boostedcoop
10-08-18, 21:02
Moderators, please feel free to move this if it is posted in the wrong place.
So I joined this forum not too long ago in hopes to calm my anxiety and hopefully distance myself from what has become crippling Health Anxiety. It has thankfully helped but I im still dealing with bouts of terrible anxiety. Most of which involve me having some sort of terminal illness. If you dont mind, I'd like to tell my story.
October 2011
Health Anxiety for me really started almost 7 years ago, I was 24 and had just been through a fairly nasty divorce. I was living with my aunt. Over the next several months I began feeling jittery, almost panicky. Felt like heart was racing, felt flush. During this time I feel like is when my health anxiety surfaced for the first time in my life. I began googling my symptoms and had convinced myself I either had a thyroid issue (runs in family, maternal), or I had thyroid cancer. Almost a year went by and I met a girl and we began seeing each other. At this point I was still feeling the same symptoms but I guess I was busy enough that my HA had subsided.
November 2013
I got up one night with excrutiating pain in my abdomen and vomited for at least an hour. My girlfriend (now my wife) convinced me to make a GP appointment which I did. An ultrasound was ordered. A couple days later one of the nurses called and said that the ultrasound showed sludge in my gallbladder and that the doctor recommended going ahead and having it removed. My blood work also showed that one of my Liver Enzymes (ALT) was mildly elevated. I agreed to have the gallbladder removed.
December 2013
I had my gallbladder removed December 18th. A week later I was seen by the surgeon who did my procedure for a post-op followup. He cleared me and said the gallbladder was inflamed when he removed it but that there was nothing else to report. At this point, I had developed severe diarrhea. I would need to use the restroom within minutes of eating and it was almost completely bile (bright yellowish brown oily liquid). After returning from christmas at my girlfriends family's house, I began to get progressively more worried that something else was still wrong that had been missed on the ultrasound/blood work. At this point I have convinced myself that I have Pancreatic Cancer through Googling my symptoms and reading horros stories online. I scheduled another appointment with my GP.
January or Early February 2014
I visted my GP and explained that I was still having some abdominal pains and most concerningly, the bile diarrhea. The doctor fairly quickly diagnosed me with postcholecystectomy syndrome, or "dumping syndrome". He prescribed me colestipol, a bile binder, and said that should help with the diarrhea. After some pleading during this same appointment, the doctor ordered a CT Scan. Even though he did not think it was necessary, since I was still having abdominal pain, he was okay with it. I went a couple days later for the CT Scan. My GP (who I should note is a family friend) said he would call me as soon as he got the results. The afternoon of the CT Scan I must have called the doctor's office 10 times asking if the doctor had read the results. He finally called me that afternoon and said that he and another doctor had looked at it and everything looked fine but he was going to go ahead and refer me to a GI for further testing on the abdominal pain. The GI calls me a couple days later and schedules my appointment to discuss having an endoscopy.
March 2014
I have my appointment with the GI in early March and the doctor that does my appointment says that the head physician noticed an pancreatic abnomality on my CT Scan and would rather refer me to another GI doctor so that he can perform an Endoscopic Ultrasound (EUS). At this point I felt my worst fear had been realized and I indeed had PC.
April 2014
The date of my EUS arrived and myself, my girlfriend, and my dad all went to the hospital for the procedure. After waking from the anesthesia, my dad and girlfriend told me that the doctor had come in and let them know that the pancreas was normal and that it was just "funny looking", but that we could do another scan in 6 months. Given the research I had done prior to the procedure and learned that EUS was able to, with almost 100% certainty, rule out PC, I felt like I could finally be at peace and move forward. Or could I.
October 2014
The 6 month mark rolled around and because of my somewhat release from HA, I didnt have a follow up scan. Alot of my decision was based on the fact that the doctor who did the procedure never followed up. And because of my research on how accurate an EUS was at detecting PC, and after talking with my girlfriend and dad on what the doctor actually said after the procedure, I made the decision that a followup scan probably wasnt necessary.
