt absolutely horrendous. After 8 days of being ill, I decided to call the GP again as I was just feeling worse and worse, and they bought me in for an appointment and the GP found that I was quite badly dehydrated, had a fever and a racing pulse. This was Valentine's night. She decided to get me admitted into hospital for treatment for the dehydration. I was in hospital for two night and received 4 bags of fluid which definitely helped me feel a bit better and my temperature and pulse rate returned to normal. Whilst in hospital, they did some blood tests and I was asked to provide three stool samples; by this point my stools were pretty much just liquid :(. I went in on the Tuesday night and I was allowed home on the Thursday morning. I still had loose stools, but the Consultant Gastroenterologist who visited me on the ward was amazed at how much better I looked for having the IV fluids and let me go home, saying that it's likely I had an infective gastroenteritis, and anticipated things would settle down, however if they didn't, then I would probably have to have a flexible sigmoidoscopy (camera up the you-know-what), but I didn't think too much about that at the time. I just wanted to get home! He told me that the stool samples at that point hadn't come back from the lab, and that if they showed up positive for any bacteria that would require further treatment, then someone from the hospital would be in contact.
So, I went home, completely exhausted. My bowels were still extremely loose and this continued (although I didn't feel as unwell in myself as I had on the day I was admitted into hospital thankfully). At the start of the following week, I contacted the hospital to try and find out the results of my stool samples, which I was eventually told had all come back negative.
Unfortunately the loose stools persisted. I had telephone call appointment with my GP that week, in fact I think I had two phone call appointments in the space of a few days, and both times they reassured me that they were not worried about anything more sinister as my bloods had come back normal. What both GP's said was that as I have IBS anyway, it will probably take longer for me to recover from the gastroenteritis, and could take a couple of months.
However I made that mistake of consulting Dr Google and of course I found the horrible stories of the poor souls who had been told they had got IBS but in fact they had bowel cancer, and their bloods had all been normal too. So the destructive thoughts in my mind spiralled out of control.
My husband has been a complete rock, working from home a lot lately, looking after the house and dog, but the problem is I don't want him to have to do all that, it isn't fair on him, I just want to get better so I can get back to my normal life of being independent and not stuck at home all day!! I have been googling something silly and got all kinds of horrible thoughts in my brain about it being something awful. We moved to a new town last November and I am actively looking for a part time job but missed an interview whilst I was in hospital :(
I have never had bowel issues for such a long stretch of time at once, I mean all this started in early Feb and I am completely fed up of it. The diarrhoea, nausea and pains are just too much.
Last weekend was just awful, I was at the out of hours doctors at 5am on Saturday morning and the doctor I saw there said that maybe it needed looking into further as it had been a number of weeks, but she felt it probably would settle down. And then, at about 1am on Sunday morning I took myself to A&E because I had such bad lower abdominal pain and diarrhoea, I was given blood tests, again they were all normal, and the Dr there told me to see my GP again.
I am trying to hold on to what the GP at my own surgery told me, that the gastroenteritis has triggered my IBS and it could take some time to settle down. I decided to take some Imodium at the weekend which I dont normally take as I am a bit intolerant to it and it gives me excruciating trapped wind pain in my diaphragm.. but I was so desperate for relief from the diarrhoea that I took some. It did the job of stopping me going for a couple of days. I am now going again tonight and it is still soft but not quite as urgent.
Just before the gastroenteritis bug hit me a few weeks back, I had gone through some emotional stress. Think it was at the end of Jan/very start of Feb. Long story but my brother-in-law's girlfriend has jealousy issues and has tried to cause trouble for me and my husband for several months now, and I try to ignore her but it got really bad and she has all but wrecked my previously good relationship with my mother and father in law, which is I am sure what she was trying to do in the first place, with her lies, and this resulted in me having a massive row with my father in law in which I was in tears (the family sees her through rose tinted glasses unfortunately) and I dont know if this might have contributed to my symptoms. I know I still had the gastro bug - due to the high temperature etc - but I just wonder if everything combined, the bug and the stress of the family stuff, has all had a cumulative effect and the stress is showing up by wrecking havoc on my stomach. It is just awful - I had a great, stress-free relationship with my inlaws before this childish girl came into our lives, causing her drama.
