It's taking over my life :(

[Misdial09]

Hi all, before I start I'd like to apologise for the length of this post - but please bare with me.

Okay so where do I start? I'm a 19 year old (M) student in the second year of my studies. I don't have a family history of illness, and I've been perfectly healthy since about five months ago...

I was at a party and I'd managed to pull a muscle in my shoulder/ neck. As I was eating, a person just whispered the words 'you may be having a heart attack' to me, and that triggered a series of awful events. I suddenly felt very flush and detached. My hands started sweating, I was hyperventilating and my heart was racing. I thought I was going to faint. I stepped outside and I was okay after a while. I thought it was only a one off so I left it at that.

A couple of days later, this episode happened again, for no apparent reason. It was not the ideal time to occur either, as it was only a couple of days before my exams. I told my dad to take me to A&E, and there I had an ECG done, which was fine. The doctor at the time told me it was probably stress related. Needless to say I failed my exams, and entered a whirlwind of feeling depressed, and worried that something was seriously wrong with me.

These episodes kept recurring and I wasn't feeling any better so I went to the docs again and had some blood tests and another ECG done. These both came back clear, but I was still not convinced I was free of a life threatening illness. I thought I was suffering from a heart attack, or heart failure. The doc reassured me and prescribed me Propranolol beta blockers. I was adamant that I did not want any medication, so I didn't take them.

So this cycle kept continuing, I somehow managed to pass the resits. Second year has just started (two weeks ago) and it's still happening and I worry a lot about my health. I've also begun to get tight chest pains, I've seen the doc AGAIN about it but he's said its nothing and I'll just have to live with it :(

It's begun to settle down now and I'm starting to take control of the attacks, but they still at times really distress me. Now I've managed to convince myself I've got another illness. This time it's bowel cancer. I was talking to a bowel cancer patient the other day and his symptoms seemed to match mine quite closely, a quick google search also seemed to bring up the same conclusion. Since I've talked to the person, I feel constipated at times and I can't go to the loo, when I finally do, very little comes out, or nothing at all. After a while I get diarrhoea [apologies for the graphic detail] and need to go again usually about two/ three times within a few minutes. I also saw fresh red blood in the toilet last year, but since then there's been no blood.

So now I think my health anxiety has stepped up a notch, and I really need you're guys' advice and support. If someone could reassure me re. the bowel cancer too that would be great. I don't think I can take much more...

I'm seeing a counsillor next month and I hope that will help, but I still worry tremendously about my health.

Any advice/ words much appreciated.

Thanks, sorry for the long post. :)

[luke1982]

Red Fresh blood is normally associated with a cut/pile this wouldnt surprise me if your bowel habits have changed frequently and you were constipated.
If in doubt visit your local gp if only to put your mind at ease. Its the best way

[luke1982]

I know what your going though though mate it can be tough I worry about cancers and such like every couple of days. It's only when I go to my gp who put my mind at ease I feel ok until I think of something else. My problem is im idle and have nothing to concentrate on. Regarding your bowel habits changes such as the ones you experienced can also be attributed to stress/anxiety and changes in diet, lack of fluids and so many other reasons other than cancer.

[Misdial09]

I know what your going though though mate it can be tough I worry about cancers and such like every couple of days. It's only when I go to my gp who put my mind at ease I feel ok until I think of something else. My problem is im idle and have nothing to concentrate on. Regarding your bowel habits changes such as the ones you experienced can also be attributed to stress/anxiety and changes in diet, lack of fluids and so many other reasons other than cancer.

Thanks so much for your reply mate, it's reassuring. Since it's only occurred for a week, I think it could be down to stress as well. My mind has a stupid ability of jumping to rash conclusions. Now everytime I go to the toilet I feel nervous and I think that may be affecting things as well. I've been to the GP so many times though I think he may be sick of seeing me. I thought I had heart failure a couple of weeks ago which is why I previously went to see him. Stupid I know... and I still worry about my heart :blush:

I'm so glad I've found this forum, is there anything else I can do to put my mind at rest?

