Anxiety over children

[katniss]

Hi everyone,

Although I have deep health anxiety about myself; I feel like my health anxiety surrounding my children is even worse. My daughter actually had open heart surgery in March and since then it’s just been worse.

My 7 year old son told me sometime his right eye feels like it’s closing. I literally panicked. I work at the same school as him so when he was going out for recess he came to show me and his whole eye was quivering and twitching. I mean both upper and lower lid was quivering. His teacher said it’s JUST a twitch. It hasn’t happened again. My husband (who didn’t see it) is also convinced it’s just a twitch. Can twitches affect both upper and lower eyelids? I got sooo worried. Today he started hiccuping randomly and my brain started running away again thinking the worst. Pls tell me if twitches work like this.

[Scass]

Sounds like it’s just a twitch, it’s just sometimes a lot worse when kids have to find the words to describe how they are feeling.

I get it, I do. Especially after going through something so traumatic with your daughter. How is she doing now?

I think my anxiety is often heightened around my child’s health because I don’t cope with my own very well. I recently had talking therapy over 8 weeks and learnt a lot about myself and my responses through it. I would recommend it if you can access it. One of the best things I learnt was that you have to work at it all the time, and that’s hard but the results are good,

[Allochka]

I feel so, so sorry you are going through this! I managed to get rid of HA about myself and about my husband ( he had cancer 8 years ago, but I am even not worried about his cancer recurrence anymore! Hard to believe!)
But I still worry terribly about our daughter.., So I feel you! Every minor symptom screams CANCER at me…
I am determined to beat it. I started noticin* my HA affects her. Last thing I want is for her to become a hypochondriac. I am on medication. I STOPPED googling cold turkey long ago. I try to reason with myself, use logic. And you know, it slowly gets better. Very slowly, painfully, but it does. Now I am able to persuade myself every minor thing is not cancer (usually takes couple of days of internal reasoning). I learn not to bombard her with million questions about her symptoms. And I learn to trust doctors. If my husband, who loves her more than anyth8ng, thinks she is ok - than I must trust him! It is not my mothers instinct whispering CANCER to me - it is HA dragon, and he always lies…. You would think you are missing smth and you must run and save your child - ignore, because in us, HA sufferers, this instinct is never right. Actually, there is no instinct at all, just our health OCD :-(
i hope you’ll get better. Please consider meds or therapy, if you didn’t. Ir will get better with time,
I am not cured and never will, but life is so much happer now! Fight it, you can!

[katniss]

Thanks for your replies. Sorry, I’ve only just caught up with your responses.

My daughter had OHS in March and she’s doing better heart wise. However, because of her surgery I feel like she has become more susceptible to respiratory infections, especially chest infections. She has two bouts of suspected pneumonia in spring and summer. Suspected because X-rays were clear but both times the doc heard a slight crackle in her lungs through stethoscope. Because I’m so hyper vigilant about her health I was able to get her in quick both times. She took antibiotics for both instances. This time she got another run of the cold which later turned into an awful cough. I took her to a walk in who said it’s not pneumonia but it’s bronchitis. But because of her history he gave antibiotics in case and a dose of steroids. I gave her the steroids but he said to hold off on antibiotics unless she develops a fever again. I feel like the steroids hid the fever completely because that’s what they do. This was on Saturday. It’s now Tuesday and I’m still watching her like a hawk and losing sleep. She’s doing much better now. No fever. However, her cough is still there, albeit a lot better now. But I keep thinking the worst. I keep worrying. The anxiety I have this time around surrounding her health has been crippling. She’s been fever free 72 hrs. But I keep worrying it will return. Every time she coughs I panic and give her water or some honey. I’m doing humidifier in her room, steroid nasal spray and three times a day of herbal cough syrup. My husband thinks I’m going crazy wondering.. but after everything I’ve seen her go through with the heart surgery I can’t bear to see her go through anything else. I just can’t. Sorry for rambling. I doubt anyone will even read such a long post. I’m currently waiting for a therapy appointment as this time around my anxiety surrounding my children has been debilitating. I’m also 33 weeks pregnant.