October 2014 - 2017
Over the next couple years, I battled HA off and on. Symptoms would come and go. Nausea, abdominal pain, heartburn, indigestion, no appetite, diarrhea (I stopped taking the colestipol several times). During this time I also married my girlfriend and had two amazingly beautiful babies. So alot of this I chalked up to stress and moved on. But in the back of my mind I still couldnt shake the "what if something got missed".
Summer 2017
Shortly after we found out my wife was pregnant with our second daughter the HA started to get progressively worse again. I would have bouts of stomach issues, get a cold, allergies flare up and all of the thoughts of terminal illnesses would start to ramp up. This caused me to Google things which as we all know, only fuels the HA fire. By this point my wife and I had moved so I decided to find a new GP. I scheduled a physical for July to talk about the symptoms I was continuing to have and hopefully calm my HA.
July 2017
During my physical I begin discussing my symptoms and medical history with my new doctor. I noted to him that I was having some dizziness and chest pain. He noted that my blood pressure was fairly high 144/100 and that I needed to lose some weight (5'6'' / 183lbs). Because of the chest pain and dizziness he order a EKG and a full metabolic and lipid panel. Told me he wanted to see me in 3 months to see if my blood pressure had gone down and if not, to discuss putting me on medication. He also says he would request all of the scans previously done by other doctors (I assumed because as my new GP he would want them in my file). I ask him fairly point blank that I felt like something was missed on the scans, specifically PC. He smirks and says rather of matter-of-factly, "If you had PC, you would be dead by now". That gave me some comfort. Several days later I receive my EKG and Bloodwork results through the doctors online portal. EKG normal and bloodwork normal with the exception of mildly elevated ALT, again. His notes in the portal says everything looks good and that the elevated ALT was most likely due to fatty liver because I was overweight, and that he would recheck it again at my return visit in 3 months.
September 2017
The time comes around for my follow up visit and because my HA had almost completely disappeared, I felt good about his notes on my bloodwork, and he said my high blood pressure wasnt an immediate threat, I decided to cancel my appointment.
July 2018
A year had passed since my first visit with my new GP and HA begins to flare up again after a couple weeks of GI symptoms. I had been off my colestipol for almost 6 months so diarrhea had come back. I was dealing with chest pain, excessive gas, random nausea, loss of appetite, and a host of other GI stuff. I decided to reschedule my followup appointment. I made an appointment for a couple days later and went. My doctor had to backtrack and look through notes because I had skipped my 3 month follow up from the year before. By now the dizziness and chest pain have gone so he is happy with that. My blood pressure is still high so he puts me on lisinopril to see if that helps and tells me to come back in a month to follow up on the blood pressure meds and to rerun my bloodwork to check the ALT number.
Today
Today was my 1 month follow up for blood pressure meds and bloodwork. My blood pressure is still high so he increased by dosage of lisinipril. I havent lost any weight so hes still on me about that. He told me they would do bloodwork. It was then I asked if he was expecting the ALT to come down to normal. He basically said no because I hadnt lost any weight. From that I made mention that I had HA and that I was worried about something serious being wrong with me. I also mentioned something about all my previous scans. He was like, "Oh yeah I forgot about those, did we ever get copies of those? Have I seen those?" It was at this point my HA really spiked. I had been given comfort that he had requested and seen all my previous scans last year and thought they looked fine. But no, since he hasnt seen them, im paranoid something has gotten missed or he notices something prior GP's and GI's didnt see. (Irrational, I know) I havent gotten my bloodwork back from today but I am terrified that my ALT is going to be even higher and that indicates PC.
Needless to say, I am 7 years into suffering from HA and over 4 years suffering from this feeling that I have PC, yet I cant seem to get control. I'm so scared of having a terminal illness and dying and my life is suffering tremendously.
