Anybody else have this?

[Savvy_Darling]

So I'm really struggling. I posted the other day and I've only gotten worse. My anxiety is so bad I can't sleep tonight and I've cried because I scared myself googling. I've gained weight the last 2 years probably 50 lbs I'd say. I've got stretch marks on my thighs and some on my hips.. the other day I noticed a few small ones on my stomach and it freaked me out. I started googling stretch marks and somehow I'm on this fear of Cushings Syndrome. It's apparently rare but I do have stretch marks and have gained weight over the last couple years and the other day I was looking for a "buffalo hump" which is a sign of Cushings and I discovered I have a slight hump at the base of my neck. It's small and seems different when I look at it from my left profile and right profile. I'm freaking out over this. I've been googling so much and I either have Cushings or Dowagers Hump. Dowagers hump looks more like what I have and it can be caused my poor posture. I've always had poor posture and slump my shoulders over the last few years I spend a lot of time hunched over looking down at my phone. I find peace thinking it's Dowagers hump because it's just a curvature in your spine from poor posture and such. Cushings is way more scary and caused my too much cortisol in your body and can be caused by a benign tumor on your pituitary gland or adrenal gland which you would have to get removed. That honestly scares the heck outta me and I cry thinking about it. I do really bad in hospitals and doctors. I cried when I had a MRI a few weeks ago for simple Kidney Stones. I'm worrried my anxiety had caused too much cortisol and now I have Cushings. This is all so scary and I'm in tears and probably won't sleep tonight. I feel so down and the only thing that makes me feel better is thinking and hoping it's just Dowagers hump. I'm trying to be positive and think I've just let myself go over the past couple years by not being active and eating too much and have aquired the bump from gaining a little weight and poor posture from being on my phone all the time and just poor posture in general. I don't know what to do, I have no health insurance, I have to apply and weight to be approved and even then I have a horrible fear of doctors and tests. Guys I'm losing it. So scared and I can't handle this.
If you've read this whole thing, I really appreciate it as it was a lot but I'm just freaking out. Anybody else have a bump on their back like at the base of their neck? When I put my neck down it's not bump and just feels like my spine bones and turning my head the bump also goes away. In other forums a girl my age 23 had the same thing and described it the same and it turned out to be Dowagers.
I'm trying to stay positive but I'm so scared! :(
Replies would be nice! I'd appreciate some feedback or anybody with anything similar? I know when I get health insurance I have to get this checked to at least finally rest my fears but I can't do that yet so I'm just looking for support from you guys.. :(

[MyNameIsTerry]

My nana had a hump due to osteoporosis. It's very noticeable as you are bent forward and walk that way.

Can you straighten? If you can I would think it's more postural.

If you can straighten, does it feel tight? I've found I have some of this myself since anxiety. Anxious people have a habit of bending forward when sitting, hence the breathing issues, and walking that way too. Over time I suspect this could cause back aches and a feeling of tightness when straightening, which I have found I have.

A hump would be noticeable to someone else. They may not see it so much as just realise you are permanently hunched forward.

[Savvy_Darling]

Yeah I mean it's not a big hump or like a hunchback.. it's like a small bump / hump at the base of my neck.. yes different ways I turn my neck it straightens.. if I stretch my neck back and straighten it then I feel no hump . Turning my neck left or right it straightens out.
When I bend my neck forward I can feel the vertebrae bumps / a bigger one that's boney that when I bend back to straighten my neck some skin and fat make it less boney feeling but can still feel it when I massage around. I've taken sooo many profile side shots and back shots with my neck in different positions and it definitely makes the bump change. When I tighten my shoulder blades together it seems to go away like the bone is sucked in or something. I believe I sleep with my head tucked in as well and always have it's comforting but I know I have poor posture as I use to get yelled at to sit straight so I wouldn't get a hunch back when I'm older. I think I'll attach a picture to shoe what I mean .. and like I said depending on which side I'm taking the picture from it varies the humps pronounciation.. it's weird. It's why I seem to think it's postural and my spine may have a curve in it like I've read online.. which honestly I'd be happier about than the Cushing's syndrome. Maybe since gaining weight it's more noticeable covering it with more fat? I don't know!

