planetschmanetpanic
22-09-18, 23:16
This is my first time posting in this forum, though I've been reading it for quite a bit. I'm trying to channel my compulsions to turn to Dr. Google into reading up on health anxiety instead. I'll give a bit of background about my anxiety, then go into my specific worries at the moment. It's a bit long and windy, but I'm hoping somebody can bear with me and give me some reassurance.
I've struggled with anxiety and related issues for as long as I can remember, and I was diagnosed with GAD when I was 12 years old. I'm now 18 and starting my first year at university. In the weeks leading up to leaving for school, I found my panic attacks to be getting more frequent. Then, one day in late August, one hit me hard. I was driving home from a friend's house (I had recently been abroad, so this was my first time in a couple of months driving alone on the highway at night) and I felt like I was suffocating. My heart raced, pins and needles shot through my arms and legs, and my knees felt like jelly. I made it home and the panic subsided a bit when used my usual strategies to calm myself down, but part of it lingered... and lingered... and lingered.
The day I left home, I broke down and went to the doctor because I had worked myself up about heart failure despite everyone's constant reassurances that it was so rare for a healthy (or even unhealthy!) person my age to suffer from heart disease. She told me that my symptoms were so classically anxiety that they were basically archetypal. We switched my medication from Lexapro to Zoloft, and I walked out feeling fairly okay. But the feeling came back. I still worried about not getting enough oxygen, my heart beating too fast, or something in my body going awry.
On the first day of classes, I was still quite literally worrying myself sick. I saw a psychologist on campus who reassure me of the same things that my doctor did: These are anxiety symptoms, and once you start managing your anxiety, the symptoms will begin to gradually fade. Again, I walked out feeling reassured, and I even woke up the next day feeling like a switch had been flipped in my mind. I was still worried, but I could breathe when the day before I felt like I was choking. The good feeling started to fade after another few days, but I told myself that I would have good days and bad days, and slowly but surely the good days would begin to eclipse the bad ones.
Then that idea went to hell in a handbasket. Here's where I am right now, in the current arm of this weird spiral:
Four years ago, when I had just finished eighth grade, I found a lymph node underneath my jaw. It was firm but not rock-hard, definitely there but not gigantic (it feels to be somewhere around 1.5 cm when I palpate it, but I know my judgement could be off), and very mobile. I was initially scared, I knew bodies just did weird things sometime. I told myself I'd bring it up if it grew significantly, and it never did. I can often put it out of my mind for months at a time. Additionally, I've seen my doctor and my dentist both at least one or two times a year and when they do routine checks of my lymph nodes and jaw, nothing seems to concern them. (The last time I went in for a regular appointment was last December.)
At the beginning of this past week, I woke up and I was sweating. It wasn't drenching my clothes or the bed, it was just... well, sweat. It wasn't too warm outside, but the humidity was 98% and I was underneath a comforter. Immediately, my mind went to the lymph node. I'd known from previous googling sprees that night sweats were a lymphoma symptom, so I felt the lymph node that whole day. It seemed to get just a little larger as I touched it (but still not visible at all, and not palpable unless I roll it over to the outside of my cheek) and when I kept feeling the other one for comparison, that one came up a bit too. In the days that followed, I convinced myself I had every. Other. Symptom. My abdomen hurts where I'm pretty sure my spleen is. For a couple days I was overcome by fatigue, though that's improved quite a bit. I'm constantly checking my body for tiny dots that could look like a skin rash. The breathing issues are back full force. Worst of all, I keep reading posts and watching videos of people who brushed their symptoms off initially before getting bad news.
I'm trying to rationalize with myself: Colds are going around. I know acne can make lymph nodes come up, and I have plenty of it. Despite how tight my chest feels, I still walk about five miles a day. The submandibular nodes are some of the most likely to be benign, reactive, shotty. It's been there for years. But sometimes I just find myself in an absolute frenzy, becoming obsessed with the idea of having a life-threatening illness and all that entails. I tell myself there's no way all of this could be my anxiety. And it makes me miserable. I want the reassurance of a doctor visit, but at the same time going to the doctor scares me. Especially now, with my family 17 hours away and no supportive figures in my life who are more than four years older than me.