If youve gotten this far, I cant thank you enough. R
So I joined this forum not too long ago in hopes to calm my anxiety and hopefully distance myself from what has become crippling Health Anxiety. It has thankfully helped but I im still dealing with bouts of terrible anxiety. Most of which involve me having some sort of terminal illness. If you dont mind, I'd like to tell my story.
October 2011
Health Anxiety for me really started almost 7 years ago, I was 24 and had just been through a fairly nasty divorce. I was living with my aunt. Over the next several months I began feeling jittery, almost panicky. Felt like heart was racing, felt flush. During this time I feel like is when my health anxiety surfaced for the first time in my life. I began googling my symptoms and had convinced myself I either had a thyroid issue (runs in family, maternal), or I had thyroid cancer. Almost a year went by and I met a girl and we began seeing each other. At this point I was still feeling the same symptoms but I guess I was busy enough that my HA had subsided.
November 2013
I got up one night with excrutiating pain in my abdomen and vomited for at least an hour. My girlfriend (now my wife) convinced me to make a GP appointment which I did. An ultrasound was ordered. A couple days later one of the nurses called and said that the ultrasound showed sludge in my gallbladder and that the doctor recommended going ahead and having it removed. My blood work also showed that one of my Liver Enzymes (ALT) was mildly elevated. I agreed to have the gallbladder removed.
December 2013
I had my gallbladder removed December 18th. A week later I was seen by the surgeon who did my procedure for a post-op followup. He cleared me and said the gallbladder was inflamed when he removed it but that there was nothing else to report. At this point, I had developed severe diarrhea. I would need to use the restroom within minutes of eating and it was almost completely bile (bright yellowish brown oily liquid). After returning from christmas at my girlfriends family's house, I began to get progressively more worried that something else was still wrong that had been missed on the ultrasound/blood work. At this point I have convinced myself that I have Pancreatic Cancer through Googling my symptoms and reading horros stories online. I scheduled another appointment with my GP.
January or Early February 2014
I visted my GP and explained that I was still having some abdominal pains and most concerningly, the bile diarrhea. The doctor fairly quickly diagnosed me with postcholecystectomy syndrome, or "dumping syndrome". He prescribed me colestipol, a bile binder, and said that should help with the diarrhea. After some pleading during this same appointment, the doctor ordered a CT Scan. Even though he did not think it was necessary, since I was still having abdominal pain, he was okay with it. I went a couple days later for the CT Scan. My GP (who I should note is a family friend) said he would call me as soon as he got the results. The afternoon of the CT Scan I must have called the doctor's office 10 times asking if the doctor had read the results. He finally called me that afternoon and said that he and another doctor had looked at it and everything looked fine but he was going to go ahead and refer me to a GI for further testing on the abdominal pain. The GI calls me a couple days later and schedules my appointment to discuss having an endoscopy.
March 2014
I have my appointment with the GI in early March and the doctor that does my appointment says that the head physician noticed an pancreatic abnomality on my CT Scan and would rather refer me to another GI doctor so that he can perform an Endoscopic Ultrasound (EUS). At this point I felt my worst fear had been realized and I indeed had PC.
April 2014
The date of my EUS arrived and myself, my girlfriend, and my dad all went to the hospital for the procedure. After waking from the anesthesia, my dad and girlfriend told me that the doctor had come in and let them know that the pancreas was normal and that it was just "funny looking", but that we could do another scan in 6 months. Given the research I had done prior to the procedure and learned that EUS was able to, with almost 100% certainty, rule out PC, I felt like I could finally be at peace and move forward. Or could I.
October 2014
The 6 month mark rolled around and because of my somewhat release from HA, I didnt have a follow up scan. Alot of my decision was based on the fact that the doctor who did the procedure never followed up. And because of my research on how accurate an EUS was at detecting PC, and after talking with my girlfriend and dad on what the doctor actually said after the procedure, I made the decision that a followup scan probably wasnt necessary.
