Lung Cancer Anxiety and Symptoms

[Angelica Schuyler]

I'm a lymphoma survivor with a history of chest radiation. I've been in the clear for about 20 years. I also have severe health anxiety. It was under control until my mother died last year of a combination of respiratory illnesses, including lung cancer. Now, nothing can touch it. I've been suffering for the better part of ten months.

In December, I was in a panic about pancreatic/stomach/colon cancer, so I begged for an abdominal MRI. Everything turned up clear except for a 5 mm nodule on the lower lobe of my right lung. Both my oncologist and GP said it was nothing serious, probably a side effect of past treatment, and that there was no need to monitor it and expose me to more radiation.

Last month, I had an incident at work a couple weeks ago where my chest felt heavy while talking to a colleague. The pressure and kind-of-pain felt like it was on the inside of my body and it seemed to be radiating to or from my back. My breath felt like it was "catching." I made the mistake of checking Dr. Google to see if it was a heart attack, then went to the bathroom to try deep breathing. While there, I started tingling down my head and both arms, and I felt like I was going to pass out. I stumbled out of the stall and asked a colleague for help.

Long story short, I wound up at the ER where my EKG and blood work were all fine and I was told to lay off the caffeine.

I went to my cardiologist the following week for my yearly post-cancer follow-up appointment - I was on some medications in the past that could hurt my heart muscle - and my echocardiogram and EKG looked fine, as well as my blood pressure, which was high in the ER.

But the pain and pressure in my back and chest remained, along with the feeling of mucus in the very back of my throat - not globus, almost like behind where that would be - that makes me feel like coughing. The pain is through both shoulder blades, the middle of my back, my breastbone, and my ribs. Sometimes I feel like I can't get a whole breath in, or that I'm out of breath when talking. I'm terrified that the nodule has become lung cancer, like my mom had, and I'm going to die.

I ran sobbing to my GP on Thursday. He truly believes that all of my pain is musculoskeletal and won’t consider any invasive tests unless I get worse. He said there is no use exposing me to more radiation unless there is something seriously wrong.

I asked my GP about my lung nodule and told him how scared I was that it had grown. He told me the chances of it being anything were almost nil, and that nodules 1) don’t grow that fast and 2) don’t detach or move around. He told me that, if I had cancer that caused that pain, I wouldn’t be able to breathe at all.

He said I don’t have cancer.

So why don't I believe him? Should I believe him without a scan? Can anxiety really cause these types of symptoms? Has anyone here dealt with something like this and can give me some advice? I'm so tired of panicking and waiting and wondering if I'm going to die.

[jojo2316]

Hi!
I can relate. I had an “unnecessary” scan which showed four small noodles in my lower lungs (max size 3mm). I was told they were of no consequence but I am now forever developing lung and chest and back symptoms, which I fear is tumours growing. It’s horrible, but the brain is a powerful thing.
So sorry about your mum. No wonder you are anxious at the moment

[lofwyr]

I am there with you, sort of. First of all, sorry about your mom, that is awful. And also, well done on surviving lymphoma, glad you are with us.

I was diagnosed with a bad aortic valve and an aortic root and ascending aneurysm. One of the things I enjoyed from this ordeal was a lot of imagery of my chest in CT. There were two nodules, one 4mm and one 3mm in my upper right lobe. I lost my mind.

Six months later they were there again, same size. Upper lobe nodules, thanks to google, I learned have a higher chance of malignancy. I was referred to a nodule clinic and a pulmonolgist, who said they are nothing to worry about and if there is no change this month when I get my annual scan, then they can be written off as benign.

She also told me, that if for some reason they were malignant, they are so small as to make the cancer virtually 100% curable. Lung cancer tends towards fatal because it is often not caught until it is symptomatic, and it is not symptomatic until it is very large. Small nodules are thought to be in as many as half of all people, and in as many as two thirds of all people who have smoked, though almost all (over 98%) small nodules are benign.

The word lung nodule is scary, but unless it is large, there will be zero chance of symptoms, and you know they are not large.

[Pamplemousse]

Last month, I had an incident at work a couple weeks ago where my chest felt heavy while talking to a colleague. The pressure and kind-of-pain felt like it was on the inside of my body and it seemed to be radiating to or from my back. My breath felt like it was "catching." I made the mistake of checking Dr. Google to see if it was a heart attack, then went to the bathroom to try deep breathing. While there, I started tingling down my head and both arms, and I felt like I was going to pass out. I stumbled out of the stall and asked a colleague for help.

Long story short, I wound up at the ER where my EKG and blood work were all fine and I was told to lay off the caffeine.
Firstly, my condolences on the loss of your mother.

When you said you felt like you were going to pass out, did you get tunnel vision or anything similar? The reason I ask is because it sounds like you triggered a "vasovagal incident", sometimes called "vasovagal syncope" - or simply, fainting.

I had this happen to me about four years ago - an episode in my life that led to severe stress building up without me realising it landed me in the ED (as we now seem to call A&E in the UK and what you folks call the ER). Sure enough, a very thorough working over came back as "no fault found: go home". I also had a less severe attack a year or so later which also landed me in my local hospital and got me a good-natured ear-bashing off my brother-in-law, who works for the hospital I was admitted to!

It sounds like a shock reaction - your blood pressure drops massively, you get the tingling in your hands and arms, the pain in your chest that seems to go through you from front to back, you can go grey in appearance (seriously - I did) and you can in some cases simply black out. Oh, and the tunnel vision thing as well.

I'm not a doctor, obviously: but it sounds to this casual observer that things have just piled up on you and have manifested themselves in this form. But do lay off the caffeine!