i'm a newbee with health anxiety!

[helen26]

hi everyone, im helen im 26, have to kids 4 and 2, and have a wonderful partner.... and i have been suffering from health anxiety for about 2 months now. well i think it all started when my sister had a mole removed....came back abnormal cells....had to get more removed.....it came back fine..phew!! but it seems that this is when my "problems" started. i had pains in my legs and arms, warm skin, cold feet and hands, went to doctors (first time in years!!) bad circluation, prob due to weight, then i thought i had cervical cancer (week after first visit to doctor) due to some bleeding, which is highly common when on the contraceptive injection, as the doctor told me! week after, bowel cancer....red blood in poo and a black poo, due to nasty cheap red wine!.... piles which i have had for about 10 years! lump on my thumb....cyst which i have also had before on another part of my hand, was reasuured by doc i did not have thumb cancer!! erm...... noticed 2 moles which i thought had changed......no they hadnt, even searched old photos on the laptop and zoomed in on them on old pics!!! im going crazy!! now i have a small pain where the bottom of my collar bone is and across the top of my boney bit under my chin.....bone cancer? breast cancer?? GOD!!! i no deep down i have proberly slept on it funny or pulled it, i am adamant that i dont want to go to docs again, i want to fight it!! i no my anxiety can cause muscle aches and so on, but i cant help but worry, its taking over my life...im sick of worrying! aaarggghhhhhhhhhhhh:yahoo:

[Rootytooty]

Hello,

I just wanted to say that I know exactly how you feel.

I have been sufferering fron HA for about the same amount of time, and I feel like I'm just not the same person anymore, I really want my life back.

I had some bowel problems, which I googled (first mistake), and I was then convinced that I had bowel cancer. I have since had FOB test, bllod tests and a Barium Enema, and they all came back normal.

However, I am now stressing over some sort of gynae cancer, as my Dr told me my mid cycle bleed (only a samll amount) was not normal. She has referred me to a gynae consultant, but I have to wait 6 - 8 weeks for the appointment!

Second Dr said same thing and then prescribed me with Citalopram, to try to help me with anxiety til Christmas. Took two, and decided not to continue, as I felt really ill, so it was making me more anxious. I am using Kalms, which do help.

Another member of this forum has told me that her Mum has the same, and has had all the pelvic tests, all OK. She said that it is perfectly normal, but I still feel scared! IT is nice to be reassured though.


Now I have lower back pain, so that is adding to my anxiety. It is not a really bad pain, and I am just hoping it is nothing to do with gynae thing.

I am getting so jittery, it is bordering on the hysterical. I was in the bath and I noticed I had a blister on my foot. I started to wonder if it was a sign of something sinister!!!!! I think things are getting out of hand.:unsure:

[helen26]

I have felt the same, my partner is getting sick of me keep going on and on....i cant help it though, i just want to get back to my "normal" self again, i was never like this, i never went to the docs about anything! ive had lower back pain 2, i presumed it was a water infection, went to docs she gave me some antibiotics, which didnt work, but within a week or so it had gone, i had it a couple of weeks again, it went it about the same time frame, i have always had a lower back pain, but only if it was knocked, i put it down to my epidural i had with my first child, cus its exactly where my pain is. so yeah.... i put the back ache down to my anxiety, cus when i stop worrying about it, it just goes!! if the doc was concerned about u, u wouldnt have to wait that long for a appointment hun, they would get u straight in! im sure the blister is just a blister hunny, i had a bump on my tummy, just under my right boob, i was panicking it was a cancer lump.....no it turned out to be a spot! lol, what we like x

[crunchie01]

hi

i too suffer from health anxiety, i calmed down a little a few weeks ago but it has come back with a vengence,i just wish it would stop, i have been through every cancer there as well as a little hiv thrown in as well but these past couple of weeks it has been ovarian cancer,i didnt sleep well last night and when i did all i dreamt was cancer

[helen26]

its awful isnt it, i have good days and bad days, when im feeling good, i think that i am cured (as my doc has said that this will go on its own in time) then something else happens and it knocks me down a peg. i dont want to keep going to the doctors, as she has told me what i have, health anxiety, and i no deep down that is what is wrong with me... but i just cant help it! y do u think u have ovarian cancer hun? (and dont google it!!!!) xx

[crunchie01]

hi helen

i googled last night!! thats why i had a bad night.

i dont know why i think i have it, im nearly 31, 2 kids been on pill since i was 13 and had about 5 years off of it, every now and then i get a twinge in my right groin it doesnt hurt or uncomfy i can just feel it but as soon as i have felt it it has gone,ive had this twinge since spring time this year and its no different, but then i can remember having it back in 2004 but i didnt woory then so i ignored so i might have always had it, trouble is it is interferring with everything, im snappy with kids and i wont let my poor bloke near me,in case it hurts!!:blush: how ridiculous is that, its never hurt before,

i hate this health anxiety, it started last october when i lost my grandma and ive been terrible ever since