The GP has hinted at a gastroenterology referral if things don't settle and my husband and I have talked about paying privately for me to see a consultant as I really can't carry on like this. I am a big advocate of the NHS so perhaps the fact I am considering going private is a reflection of how desperate I am.
I am sorry for the long post!! But I am in a very bad place at the moment and wish my stomach would settle down. Really I am just wondering if anyone else has experienced an extended flare up of their IBS like this and has wondered if it could be anything more serious. I can't stop googling bowel, stomach or pancreatic cancer, and I hate it.
Thanks to anyone who has got this far! x
---------- Post added at 01:33 ---------- Previous post was at 01:21 ----------
Sorry I forgot to add that there is no blood in my stool that I can see, and there is mucus mixed in with it at times (TMI, sorry) which I know is classic IBS
I have got myself into a bad place with my health anxiety, due to having been physically quite unwell recently, and am wondering if there is anyone else out there who has been through anything similar. Warning - this is going to be a long post, I'm sorry but I really am suffering, and I might be graphic about my bowels lol so I apologise in advance x
I have posted on here before; I have HA caused by previous episodes of ill-health, misdiagnoses and therefore I am now a 35 year old who feels like I cannot trust what the medical professionals tell me (also being suddenly, seriously ill 16 years ago which is something I recovered from physically but don't think I have ever got over mentally in all honesty) so when I - or any of my loved ones - am/are unwell I dwell on the worst possible diagnosis and outcome. I have had some health challenges over the years and during these times, because of my HA, I have wound up in a complete state emotionally - during one particularly bad time in 2015 when I felt very poorly with bad vitamin D deficiency, and couldn't get a diagnosis initially, I was googling the Dignitas clinic. I feel very stupid saying that.
What probably doesn't help is that by profession I am a medical secretary, with the majority of my previous work having been in Gastroenterology, so I have spoken to and typed letter for some of the sickest patients and so I know about medical investigations and bowel diseases.. and some of the worst outcomes. Sometimes a little knowledge is not always the best thing!
I have had IBS (predominately diarrhoea when I have a flare up) for a long time, probably since I was about 20. It does affect my life quite a lot but I tend to just get on with it and generally my flare-ups, although quite bad, are short-lived. I had the symptoms on and off for a few years until I was formally diagnosed with IBS by a GP in 2006. It can be triggered by eating the wrong foods and fizzy drinks, stress... anything really.. it isn't a nice thing to live with, as any fellow sufferers I am sure would agree. I drink lots of peppermint tea which can sometimes help but normally I just ride out the symptoms and they are short-lived.
Recently, I've been having an awful time. At the start of Feb I suddenly came down with what I was told was a gastroenteritis bug - I had a bout of terribly watery diarrhoea which was not at all like my normal IBS, very bad and felt poorly in myself. I felt nauseous but didn't actually vomit. Due to how poorly this made me feel and the speed at which it developed, I spoke to the GP on the phone and she told me it was likely to be a bug and would pass soon. Unfortunately, it carried on for a week, during which time I felt absolutely horrendous. After 8 days of being ill, I decided to call the GP again as I was just feeling worse and worse, and they bought me in for an appointment and the GP found that I was quite badly dehydrated, had a fever and a racing pulse. This was Valentine's night. She decided to get me admitted into hospital for treatment for the dehydration. I was in hospital for two night and received 4 bags of fluid which definitely helped me feel a bit better and my temperature and pulse rate returned to normal. Whilst in hospital, they did some blood tests and I was asked to provide three stool samples; by this point my stools were pretty much just liquid :(. I went in on the Tuesday night and I was allowed home on the Thursday morning. I still had loose stools, but the Consultant Gastroenterologist who visited me on the ward was amazed at how much better I looked for having the IV fluids and let me go home, saying that it's likely I had an infective gastroenteritis, and anticipated things would settle down, however if they didn't, then I would probably have to have a flexible sigmoidoscopy (camera up the you-know-what), but I didn't think too much about that at the time. I just wanted to get home! He told me that the stool samples at that point hadn't come back from the lab, and that if they showed up positive for any bacteria that would require further treatment, then someone from the hospital would be in contact.
