Checking body all the time

[Nelloc]

Hi,
Since I had a painful lymph node pop up (wouldn’t say swollen as it’s pea size) I’ve been obsessed with checking myself for nodes to the point where I give myself bruises and aches. The node that started this off is now shotty because I was messing around and poking it for probably hours at a time. Now I’ve moved onto nodes in my neck that I know have been there since a bad bought of glandular fever and I have to dig around to find them. I’ve read so many posts saying if you need to dig there’s nothing to worry about, how do you know if something is wrong? With so many cancer campaigns around about checking yourself ect how do you know if something is off when you’re skinny and can feel lymph nodes in a lot of places.

Anyone who’s had the same issue how do you stop yourself from the constant checking and prodding of nodes and to relax every time you feel one. It’s silly really becaus I know what swollen nodes are like - couldn’t even turn my head because my nodes were so big with glandular fever, yet every time I feel one I have a deep feeling of dread that it’s something bad :/

[ankietyjoe]

Each time you feel like doing it say out loud 'No, I'm going to wait 5 minutes before I do'.

5 minutes later you'll probably be doing something else.

[Nelloc]

Each time you feel like doing it say out loud 'No, I'm going to wait 5 minutes before I do'.

5 minutes later you'll probably be doing something else.

I tried this today and found that 5 minutes later I was instead checking another part of my body and overanalysing normal anatomy 🙄 if I had never googled about stupid lymph nodes I wouldn’t be paranoid of lymphoma

I was more anxious about this than my A level results which is concerning.. how do you go about speaking to a doctor about this kind of thing? I feel really embarrassed even though I have a really good doctor but the anxiety is through the roof

[ankietyjoe]

Just go to the Doctor and tell them you have anxiety, specifically health anxiety.

And of course stop googling. Never google.

Is there something that triggered your health anxiety apart from the lymph node?

[Nelloc]

Just go to the Doctor and tell them you have anxiety, specifically health anxiety.

And of course stop googling. Never google.

Is there something that triggered your health anxiety apart from the lymph node?

He already knows I have anxiety but it’s just the explaining about the lymph node worry, is health anxiety common? I just feel really stupid and like I’m wasting time over something I know is so silly

I’ve actually been really good with googling lately, but the damage was already done when I obsessively googled for about a week straight when I noticed the nodes months ago. Obviously there are other symptoms which I do not have but then when I (very very very stupidly) went on forums where people say they got misdiagnosed or they had zero other symptoms and I think well maybe I’m the 1% that has this too?

I can’t say there was anything in particular that triggered it apart from noticing the nodes, but when you’re fixated on something you seem to notice it a lot more in the media ect if you know what I mean. So if there was a story on Twitter about a young person with cancer I think ‘of course it’s lymphoma’ as if it’s some kind of sign to me that I’m seeing it come up so often.

[ankietyjoe]

Ah right OK.

It's very easy for 'normal' anxiety to morph into health anxiety, it happened to me a few years back and it's very invasive.

The thing about health anxiety though is that it's almost entirely fuelled by YOU checking or looking up symptoms. And when I say YOU, I mean all of us! :D

Not checking google, not looking for small changes in the body, not questioning every single little niggle you feel is the route to recovery.

I personally haven't really suffered with HA for a couple of years now. I just stopped checking and looking things up. When you do that it just kinda goes away. If you have a symptom that persists for a while, then go let the Doctor check it out. If they give you the all clear then do your best to stop thinking about it.

And if you stop looking things up, you'll stop reading about stories of 'the one that got away'.

You know there are no guarantees in life, but constantly worrying about the 'what if's' is a sure fire way to make the time you do have completely miserable.