Can't stop thinking about cancer

[smoothie]

So i've had severe health anxiety for two months now. My symptoms include:

Change in bowel habits (going more often. usually once a day now. Sometimes normal looking but a bit hard to pass, sometimes mushy and stinky! tmi lol)
Headaches
Pains (mostly my left arm and my side just under my breast)
Weight loss (dropped a stone/14lb in two months, not lost any more)
Occassional nausea, sometimes i even vomit but its always a small amount and is clear.
On rare days i pee a lot more (sometimes twice an hour!)
Abdominal pains
EXTREMELY frequent chest pains
More aware of heartbeat, i dont think its faster? I've also noticed a strong pulse in my abdomen, just above my navel
feeling of something in throat
reduced appetite
feeling like i've ran a marathon. i can still breathe normally when this happens it just feels like i've ran for miles!
Feeling cold all the time
I also think my visions gotten a little blurry and my memorys worsened too.
Various others that i can't think of right now probably

Keep in mind these are not constant and some symptoms happen rarely. But the pains and headaches are near constant.

The thing that is always always on my mind is cancer. So far in just the past 2/3 months alone i've worried about colon cancer, ovarian cancer, lymphoma, esophageal cancer, pancreatic cancer, mesothelioma, stomach cancer, lung cancer... and probably others I can't even remember worrying about! I've also been obsessed with blood clots, pulmonary embolisms heart attacks and strokes this week. Other things i've been obsessed with are MS and deadly bacterial infections. :shrug:

I know as an 18 year old girl who hasn't smoked or drunk a drop of alcohol in her life and has had probably less than 10 sick days in her entire school career, the chances of me actually having some killer disease is virtually zero. I'm also not overweight (maybe a bit chubby! im 10.5 stone) but my diet is kinda poor as im autistic and cant physically handle the textures of most foods which includes all vegetables! My diet consists of a lot of pizza chips and chicken. Although im trying my hardest to improve.

The only things that run in my family are hyperthyroidism, and funnily enough anxiety. My mum however had a DVT when she was pregnant with my little sister (though it was after a holiday to greece) which makes me nervous about getting one as it can lead to a heart attack, stroke, or pulmonary embolism. :weep:

I did have a pelvic ultrasound because i have a hormone imbalance, i have cysts on my ovaries but theyre normal and fine. I also had blood tests (full blood count, coeliac, blood sugar and thyroid levels) and everything came back perfectly normal.

I would talk to my mum about it but she just gets angry at me when i panic. :unsure:

Luckily i've booked an appointment with the university councillor and i might look for anxiety support groups in my area.

But, what should I do to stop worrying about cancer? I'm so so so terrified of dying young, and leaving my family and my best best friend to live out the remaining decades of their life without me.

[Fishmanpa]

Cancer is an uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells. It doesn't come and go nor does it stop once it starts.

Most all you mention can be and are pretty typical anxiety symptoms. It's good you're going to speak with someone about your anxiety.

Positive thoughts

[Leah88]

I also have all of these things. Plus anxiety

[Kathryn313]

I really feel for you, cancer is a huge HA fear of mine and my thoughts were always on it.
The important thing for me in your message is that you are able to engage a bit of logic and you have a plan to address your thoughts.

You have had the tests, now you need to believe the results and talk through your anxieties honestly with an expert that will hopefully ground your thinking a little more.

Best wishes and good luck.

[paranoid-viking]

S

I would talk to my mum about it but she just gets angry at me when i panic. :unsure:




I know how that feels. Because if you look at it from the outside, people find it annoying if you constantly talk about the fear of diseases. I have pretty much given up talking to others about it; both because it annoys them and because the "reassurance" they try to give often contradicts established medicine. I have pretty much given up writing about my fears here because I found it to be more or less useless, and I get a lot of irritated posts here too.
So what I am doing now is try to deal with the anxiety I suffer and take one day at the time. After all; there are moments now and then that are better than others.

[Leah88]

I know how that feels. Because if you look at it from the outside, people find it annoying if you constantly talk about the fear of diseases. I have pretty much given up talking to others about it; both because it annoys them and because the "reassurance" they try to give often contradicts established medicine. I have pretty much given up writing about my fears here because I found it to be more or less useless, and I get a lot of irritated posts here too.
So what I am doing now is try to deal with the anxiety I suffer and take one day at the time. After all; there are moments now and then that are better than others.

Re the established medicine bit, may I ask have you ever been right in a self diagnosis?... statistically speaking are you 0 for 0? An OCD brain thinks it knows more than other people's brains. I used to think like you paranoid Viking, but I've come to trust that it's mainly mental illness not me being a genius diagnostician and everyone else being ignorant.

[Blonde123]

Cancers my worst fear

[paranoid-viking]

Re the established medicine bit, may I ask have you ever been right in a self diagnosis?... statistically speaking are you 0 for 0? An OCD brain thinks it knows more than other people's brains. I used to think like you paranoid Viking, but I've come to trust that it's mainly mental illness not me being a genius diagnostician and everyone else being ignorant.

I dont know. I have just been recieving a letter from the doctor telleing me I have low B12 and the doc wants to see me for more tests. And of course dr. Google have not been very reassuring.