Cheers

[luke1982]

Im not really great at giving out advice mate because im the same as you but iv found distracting myself with stuff works for me even listening to music or going for a walk when i feel up to dragging myself out of the house.
I would try not to worry about your bowel habits though mine change regularly due to what iv eaten, exercise (lack of) lack of fluids, too much caffeine when I do drink.
I wouldnt worry about your GP getting sick of you either its their jobs to deal with any queries you have.
I went to mine twice last week to have them check glands (which werent even swollen) that I was convinced were riddled with cancer and were swollen. I felt a bit silly afterwards but being told im fit and healthy was enough to put my mind at ease.
For a while anyway, your probably find your mind will wander for a while looking for new symptoms of a horrible disease or infection but you have to remind yourself its due to anxiety and so on.
But seriously best thing you can do is book yourself in with the GP just to put your mind at rest I bet you will feel much better afterwards.

[joshuaainsworth]

Alternating constipation and diarrhea sounds like I.B.S to me, I was diagnosed with it three years ago during a stressful time in my life I wouldn't worry about it at all.

[Misdial09]

Hello all,

I can see that I wrote on this thread about a month ago, I thought it could do with a bit of updating. So here goes...

The anxiety attacks have become a lot less severe now, but I am still getting them. Thankfully though, I have not been letting them affect me too much. Before it used to consume my life, but now I've started dismissing them I've found that they don't affect my sleep like I used to. However I'm still getting them at least twice a week, and I'm not sure whether they're anxiety attacks or not. What happens is that my heart rate shoots up to about 110, I can get breathless and I get sharp chest pain right at the apex of my heart. I'm also a medical student so as you know I can jump to conclusions and this can make things ten times worse. This episode ocurred a couple of weeks back and my friend forced me to go to A&E, where they carried out an ECG - and despite my heart rate being pretty high they said it was nothing. They made me do a couple of breathing exercises which lowered my heart rate slightly. But they said people's hearts have different ways of working and what happens to me is normal. I'm not too sure, as I'm still frequently getting these symptoms. I've also noticed that my pulse is contnuously raised during the day and is consistently and continuously in the 100s. It seems to have calmed down during the night as when I wake up its not so high but it still worries me that my pulse is high continuously. I don't want to go to my GP as I've been so many times its not even funny, and bearing in mind the fact that I've now had 3 ECGs done, blood pressure and blood tests taken which all came back ok it's probably just me. Can anyone else think what my increased heart rate could be down to?

Finally I went to see the GP about the blood in the toilet. He did a quick inspection and reassured me it was nothing to worry about- and was because of a cut or something. But now my first symptom is back, and I'm still pretty worried.

Any advice much appreciated!

Thanks.

[Mudskipper]

Hi there

Regarding your bowel problems, pretty much the norm for an anxiety sufferer I'm afraid. I've had everything you describe and it fluctuates according to my mood, sometimes a bit constipated, sometimes very loose, sometimes hard and uncomfortable. Needless to say, this is hard on your rear end so it's no great surprise if you sometimes get fissures or piles which then bleed and cause you more anxiety. I always get them checked out by my doctor, just to be sure, but he always blames the same thing: anxiety and related dietary fluctuation, a technical way way of saying I'm not eating as well as I should be.

Regarding your general anxieties, I've heard it said that medical students are often prone to anxieties about their health, mainly because of the huge number and variety of sick people they come into contact with. I'm not going to be negative and suggest that this is not the career for you, but maybe if you can tough it out whilst qualifying, it might be worth trying to specialise in one of the less worrying areas of medicine? Just a thought from an older man with no medical knowledge whatever but a tendency to avoid those things which I know will set me off!

Hope this is of some help.

[Frenchflower]

Just to say I can relate totally to what you're going through. I have an ECG and bloodtests booked in for Thursday and i'm in a constant state of panic about the way i'm feeling.
Have you spoken to your doctor about psychotherapy/counselling? Rather than just throwing pills at you they should be working to change the way you view your life and help you develop techniques to live with and deal with your anxiety.