[helen26]

i feel awful too when i am snappy with the kids, i try to hold it all in till they go to bed, and then sit and have a good cry, but then my poor hubby has to sit and listen to me! i hate this thing so much, 3 months ago i didnt have a worry in the world, nothing phased me, but i am a differnt women now, and its awful! i really wouldnt worry bout ovarian cancer it sounds to me that its just another thing for us to worry bout! i was the same with the cervical cancer, i wouldnt let my bloke near me incase i bled after! even though i never had b4! we need to try and fight this horrible thing hun xxxx

[Rootytooty]

Hi

thanks for your reassuring words.

Since posting earlier today, I have had a call from the hospital, offering me an appointment on Thursday, as they have a cancellation.

Now, of course, anxiety level shot right up (I should be pleased!). What will they find? Did my dr ask for an urgent referrel, and only told me it would be a routine one because she knew I would fr
eak out? IS there something she isn't telling me?

Also, reading another thread, things sound bad:

I had my first child at 32
Never been on Pill

Have backache
Have bleeding


I feel so paranoid!:weep:

[alic]

Hi, i have suffered from health anxiety for almost 8 years - all started with the birth of my first child and i had a difficult birth and required emergency surgery 5 weeks after his birth. This was the first time i had ever been ill in my life and it shook me and resulted in panic attacks and extreme anxiety. I couldn't go to the supermarket or shops as i worried that i would pass out/ couldn't be on my own as thought i would drop down dead and who would look after my baby/ every twinge or ache was interpreted by me as a life threatening condition. Ended up spending a lot of time under the duvet as that was the only place i could cope with my symptoms - chest pains, nausea, pins and needles, disturbed vision, etc.. Tried anti-depressants which did work but i felt very detached and spacey. After about 18mths came off and was fine until after the birth of my second child and despite a much more straight forward birth it all started about 9 months after she was born (this also co-incided with my father being seriously ill). Went back on antidepressants and received counselling which helped a lot. It is all about learning to think differently and it is just practice. I was also taught to do deep breathing through the stomach which is amazing - it is physically impossible to pass out whilst doing it and my counsellor actually gave herself panic symptoms by over-breathing and then stopped the symptoms through her breathing - i watched her do this and it really reassured me and gave back a sense of control.

I now can control my panic attacks and havent had one for a good few years but i still suffer from health anxiety and convince myself that i have every illness that i read about or see on the news. I now avoid reading or watching articles about health related issues.

I have recently noticed a pattern between my anxiety episodes and my menstrual cycle and after all these years am wondering if there is perhaps a link? Have not been on the contraceptive pill since having my children and have made a doctors appt for next week to see what my GP thinks....anyone else noticed this link?

Things can get better...it is hard to think positively when suffering from anxiety but once you learn the tools to control your negative thoughts you can get some control back and improve the way you feel.:D

[Lynski]

Hi there

I am a recent health anxiety person!

Alic, I reckon you might be onto something with the menstrual cycle thing. I reckon my ectopic heartbeats get worse just before my period starts.

And Helen26, I feel the same way as you. Before all this worry started, I never went to the dr and never got sick! I think just getting older (I am 38) and seeing people around you getting sick, just makes it all bit real. I am always thinking to myself that I could be the next one. What's to say that I am going to escape one of these awful diseases? Of course it didn't help that after my first little episode where my blood pressure and everything came back normal, my mum told me that my dad's were always normal. And then he eventually had a quadruple bypass!!! I don't talk to my mum about this stuff anymore.

[anxiouselephant]

Hi i suffer from health anxiety , after years of suffering and years of medications and depression i really have had enough , i was doing ok last year until my sertraline stopped working,this happened about may but doc told me they dont stop working so i suffered a bit longer til finally in sept i just couldnt carry on i was depressed , anxious, and couldnt get out of bed and felt so ill , doc then changed tabs to cipralex which didnt work at all ,then in november venlafaxine which made my heart tacycardic so had to come off them , then i tried duloxetine til last week ive been on them for 4 onths and still feel horrible so now im going to try prozac only on third tab so cant say whats going to occur yet but i know that for the last 9 months ive hardly been able to do anything or go anywhere as im now agrophobic, scared and misrable i go dizzy all the time ,get funny feelings in my tongue like its going to stop working , or a tingling in it like its been burnt but it never goes away ,i get adrenaline attacks all the time and bloated abdomen which i think is some sort of cancer ,i worry that there is something wrong with the nerves in my head because of the dizziness and tongue thing please has anybody else got these symptons