Statistics drive me crazy

[Worrywart84]

Anyone else dwell on statistics when dealing with HA?

My current HA is oral cancer because I have this red gash on my upper gum that’s been there since June and hasn’t gone away. My dentist initially dismissed it as irritation in August but when I went back last week and it was still there, he suggested really trying to brush gently and use salt water rinse and then he said if it’s still there he could refer me to an oral surgeon and maybe they would do a biopsy (this is what is freaking me out beyond measure that he would suggest a referral and I honestly can’t tell if he’s doing it because I’m panicking and he’s trying to bring me relief or whether he is concerned.) Anyway....

My good friend’s dad is a retired oral surgeon and said in his 35 years of practice he saw one person in their 30s with oral cancer.

I decided to see if I could look up stats and there was a report about oral cancer incidence by age, race and gender. Basically looks like my incidence is 2 in 100,000. Then I looked up how many people in my age range live in the US based on the 2010 census and it’s about 82,000,000 (not an exact match to the oral cancer age grouping but close enough.) So this means that 1640 people a year in their 30s in the US get diagnosed with oral cancer.

So even though the chances are .002%, my head thinks “tell that to the 1640 people each year.”

So now I’m convinced I’m one of those 1640. I go back to the dentist Dec 12 for the check and then I’ll have to wait for the referral and so I’m just drowning in anxiety until then.

Meanwhile my mom is battling cancer and my grandma is battling heart disease and I am already a mess about the confirmed health issues plaguing our family.

[Quack]

Very sorry to hear about your families battles - wishing them well.

I work with numbers for a living so I've done the same types of calculations/rationalizations. What I've found is that it's better to picture that 0.002% as a stadium with 50,000 people. Are you the one that gets it?

[Worrywart84]

I like that analogy, thank you.

[rmq00108]

OC is my big scare right now as well. I burned my mouth on some hot foods 6 days ago, and the day after noticed a BB sized bump on the roof of my mouth hard palate, just right of center. Now I can't quit poking at it. Since discovering this I also have looked at all the stats. I am 42, so still not even close to a higher risk age group, I quit smoking 17 years ago and never have chewed, so I consider myself low risk there. Long story short, I looked at the statewide statistics where I live and your 2/100000 is dead on, except that includes all oral and pharnyx cancers as well. I can also tell you statistics show only .005 - 3% of all oral cancer starts on the hard palate. So at that incidence rate it happens every 66-400 cases, and there are only 5 cases in my age and racial/demographic in my county per year. You see where I am going with this. The chances are astronomical, but my mind centers on the what ifs.

I like the analogy about a stadium. Never thought of it this way. Also, I try to reflect on all of the times I have just been obsessed, scared, but was wrong. I have not had one of the horrific diseases I have thought I have in the last two years, let me list them for you. Pancreatic cancer x 2 ALS x 2, Brain cancer, oral cancer x 3, colon cancer, leukemia, stoke, congestive heart failure, etc. There's more.

Anyway, HA sucks, but the longer I suffer, the more I am able to self talk though things. Doesnt work all of the time, but more than it use too. I am still fully capable of losing a full day, or week, to an obsessive thought.

[Worrywart84]

Thank you for your reply—sorry you are dealing with this too. You sound just like me with the laundry list of horrible things that turn out to be wrong but then it’s simply on to the next thing. I wish so much I could “see that” when I am in a spiral but my HA screams back, “what if it’s real this time??? You aren’t immune to bad things happening just because you have HA! Muahahah.”

It also makes me angry at myself for how much time I spend dwelling, researching, inspecting, crying, etc. The last vacation we took I noticed a strange rash on my upper chest and spent the entire time convinced I had caught scabies and that for sure mites were living under my skin and that I would need to disinfect myself and my home and my other family members. I inspected my entire body and felt for sure that I found “burrows” where mites had nestled in. I even called my doc while on vacation to schedule an appt ASAP for the day the flight landed. I cried every night in the beautiful hotel room and had to give myself pep talks to get up and get ready to go out each day. I inspected myself countless times in bathrooms, at the pool, during shows, etc. I devoted a good percentage of my time talking about it and how awful it was.

Saw my doc within hours after our flight landed and I had...drumroll please...atopic dermatitis. It cleared up a few days later. And the vacation was over and I couldn’t get back any of the fun I missed out on.

So I can reflect back on that and go “what a fool I was! Lesson learned!” But then go in the next room and spend half an hour trying to take a selfie of my gums and compare it to oral cancer pics on the internet.

[Sparky16]

I am 42, so still not even close to a higher risk age group, I quit smoking 17 years ago and never have chewed, so I consider myself low risk there. Long story short, I looked at the statewide statistics where I live and your 2/100000 is dead on, except that includes all oral and pharnyx cancers as well. I can also tell you statistics show only .005 - 3% of all oral cancer starts on the hard palate. So at that incidence rate it happens every 66-400 cases, and there are only 5 cases in my age and racial/demographic in my county per year. You see where I am going with this. The chances are astronomical, but my mind centers on the what ifs.