[ServerError]

I think deep down, you know what's going on here. You're posting on an anxiety forum. I realise you have no insurance, but if you, really truly thought you had this disease, you'd be really pursuing medical help, wouldn't you? Even with your fear of doctors and tests, that would be overridden by an urgent need for help. Right now, your urgent need for help is pointing you to an anxiety forum, which is always telling.

The pattern here is a very familiar one. You've found a scary illness online, and now you've started linking things about yourself to it in order to make yourself fit the criteria to be diagnosed with it. You're not doing this because you want to have it. You're doing it because the disease is scary and it's triggered an anxious response and now you're trying to prepare yourself to deal with it, even though you don't have it.

I was the same. I spent last summer preparing myself for a skin cancer diagnosis. The internet led me to believe my lesion was probably malignant - maybe even melanoma. I also read about the relatively rare mental illness schizophrenia and started convincing myself I had it by connecting dots between the symptoms of that illness and my own symptoms. The dots connected perfectly in my own mind, but of course, there was no actual connection whatsoever.

Think about it - if everyone who has stretch marks and had gained a little weight thought they had Cushing's Syndrome, doctors would have no time for anybody else. Stretch marks are incredibly common to the point that almost everyone gets them. Weight gain is also common and is almost always of benign origin, even if weight gain comes with health risks. I've gained weight recently. I have stretch marks. I am fully confident I don't have Cushing's Syndrome.

The tears your shedding over this and the sleepless nights are all originating from something going on in your mind. The time spent worrying is wasted time.

It's frustrating to hear you don't have insurance as, like any anxiety sufferer, you should be pursuing help in the real world, even if you've done so before. Do you have any options?

Look, nobody here will ever be able to tell you exactly what is going on. We're not doctors. Nine times out of ten, people post fears that doctors have already ruled out, and I feel pretty comfortable going with what the doctor says. It's not clear in your case whether you've had any professional medical advice about this current fear, but I do know that you have a pattern of health anxiety, and that anxiety causes many people to start connecting dots that don't actually connect. So this points to a classic hypochondriacal breakdown for me. I can't promise you that you'll never get the things you fear, but logic says that the most likely explanation for all of this by far is that your anxiety disorder is simply fooling you once again.

[Savvy_Darling]

You're definitely right about a lot of that. I know this could all be my anxiety spiraling as it's done many times before with things and illnesses. I also thought I gained weight from not being active enough and eating too much and that's how I got stretch marks. If I wouldn't have googled I wouldn't have even known about Cushings.. I think what keeps this fear going is the fact I do have a small hump or bump at the base of my neck like I'm the picture I attached in a previous commen... which I never even noticed before if I wouldn't have been trying to look for symptoms to connect with Cushings but now that I do see one it does scare me and make me believe that this time I'm right. Honestly if I did have health insurance right now I probably wouldn't go in right away because of my fear of doctors unless I was in a lot of pain.. my boyfriend would probably be telling me get it checked then as he would be the one seeing me getting upset and it would take tooth and nail to get me to make an appointment. I wish I wasn't like that I really do but I can't help my fears. I know nobody here can help me but I guess coming here and venting it all out and perhaps getting replies that help me relax or just reading them can help my mind settle.
I do keep hoping this is just postural and not a fat deposit from Cushings. If it wasn't for the hump thing I would have probably already laid this fear to rest or at least not let it get to me as bad because it could rationally just be weight gain because I haven't been very good about exercising and getting physical activity which I'm changing and plan on getting back into shape. Just scared and I do know getting checked will really be the only way I can figure this out. :/

[MyNameIsTerry]

In that pic can you see how there is a groove between where you see your hump? That's because they are your trap muscles.

You've got pretty long traps by the looks of it and what it could easily be is that you are adding some muscle to that area. Adding that much weight is going to add some fat onto muscle to add more shape/side alone but all the extra calories involved in that weight also add to the muscle building process (bodybuilders "bulk" by eating tons of crap and they "cut" to remove it later, they need the calories to pack the muscle on).

Obviously, only a doctor can say for sure but to me that's not a hump, it's developed trap muscles on someone with genetics for longer muscles in that region.

