Can't Take It Anymore ... Cancer Worries

[lamentinglaura]

Sorry for the length of this post. I just need to get all of this off my chest. Two years ago I was experiencing soreness in my right lung off and on and it began to really scare me. I was 42 and had been smoking since my teens. Anyway, last summer my HA really flared up so I had a chest x-ray done as well as a mammogram because I was sure I had cancer. Both came out clear. I was relieved for a brief period of time but then last winter I was worked up again worrying about the soreness in my right lung (no, it's not indigestion, the pain is on the side below the armpit area) so I complained to my doctor and she ordered a CT scan. It came back clear.

Fast forward to this summer. I began experiencing pain in my upper right arm when I did specific movements like reaching into the backseat of my car, reaching over to grab something, leaning on my elbow to turn myself over in bed. I went to a physiotherapist who thought it was just a strain and started therapy on me. It wasn't getting better so she sent a letter to my doctor and said that I should be seen by an orthopedist. My doctor thinks I have tendonitis but she sent a referral to an orthopedist. I waited for a while and didn't hear anything from his office so I called and was told I couldn't see the doctor for a year! I'm from Canada and this is the standard length of time it takes to get into see an orthopedic guy if it's not an emergency. Meanwhile my arm is getting worse. The pain can be excruciating and radiates from my upper arm down to my fingers. It used to just happen during specific movements. Now my arm is sore on and off all day. I had an x-ray of my arm but nothing showed up.

I went back to my doctor and was told that tendonitis can take months to heal. On top of this I'm still having soreness in my right lung so I complained to my doctor and asked for a chest x-ray. I'm going to have it done on the 14th of this month along with a mammogram. I googled my symptoms and came up with something called a Pancoast Tumor which comes from lung cancer and causes arm symptoms like I'm experiencing. I went into near hysteria after reading that. I now have myself convinced that I have advanced lung cancer and I don't have long to live. I can't concentrate and I'm filled with fear every minute of the day. I can't sleep at night. I want to get this chest x-ray done and yet I'm terrified of having it done. I don't know how I'm going to cope until the 14th when I get it done plus have to wait for the results. My husband doesn't even want to talk to me about this because he's sick of hearing about all my complaints and fears. I really need some reassurance right now and someone to calm me down. How do I cope with all of this? Thanks for listening. I know this is a long ramble.

[Maj]

Hi,

You are so anxious that you are immediately thinking the worst possible scenario!! My friend has been diagnosed with lung cancer but her symptoms were completely different from yours - so try not to worry, I know it's difficult. I think when we are anxious we can suffer from phantom pains and there's never an explanation however many tests we have. It also sounds that it could be a simple orthopaedic problem that will take it's own time to resolve. I know when you feel like this you can't help winding yourself up but honestly I bet you the pain disappears eventually.
Take care
Myra:hugs:

[RosieXXX]

Hello lamentinglaura,

I understand completely how you feel, and how health anxiety is able to convince us there is something terribly wrong - we get to a stage when it is impossible to see things rationally, and we become immersed in a feeling of dread, which becomes impossible to shake off.

Your chest x-ray and mammogram both came back perfectly Clear only a year ago, when you were presenting with soreness, so this is most certainly related to some sort of benign condition, and Definitely not cancer. The problem you are experiencing now is most likely to be something muscular, especially since you say it is triggered when you move in a certain way; I have experienced tendonitis in my arm, which took months and months to improve, and which still bothers me from time to time, and this too seems to radiate from the upper arm, and often down the side of my chest. It is disconcerting, because the pain is certainly real and it is difficult to ignore, especially when we have all sorts of horrible thoughts about it. I found one of those tubular support bandages really helped.

Please do not allow yourself to google, it is only going to fuel your anxiety, do remind yourself you were x-rayed only a year back, and all was well. I am sure you will be reassured once you have had your x-ray.

[lamentinglaura]

Thanks so much for your responses, they mean a lot. I have to get this panic under control. I just wish I knew the answers to all this right now.

[j2]

I have been where you are many times. The fear is unbearable and nobody seems to understand. Try to break the cycle by doing something like watching a movie or getting together with some friends. If nothing else works, ask your doctor for a zanax and something to help you sleep.

good luck

[itoldyouiwasill]

Hey Laura

Yeah, I had the pancoast worry as well!

My health anxiety started 2 years ago and was neurological in nature. Once all the neurological stuff died down I started getting a pain in a specific spot in the right side of my chest. This ache/discomfort would come and go and vary in intensity...it would radiate through to my shoulder blade and would also make my shoulder ache. I had a couple of chest XRays done and these same back NAD so this put my mind at rest somewhat.

As the feeling continued I was Googling something or other and then pancoast tumour came up and how that they didn't always show on XRays...of course this was enough to start the doubt again. My chest discomfort had been with me a year or so and about 4 months ago it also seemed to start affecting my upper arm...ho hum.

The thing is, as my GP and counsellor all point out, if I had a tumour in my lung (lifelong non smoker BTW) then within a year all many of other things would be kicking off as well...I have no night sweat, nausea, weight loss etc BUT do have all many of other vague aches and pains which does not fit a cancer diagnosis but is easily explainable by anxiety...of course, as all my focus is on the chest and arm this is the only thing that I am payin attention to.

As I'm sure you are aware chest pain/discomfort is very common with anxiety and the fact that you also had a CT scan seems to rule out any nasty organic reason for this pain. It does seem that a large number of anxietysufferers have this vague chest and arm pain and this seems a far more probable cause than a specific type of tumpour that is incredibly rare.

[westofengland]

Googling your symptoms will drive you mad. Try to just cold turkey it. Last year I had a wheezing when I was lying in bed at night. If you google it, it's a symptom of lung cancer. Then I convinced myself I had asthma. A year later, it's totally disappeared. Just because stuff is published on the net does not mean you have it. If you must go on there, stick to trusted websites (eg Cancer Research) rather than some scare stories from some obscure researches in the US or Sweden (Sweden seems to generate a lot of these stories...)

[cookiecracks]

hi i am new to this site and even that is giving me the wllies! i dr google all the time and it always says cancer! When i can rationalise this it seems so silly but mostly bad miserable thoughts are taking me over and it's horrible! My children seem to be picking up on my anxiety issues and that is really sad. I feel a nagging fear all the time .I have looked at pnm many times and have just plucked up courage to join. :blush:

[lamentinglaura]

Thanks for the comforting words. I really have to stay away from googling my symptoms. I get myself completely frantic. The hardest thing for me is the ability to distract myself. If I try to read or watch a movie or do other things the thoughts keep rolling around in my head. I'm on medication and even that doesn't seem to help. I've been to CBT and zilch, that didn't help either. I feel like a hopeless case.

[westofengland]

No it's not hopeless. I am not saying CBT is a sticking plaster but I do know that you have to work at this. We have a choice not to keep checking ourselves. We have a choice to turn the computer off. Going to Google all the time WILL feed your fears. As for kids, that is why I got treatment - my 11 year old complained I was on the computer working all the time. I wasn't working, I was checking symptoms and Googling!!!
Don't expect your fear to go away overnight but you can learn to manage it

[Cell block H fan]

Its a real bad move googling. I used to do it all the time & was able to put x, y & z together & come up with something pretty horrendous! I swear I had all the symptoms adding up to a secondary cancer somewhere or the other. I am quite jealous of people that have had xrays & scans, because to me that means all clear. I cant imagine being worried about anything once ive got to that stage. Even visiting a specialist some years ago that didn't xray anything, but told me I had I.B.S put my mind at rest. It was only the GP that couldn't ever do that.
Since I stopped googling though, things have got a lot better x