One of the members at the non-defunct Anxiety Zone called this statistical therapy, when you could show yourself how unlikely it was that you had whatever disease it was you were worrying about. I think he had a list of other unlikely events that you could compare it to. Similar to Quack's suggestion of relating the odds to a baseball stadium of 50,000 people. Great ideas if you can make them work for you.

[julieta79]

Went through 6 months of oral cancer worry. I was a mess, I was sick, I had the "this time it is REAL".
Let me share what I learned from cancer clinic.

The oral cancer that is currently more common is located either in a tonsil or on the back of the tongue, in the lingual tonsils. This is related to virus exposure, and is 70% of the current oral cancer population. It occurs to 40-50 year old, still men, with no risk factors. The usual symptom is lump in the neck, nothing is felt in the mouth.

The "classic" oral cancer is still happening to heavy smoking men, who are above 60. It usually looks like a whitish lesion on the side of the tongue, that doesnt heal. It is easily recognizable by dentists.
Overall oral cancer is rare, and most new cases present with lump in neck, no lesions in mouth really.
I hope this helps.

I have nicely moved to another cancer worry, even if I "exhiboted" in my mind 100% oral cancer symptons that turned to be nothing

---------- Post added at 00:14 ---------- Previous post was at 00:11 ----------

I collect statistics too. Sometimes its helpful. For example, there would be an article...xxx cancer increasing in younger adults...than you look at stats and see that there are just few cases.
But yes, my perverted mind wont leave me alone...unless the stats show 0 cases.

[Worrywart84]

I’ve defintely tried to use “statistical therapy” to talk me off the ledge for this one. Sometimes it works and other times I fear I’ll be that unlucky one.

Thanks for that info Julie—it does help! And I swear I am going to refrain from searching for a lump in my neck to fuel my fear because God knows I would find one.

[julieta79]

Haha I did find 3 lymphnodes during my scare. Young adults actually have few 1cm ones usually. The mass my clinical research said...is sudden, overnight, very large and obvious. Oh my I studied photos...I wasted half yr on this. I was on vacation in Europe...and secretly looking oral surgeries and oral masses. Uh...

[Hypomania]

Anyone else dwell on statistics when dealing with HA?

My current HA is oral cancer because I have this red gash on my upper gum that’s been there since June and hasn’t gone away. My dentist initially dismissed it as irritation in August but when I went back last week and it was still there, he suggested really trying to brush gently and use salt water rinse and then he said if it’s still there he could refer me to an oral surgeon and maybe they would do a biopsy (this is what is freaking me out beyond measure that he would suggest a referral and I honestly can’t tell if he’s doing it because I’m panicking and he’s trying to bring me relief or whether he is concerned.) Anyway....

My good friend’s dad is a retired oral surgeon and said in his 35 years of practice he saw one person in their 30s with oral cancer.

I decided to see if I could look up stats and there was a report about oral cancer incidence by age, race and gender. Basically looks like my incidence is 2 in 100,000. Then I looked up how many people in my age range live in the US based on the 2010 census and it’s about 82,000,000 (not an exact match to the oral cancer age grouping but close enough.) So this means that 1640 people a year in their 30s in the US get diagnosed with oral cancer.

So even though the chances are .002%, my head thinks “tell that to the 1640 people each year.”

So now I’m convinced I’m one of those 1640. I go back to the dentist Dec 12 for the check and then I’ll have to wait for the referral and so I’m just drowning in anxiety until then.

Meanwhile my mom is battling cancer and my grandma is battling heart disease and I am already a mess about the confirmed health issues plaguing our family.

Sorry to hear about your mother and grandmother. I know what it's like, as my grandfather recently died of pneumonia (he was very sick and very very old), and both of my grandparents on my mother's side were dx'd with colon cancer within a year of eachother (both fine now, but only 2 years out of dx, so there's still some screening to be done before they're totally out of the woods).

I'm really similar to you in that I try to find solace in numbers. I'm 32 and worried that I have late stage pancreatic cancer (been worried about that for almost 3 months, so make of that what you will :huh:). I'm Canadian, so my stats differ quite a bit from yours in terms of population, but pancan is so rare up here for people below 35, that there isn't even a separate incidence for the age group, it's basically 35-under, and then the older demos are categorized normally. Anyway, the incidence rate here for <35 is 0.2 per 100K, which ends up being 0.0002%. So when you look at the roughly 15 million people here that are in that age window in Canada (as of 2017), I think that works out to roughly 31 people my age or younger getting the disease. That number gets even lower when you consider that majority of that broad age group is younger than me, as you would have to assume some cases would have been even earlier than 32 years old. And possibly even smaller when you look at genetic factors, family history, and lifestyle (I'm a non-smoker with a normal BMI, and have no family history of related cancers).

But of course, I'll convince myself that I'm one of those 31. I know how you feel man. It's like nothing is satisfying enough for us.