Absolutely terrified , stomach cancer fears

[Kat16]

Hi, I am new here and looking for some support with my health anxiety. I have had issues with anxiety and panic attacks since I was a teenager. I am now 35 and it seems like my health anxiety is getting much worse. Last year after a night of drinking I noticed these weird pains in my stomach the pain was very mild and it would come and go throughout the day and be in a different spot each time. It started to go away so I casually mentioned it at my annual check up and the Dr didn't seem concerned at all. It went away and I was doing pretty good with my anxiety mainly because I wasn't having any physical symptoms. Then 3 months after the initial pain I felt constipated and had a pain in my power pelvis. I finally was able to go to the bathroom and the stool looked yellow. I consulted Dr google and I was convinced I had pancreatic cancer. This happened in August of 2016 and I have seen my Dr 6 times from then to now. My Dr diagnosed me with Gerd, and said my random mild stomach pains were from anxiety. She did blood work because she said it will give me piece of mind. It all came back ok, and she tried to reassure me that if I had pancreatic cancer my blood work would show abnormalities. I started to relax and the pain went away. I continued to have normal looking stools ( brown) and there would be nothing on the toilet paper or yellow when I wiped, but it wasn't a concern for my Dr and everything I read seemed like it was ok. I started moving on and then the random pains came back . I reminded myself that I have anxiety and my blood work was fine. Then I saw a news story on fb and everything went down hill again. It was about a woman my age who died from stomach cancer , the article said she had ulcer symptoms 3 years prior to her diagnosis and then after going to the hospital and ER she was diagnosed with stage 4 stomach cancer. Now I cannot calm down and am convinced I have the same thing. Over the years I have self diagnosed myself with heart disease/attack , ovarian cancer, blood cancer, diabetes , breast cancer, pancreatic cancer , and now stomach cancer. This is the worst my HA has ever been and I don't know what to do.

[Mel_82]

I can sympathize with this.

I've had gallbladder probs that were just diagnosed. I was all good with that and last time I went to my doctor he told me there was blood in my urine and now I have a urologist appt on Monday.

It's so easy to get carried away. I've too diagnosed myself with so many things - currently it's ovarian/bladder cancer.

There are so many reasons things can go wrong in our bodies, for the most part none of those reasons are serious.
The reason we read about it so much now is because of the ease of media. More people are healthy than unhealthy.

I'd go to the doctor again if I were you. Talk about my concerns and get whatever tests necessary.
You'll feel way better after you get it checked out and shown that nothing is wrong

[Scared2bme]

Honestly I'm going through the same exact fear at the moment. It started weirdly with feeling full and bloated and has progressed to me belching incessantly and getting nasty heartburn. Personally I was stupid and googled and yup the stomach c came up along with the esophagus fear. I finally bit the bullet and made an appt with my gastroenterologist on April 3 (soonest I could get in). Every day I'm tortured with fear. I'm 42 by the way and also female. I cannot relax or stop thinking about it.

---------- Post added at 14:48 ---------- Previous post was at 14:47 ----------

PS. I've been so desperate I've even contemplated going to the ER

[Kat16]

My dad had those symptoms when he had hpylori . He took some medicine and felt much better. Good for you, for making an appointment. I learned my Dr is leaving the clinic I go to so I am working up the courage to see a new Dr. I hope all goes well with your appointment. This fear can be unbearable, and then when you throw in a "diagnosis" from Dr google it is almost impossible to think positive.

[swajj]

You could try reminding yourself that all the other times you have feared having a serious disease have turned out to be nothing. This helped me a lot. It got to the point where I had diagnosed myself with so many serious diseases that it became ridiculous. My psychiatrist tried to make me see how ridiculous my thought patterns were and eventually I did.