jaynespain3105
27-04-17, 15:11
Hi everyone
This is my first post on the forum, although I have spent a lot of time on here over the last few years.
I suffer from quite severe health anxiety and have gone through several different cycles of CBT with healthy minds and also private therapist to try and help. It does, sometimes, until I get a symptom that becomes an obsession.
Most often my concerns lie with breast and cervical cancer, both of which i've have scares with in the past, but this time it is with my throat for the second time only and it's taken my anxiety from my usual 'coasting' level right up to the worst it ever gets. I've been on Google almost non-stop since 3am (12 hours).
A few years ago, I had the common 'lump in throat' symptom. After many trips to the GP I had a camera down my nose and throat this time last year and their was some sign of reflux but only mild. Otherwise normal.
Now, my new obsession is throat related but quite different. For quite a long time, I have regular pain (like mild tonsillitis) on the right side of my throat that comes and goes and is worse at night. The pain extends down my throat and in to my ear. For whatever reason, despite my crippling health anxiety, I never worried much about this symptom. Probably as it is usually mild and intermittent and so much time and energy was going on other obsessions.
A few nights ago, however, this changed when I feel like I 'noticed' this pain properly for the first time. I then spent hours in the bathroom with a torch in my mouth. And had a good prod around. I found a lump, like a round swelling, behind my tonsil and, to me, my tonsil looked infected.
I got really scared it was throat cancer. I smoked off and on for a decade when I was younger, although I gave up before I was 30. I just had this real panic that I have 'ignored' this terrible symptom for so long. Now I have a tumour. etc. etc.
I went to see the GPs office this morning and saw a nurse practitioner. She said that my throat looked 'clear' and that my symptoms, to her, sounded like Eustachian Tube Dysfunction. She looked in my ear and said I had a bad infection and has given me antibiotics. But now, obsessively googling ETD I see no mention of that causing pain in a tonsil. I can't stop checking the area I feel a lump (which she didn't investigate closely but put down to inflammation due to the infection). I am just getting myself so worked up. When I get to this point I feel like none of my CBT techniques work. Even posting on here may be just continuing the cycle.
Why can't I just accept what the nurse said? I suppose if it is down to Eustachian Tube Dysfunction then that could have been going on for some time with mild infections coming and going.
i can't help feeling it's something terrible though. Nothing will convince me otherwise. Even the knowledge that this time last week I thought I had stage 4 breast cancer that has somehow now disappeared.
Does anyone have any advice? Or does anyone relate? Sorry this is so long.
This is my first post on the forum, although I have spent a lot of time on here over the last few years.
I suffer from quite severe health anxiety and have gone through several different cycles of CBT with healthy minds and also private therapist to try and help. It does, sometimes, until I get a symptom that becomes an obsession.
Most often my concerns lie with breast and cervical cancer, both of which i've have scares with in the past, but this time it is with my throat for the second time only and it's taken my anxiety from my usual 'coasting' level right up to the worst it ever gets. I've been on Google almost non-stop since 3am (12 hours).
A few years ago, I had the common 'lump in throat' symptom. After many trips to the GP I had a camera down my nose and throat this time last year and their was some sign of reflux but only mild. Otherwise normal.
Now, my new obsession is throat related but quite different. For quite a long time, I have regular pain (like mild tonsillitis) on the right side of my throat that comes and goes and is worse at night. The pain extends down my throat and in to my ear. For whatever reason, despite my crippling health anxiety, I never worried much about this symptom. Probably as it is usually mild and intermittent and so much time and energy was going on other obsessions.
A few nights ago, however, this changed when I feel like I 'noticed' this pain properly for the first time. I then spent hours in the bathroom with a torch in my mouth. And had a good prod around. I found a lump, like a round swelling, behind my tonsil and, to me, my tonsil looked infected.
I got really scared it was throat cancer. I smoked off and on for a decade when I was younger, although I gave up before I was 30. I just had this real panic that I have 'ignored' this terrible symptom for so long. Now I have a tumour. etc. etc.
I went to see the GPs office this morning and saw a nurse practitioner. She said that my throat looked 'clear' and that my symptoms, to her, sounded like Eustachian Tube Dysfunction. She looked in my ear and said I had a bad infection and has given me antibiotics. But now, obsessively googling ETD I see no mention of that causing pain in a tonsil. I can't stop checking the area I feel a lump (which she didn't investigate closely but put down to inflammation due to the infection). I am just getting myself so worked up. When I get to this point I feel like none of my CBT techniques work. Even posting on here may be just continuing the cycle.
Why can't I just accept what the nurse said? I suppose if it is down to Eustachian Tube Dysfunction then that could have been going on for some time with mild infections coming and going.
i can't help feeling it's something terrible though. Nothing will convince me otherwise. Even the knowledge that this time last week I thought I had stage 4 breast cancer that has somehow now disappeared.
Does anyone have any advice? Or does anyone relate? Sorry this is so long.