So, I went home, completely exhausted. My bowels were still extremely loose and this continued (although I didn't feel as unwell in myself as I had on the day I was admitted into hospital thankfully). At the start of the following week, I contacted the hospital to try and find out the results of my stool samples, which I was eventually told had all come back negative.
Unfortunately the loose stools persisted. I had telephone call appointment with my GP that week, in fact I think I had two phone call appointments in the space of a few days, and both times they reassured me that they were not worried about anything more sinister as my bloods had come back normal. What both GP's said was that as I have IBS anyway, it will probably take longer for me to recover from the gastroenteritis, and could take a couple of months.
However I made that mistake of consulting Dr Google and of course I found the horrible stories of the poor souls who had been told they had got IBS but in fact they had bowel cancer, and their bloods had all been normal too. So the destructive thoughts in my mind spiralled out of control.
My husband has been a complete rock, working from home a lot lately, looking after the house and dog, but the problem is I don't want him to have to do all that, it isn't fair on him, I just want to get better so I can get back to my normal life of being independent and not stuck at home all day!! I have been googling something silly and got all kinds of horrible thoughts in my brain about it being something awful. We moved to a new town last November and I am actively looking for a part time job but missed an interview whilst I was in hospital :(
I have never had bowel issues for such a long stretch of time at once, I mean all this started in early Feb and I am completely fed up of it. The diarrhoea, nausea and pains are just too much.
Last weekend was just awful, I was at the out of hours doctors at 5am on Saturday morning and the doctor I saw there said that maybe it needed looking into further as it had been a number of weeks, but she felt it probably would settle down. And then, at about 1am on Sunday morning I took myself to A&E because I had such bad lower abdominal pain and diarrhoea, I was given blood tests, again they were all normal, and the Dr there told me to see my GP again.
I am trying to hold on to what the GP at my own surgery told me, that the gastroenteritis has triggered my IBS and it could take some time to settle down. I decided to take some Imodium at the weekend which I dont normally take as I am a bit intolerant to it and it gives me excruciating trapped wind pain in my diaphragm.. but I was so desperate for relief from the diarrhoea that I took some. It did the job of stopping me going for a couple of days. I am now going again tonight and it is still soft but not quite as urgent.
Just before the gastroenteritis bug hit me a few weeks back, I had gone through some emotional stress. Think it was at the end of Jan/very start of Feb. Long story but my brother-in-law's girlfriend has jealousy issues and has tried to cause trouble for me and my husband for several months now, and I try to ignore her but it got really bad and she has all but wrecked my previously good relationship with my mother and father in law, which is I am sure what she was trying to do in the first place, with her lies, and this resulted in me having a massive row with my father in law in which I was in tears (the family sees her through rose tinted glasses unfortunately) and I dont know if this might have contributed to my symptoms. I know I still had the gastro bug - due to the high temperature etc - but I just wonder if everything combined, the bug and the stress of the family stuff, has all had a cumulative effect and the stress is showing up by wrecking havoc on my stomach. It is just awful - I had a great, stress-free relationship with my inlaws before this childish girl came into our lives, causing her drama.
The GP has hinted at a gastroenterology referral if things don't settle and my husband and I have talked about paying privately for me to see a consultant as I really can't carry on like this. I am a big advocate of the NHS so perhaps the fact I am considering going private is a reflection of how desperate I am.
I am sorry for the long post!! But I am in a very bad place at the moment and wish my stomach would settle down. Really I am just wondering if anyone else has experienced an extended flare up of their IBS like this and has wondered if it could be anything more serious. I can't stop googling bowel, stomach or pancreatic cancer, and I hate it.
Thanks to anyone who has got this far! x
---------- Post added at 01:33 ---------- Previous post was at 01:21 ----------
Sorry I forgot to add that there is no blood in my stool that I can see, and there is mucus mixed in with it at times (TMI, sorry) which I know is classic IBS