Worried about my eye

[louise0501]

Hi everyone. My health anxiety has been a lot better recently. Today I'm starting to spiral a bit.

For a few days now I have had a shadow over my vision, its not really effecting my sight though. Its just a really small black spot. At first I just thought it was a floater and tried not to worry to much. Today I'm starting to panic. My eye hurts a bit as well. My son accidently poked me in the eye maybe a day or two before getting these symptoms. Could that cause these symptoms? And why was it a couple of days after? I also get quite itchy eyes so constantly rubbing and itching them. I'm starting to freak out it could be a brain tumour or a tumour behind the eye. Anyone had anything like this before?

Please reply
Love Louise. Xxxxxxxxxx

[serith]

Just remember that you have health anxiety, and so of course your immediate thought is that you have cancer. Our bodies are complex, with literally millions (or trillions?) of tiny interlocking parts that all have their own function. The complexity is just astounding. Given that, it's totally normal for small things to malfunction. It happens almost constantly, and we may get very minor physical symptoms. The condition that you and I have, health anxiety, means that any of these ripples of minor malfunction in the body gets attributed to a major disease. We seem to have the completely unwarranted belief that our bodies should function perfectly without any hiccups.

I think you should see an eye doctor, but NOT because I think you have a tumor, or anything that could even be remotely life-threatening. It's good to take care of your vision because of your quality of life.

I understand that you're stuck in a spiral of HA so it's hard to see this-- but from an outsider perspective, it's obvious that you are having a minor symptom that is very, very, very unlikely to be anything serious. You have no more likelihood of having cancer than *anyone* does, and no more likelihood of having cancer than you have of being hit by a bus or whatever.