With nana's hump you could see it straight away. She was bent over on her chair and walked hunched because she couldn't straighten up. You can straighten, which points to something else rather than a hump that develops due to a skeletal problem that impairs spine straightening. You can even straighten it out, I seriously doubt anyone with a hump could do that.

Are you sure you've put 50lbs on? I've seen your previous pics and I would have thought you would be a lot bigger than how this ones shows you. In this your traps can be seen, so can muscles in your shoulders, neck base, etc.

[Savvy_Darling]

Yeah terry im fairly sure ive put on about 50 lbs at least, my scale says 180 and I was 135 4 years ago. I gain weight in my lower parts first, like my thighs/calves and butt and then stomach. I was 165 or something last year at my weigh up at the doctors so I assume I've gained more since my old scale says in the 180s. I've been pretty sedentary which I'm not working on and determined to lose this weight and workout for an hour a day because the stretch marks were a rude awakening and make me feel self conscious they're all over my thighs. I had them back when I was a teenager and they went away but here I am again but way more but I'm definitely thicker and the heaviest I've ever weighed. Yeah in that pic it's from a different angle this one is from the mirror and you can see it's more pronounced and then I have a picture of my neck turned and it looks non exixitent.. could me skeletal as I've been trying to improve my posture and not gonna lie I'm sore from doing so as my body is not use to it and my neck cracks often too. My boyfriend thinks it's from sitting around and being on my phone and I'm such a shoulder slumper. Lemme see if I can upload both the pics to get an idea how I can straighten it

[MyNameIsTerry]

They still look like developing traps to me. The first pic just shows a trap muscle. The second one shows what could just be the far side (your right hand side) trap raised with the left hand one flattened due to the angle rather than a hump. It's certainly not seen in the other pic you posted because there is a gap which says to me it's the gap between the trap muscles (which is flatter).

With a hump it would also be showing a pulling forward of the head & neck as far as I know and that's how I've seen it because the spine is pulling forward & causing rounding. They also cause shoulder rounding but to a more visible level than how posture can cause it.

Look at the hump on Jason Statham...(if you intepret that in any other way, it's in YOUR mind :winks:)

https://uploads.jetli.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/05172349/640-2.jpeg
http://cdn26.us1.fansshare.com/photo/jasonstatham/jason-statham-body-workout-routine-body-583976553.jpg
http://www.cineycine.com/archivos/2016/10/jason-statham-portada.jpg

But that's not a hump, it's developed trap muscles. Like all muscles, they differ in people so some have longer or shorter or wider muscles (think of bicep insertions, how one person seems to have a shorter bicep than another).

Statham's got shorter traps than you which is genetics just as shorter bicep insertions are.

[Savvy_Darling]

I mean I can kind of see the resemblance but I'm just not sure how I'd have developing trap muscles because I don't body build and haven't lifted weights.. I haven't been working out. And I feel like my bump is in the center and on my neck vertebrae, specifically c7 as it feels like a bone under the skin/ fat. It's just with certain positions I place my neck the bump changes.. so yeah I guess it isn't a permanent hump that's there no matter how I bend or turn my neck. I'm just worried it's a fatty hump which could mean Cushings... with the dowagers hump it's just curvature of your thoracic vertebrae which are the neck ones from bad posture and slumping shoulders and looking down posistions - which I'm very guilty of and since trying to straighten up and not slump my shoulders have been aching since my body isn't use to the way I'm straightening my shoulders.
Ugh I have no idea what to think, I Wanna hope it's nothing but I can't help but worry about the bad possibility of Cushings /: my boyfriend doesn't think it's a hump either and even though I showed him pictures of what Cushings symptoms are he also doesn't think I have it by looking at me. He thinks it's just the way my neck and bones are and I gained a little weight. I'm just very worried it's fatty deposites and that could mean Cushings and I'm not sure if it were fat if it be able to go away with certain chafed and stretching of the neck. So confused.
Terry I really appreciate your help you always give good advice and I enjoyed the Jason stratham pictures lol and can kinda see how he has a bump but i don't know if it's like mine since I'm not very fit like he is in that picture