October 2014 - 2017
Over the next couple years, I battled HA off and on. Symptoms would come and go. Nausea, abdominal pain, heartburn, indigestion, no appetite, diarrhea (I stopped taking the colestipol several times). During this time I also married my girlfriend and had two amazingly beautiful babies. So alot of this I chalked up to stress and moved on. But in the back of my mind I still couldnt shake the "what if something got missed".
Summer 2017
Shortly after we found out my wife was pregnant with our second daughter the HA started to get progressively worse again. I would have bouts of stomach issues, get a cold, allergies flare up and all of the thoughts of terminal illnesses would start to ramp up. This caused me to Google things which as we all know, only fuels the HA fire. By this point my wife and I had moved so I decided to find a new GP. I scheduled a physical for July to talk about the symptoms I was continuing to have and hopefully calm my HA.
July 2017
During my physical I begin discussing my symptoms and medical history with my new doctor. I noted to him that I was having some dizziness and chest pain. He noted that my blood pressure was fairly high 144/100 and that I needed to lose some weight (5'6'' / 183lbs). Because of the chest pain and dizziness he order a EKG and a full metabolic and lipid panel. Told me he wanted to see me in 3 months to see if my blood pressure had gone down and if not, to discuss putting me on medication. He also says he would request all of the scans previously done by other doctors (I assumed because as my new GP he would want them in my file). I ask him fairly point blank that I felt like something was missed on the scans, specifically PC. He smirks and says rather of matter-of-factly, "If you had PC, you would be dead by now". That gave me some comfort. Several days later I receive my EKG and Bloodwork results through the doctors online portal. EKG normal and bloodwork normal with the exception of mildly elevated ALT, again. His notes in the portal says everything looks good and that the elevated ALT was most likely due to fatty liver because I was overweight, and that he would recheck it again at my return visit in 3 months.
September 2017
The time comes around for my follow up visit and because my HA had almost completely disappeared, I felt good about his notes on my bloodwork, and he said my high blood pressure wasnt an immediate threat, I decided to cancel my appointment.
July 2018
A year had passed since my first visit with my new GP and HA begins to flare up again after a couple weeks of GI symptoms. I had been off my colestipol for almost 6 months so diarrhea had come back. I was dealing with chest pain, excessive gas, random nausea, loss of appetite, and a host of other GI stuff. I decided to reschedule my followup appointment. I made an appointment for a couple days later and went. My doctor had to backtrack and look through notes because I had skipped my 3 month follow up from the year before. By now the dizziness and chest pain have gone so he is happy with that. My blood pressure is still high so he puts me on lisinopril to see if that helps and tells me to come back in a month to follow up on the blood pressure meds and to rerun my bloodwork to check the ALT number.
Today
Today was my 1 month follow up for blood pressure meds and bloodwork. My blood pressure is still high so he increased by dosage of lisinipril. I havent lost any weight so hes still on me about that. He told me they would do bloodwork. It was then I asked if he was expecting the ALT to come down to normal. He basically said no because I hadnt lost any weight. From that I made mention that I had HA and that I was worried about something serious being wrong with me. I also mentioned something about all my previous scans. He was like, "Oh yeah I forgot about those, did we ever get copies of those? Have I seen those?" It was at this point my HA really spiked. I had been given comfort that he had requested and seen all my previous scans last year and thought they looked fine. But no, since he hasnt seen them, im paranoid something has gotten missed or he notices something prior GP's and GI's didnt see. (Irrational, I know) I havent gotten my bloodwork back from today but I am terrified that my ALT is going to be even higher and that indicates PC.
Needless to say, I am 7 years into suffering from HA and over 4 years suffering from this feeling that I have PC, yet I cant seem to get control. I'm so scared of having a terminal illness and dying and my life is suffering tremendously.
If youve gotten this far, I cant thank you enough. R