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typicalworrier
24-08-18, 20:34
TL;DR – Scared I have a tumour in my spine/neck

Let me start by saying that I’ve had HA for around 15 years. It’s varies in severity but for the last 6 months I’ve been in a really good place. My anxiety levels were at an all time low and I’d even started an online CBT course to help me try and cope with my triggers etc. once they cropped up again.

However, around 2 weeks ago I had what I thought was a health scare that caused my anxiety to kick in big time. I went from being really calm and collected and moved back into my usual ways – thinking the worst and making my life a misery in the process. I went to the doctor who said there was nothing wrong, but it still didn’t help with my nervousness.

I regularly go to the gym, and so in an effort to try and calm myself down I decided to increase my sessions from 4 days a week to once every day for a full week – trying out stretch classes and yoga in the process to see if it would help me calm down.

Half way through the week I started to feel really tired and achy in my arms and legs so reduced the amount of work I was doing at the gym and took a few days off. However, shortly after I began to get an ache in my neck. It started off in the bone that sits at top of spine, just above and between the shoulder blades and feels like a deep ache that has the odd sense of warmth to it.

I’ve also been having aches further down my spine, as well as in my arms towards my little finger and ring finger on both sides.

Looking up online to see what ways I can try and relieve the ache, the first result that popped up involved someone saying they had neck pain as one of their first symptoms before they found out they had cancer – this has obviously not helped my anxiety and now making me fear the worst. Part of me is trying to rationalize it and say it must be my overtraining at the gym, but the rest of my brain is telling me it’s something bad like a tumour.

It hasn’t helped that this month has been stressful for a number of other reasons too. I work freelance and finished a job at start of August with no other lined up (currently seems to be a problem with quite a few people in the sector I work in) which has made me worry about work, whilst at the same time I’m about to become 35 – a milestone for me as I find myself now closer to 40 than 30 which has freaked me out a little.

Since my original anxiety scare my sleep pattern has been all over the shop, going from sleeping in the day, to barely having 3 or 4 hours sleep a night. Not sure why I’m posting here, but I don’t have anyone I can talk to about this. My gf is away working for a few weeks so can’t really chat to her, and my family are hundreds of miles away. Was just looking for somewhere to vent. Thanks

Fishmanpa
24-08-18, 20:55
You increased your workload at the gym and now you're tired and sore. What's the "logical" explanation?

Positive thoughts

typicalworrier
25-08-18, 01:27
You increased your workload at the gym and now you're tired and sore. What's the "logical" explanation?

Positive thoughts

Hey, many thanks for replying.

Technically, I didn't increase my workload, more the volume - in between my normal routine I added an extra cardio session, a yoga session, and a stretch session, but I get where you're coming from.

The problem is that the ache doesn't feel like a muscular one, if that makes sense? It doesn't pull etc in the area it aches when I move my head. I've got more aches down my back since last week, but they feel more like I've pulled a muscle.

As you say, logically, it should be this. But having HA, as we all know, you go to the most extreme - which for me is something bad like a tumour, or something to do with a neurological problem. The funny thing is that I wasn't even looking for symptoms as we all usually do, I was looking for way to ease neck ache and the bad/scary stuff showed up!

Fishmanpa
25-08-18, 01:37
Here's the thing.... I agree that HA does that to you but the reality is there's a logical explanation. I'd bet it fades away after a week or so as you get used to the new routine.

Positive thoughts

jray23
25-08-18, 01:57
In addition to the exercise change, you also have

- Job opportunity worries
- Age (number) worries
- Lack of sleep
- Alone for awhile
- Stumbled on a scary news story

Look at it that way rather than focusing on your actual physical symptom and wondering what the physical cause is. You're in a time of heightened stress, that's it.

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