Has anybody been in a similar situation where everything turned out okay?
I've struggled with anxiety and related issues for as long as I can remember, and I was diagnosed with GAD when I was 12 years old. I'm now 18 and starting my first year at university. In the weeks leading up to leaving for school, I found my panic attacks to be getting more frequent. Then, one day in late August, one hit me hard. I was driving home from a friend's house (I had recently been abroad, so this was my first time in a couple of months driving alone on the highway at night) and I felt like I was suffocating. My heart raced, pins and needles shot through my arms and legs, and my knees felt like jelly. I made it home and the panic subsided a bit when used my usual strategies to calm myself down, but part of it lingered... and lingered... and lingered.
The day I left home, I broke down and went to the doctor because I had worked myself up about heart failure despite everyone's constant reassurances that it was so rare for a healthy (or even unhealthy!) person my age to suffer from heart disease. She told me that my symptoms were so classically anxiety that they were basically archetypal. We switched my medication from Lexapro to Zoloft, and I walked out feeling fairly okay. But the feeling came back. I still worried about not getting enough oxygen, my heart beating too fast, or something in my body going awry.
On the first day of classes, I was still quite literally worrying myself sick. I saw a psychologist on campus who reassure me of the same things that my doctor did: These are anxiety symptoms, and once you start managing your anxiety, the symptoms will begin to gradually fade. Again, I walked out feeling reassured, and I even woke up the next day feeling like a switch had been flipped in my mind. I was still worried, but I could breathe when the day before I felt like I was choking. The good feeling started to fade after another few days, but I told myself that I would have good days and bad days, and slowly but surely the good days would begin to eclipse the bad ones.
Then that idea went to hell in a handbasket. Here's where I am right now, in the current arm of this weird spiral:
Four years ago, when I had just finished eighth grade, I found a lymph node underneath my jaw. It was firm but not rock-hard, definitely there but not gigantic (it feels to be somewhere around 1.5 cm when I palpate it, but I know my judgement could be off), and very mobile. I was initially scared, I knew bodies just did weird things sometime. I told myself I'd bring it up if it grew significantly, and it never did. I can often put it out of my mind for months at a time. Additionally, I've seen my doctor and my dentist both at least one or two times a year and when they do routine checks of my lymph nodes and jaw, nothing seems to concern them. (The last time I went in for a regular appointment was last December.)
At the beginning of this past week, I woke up and I was sweating. It wasn't drenching my clothes or the bed, it was just... well, sweat. It wasn't too warm outside, but the humidity was 98% and I was underneath a comforter. Immediately, my mind went to the lymph node. I'd known from previous googling sprees that night sweats were a lymphoma symptom, so I felt the lymph node that whole day. It seemed to get just a little larger as I touched it (but still not visible at all, and not palpable unless I roll it over to the outside of my cheek) and when I kept feeling the other one for comparison, that one came up a bit too. In the days that followed, I convinced myself I had every. Other. Symptom. My abdomen hurts where I'm pretty sure my spleen is. For a couple days I was overcome by fatigue, though that's improved quite a bit. I'm constantly checking my body for tiny dots that could look like a skin rash. The breathing issues are back full force. Worst of all, I keep reading posts and watching videos of people who brushed their symptoms off initially before getting bad news.
I'm trying to rationalize with myself: Colds are going around. I know acne can make lymph nodes come up, and I have plenty of it. Despite how tight my chest feels, I still walk about five miles a day. The submandibular nodes are some of the most likely to be benign, reactive, shotty. It's been there for years. But sometimes I just find myself in an absolute frenzy, becoming obsessed with the idea of having a life-threatening illness and all that entails. I tell myself there's no way all of this could be my anxiety. And it makes me miserable. I want the reassurance of a doctor visit, but at the same time going to the doctor scares me. Especially now, with my family 17 hours away and no supportive figures in my life who are more than four years older than me.
Has anybody been in a similar situation where everything turned out okay?