russet
14-01-11, 16:07
I am new to posting in this forum although I have already read many posts which have helped me enormously – thank you all for your help so far.
I’m a 30 year old female and I’ve struggled with health anxiety for a while....... I believe it probably stemmed from the death of a close relative who had a short but rather horrible battle with cancer.
In the past two years I have been convinced I’ve had stomach cancer, breast cancer and various other illnesses. I usually become fixated on one thing at a time and then have a good couple of months followed by a new symptom or illness. I rarely like to go to the doctors, it usually has to build up to something major in my mind first because my symptoms are usually very vague and I’m sort of conscious of what I thinking is silly. Early this year was the worst where I actually got referred for a lump in my breast (which thankfully turned out to be nothing) and I had trouble thinking about little else...it’s been a major issue since i.e. always checking for new lumps but I thought I was coping.
About 4 weeks ago I visited a friend in hospital (she was fine just a routine op) and I was a little anxious because I HATE hospitals. About 30 minutes into my visit I felt hot, sick, light headed and felt I just needed to get out of there. I felt disappointed in myself but put it down to anxiety although this had never happened to me before. Two weeks later I experienced a similar feeling at work in a meeting which freaked me out and came out of nowhere. Since that day I had lightheaded feelings for almost two weeks, feelings got worse when I was talking to people and in situations where I couldn’t escape easily. The feelings went for around a week but then almost completely subsided until I got some other symptoms – I have a throat infection and a slight stomach upset which obviously set me off googling symptoms etc and the light headed feeling returned. I’m over thinking I’m going to die of a throat infection (I went to the doctors 2 days ago and they checked BP which was all ok and said I probably had a virus) – I don’t like to mention my anxiety as I always think they will misdiagnose me due to that. But my light headed symptoms persist. I’m worrying what if this isn’t anxiety?? I do feel that it’s worse in more stressful situations (like talking to people), when i'm less distracted or when I’m really tired but I don’t feel like I’m hyperventilating or getting a rapid heartbeat. I don’t think the light headed is related to the virus/cold symptoms although I’m scared it might be – is it a heart problem or even leukaemia!! :unsure:
This whole thing is stressing me out – I can’t cope with it. I wake up feeling depressed each day and would give anything to go back to feeling normal. I want to be ok and try talking myself out of it but it’s so hard. It helps to know others are in a similar boat.
I’m a 30 year old female and I’ve struggled with health anxiety for a while....... I believe it probably stemmed from the death of a close relative who had a short but rather horrible battle with cancer.
In the past two years I have been convinced I’ve had stomach cancer, breast cancer and various other illnesses. I usually become fixated on one thing at a time and then have a good couple of months followed by a new symptom or illness. I rarely like to go to the doctors, it usually has to build up to something major in my mind first because my symptoms are usually very vague and I’m sort of conscious of what I thinking is silly. Early this year was the worst where I actually got referred for a lump in my breast (which thankfully turned out to be nothing) and I had trouble thinking about little else...it’s been a major issue since i.e. always checking for new lumps but I thought I was coping.
About 4 weeks ago I visited a friend in hospital (she was fine just a routine op) and I was a little anxious because I HATE hospitals. About 30 minutes into my visit I felt hot, sick, light headed and felt I just needed to get out of there. I felt disappointed in myself but put it down to anxiety although this had never happened to me before. Two weeks later I experienced a similar feeling at work in a meeting which freaked me out and came out of nowhere. Since that day I had lightheaded feelings for almost two weeks, feelings got worse when I was talking to people and in situations where I couldn’t escape easily. The feelings went for around a week but then almost completely subsided until I got some other symptoms – I have a throat infection and a slight stomach upset which obviously set me off googling symptoms etc and the light headed feeling returned. I’m over thinking I’m going to die of a throat infection (I went to the doctors 2 days ago and they checked BP which was all ok and said I probably had a virus) – I don’t like to mention my anxiety as I always think they will misdiagnose me due to that. But my light headed symptoms persist. I’m worrying what if this isn’t anxiety?? I do feel that it’s worse in more stressful situations (like talking to people), when i'm less distracted or when I’m really tired but I don’t feel like I’m hyperventilating or getting a rapid heartbeat. I don’t think the light headed is related to the virus/cold symptoms although I’m scared it might be – is it a heart problem or even leukaemia!! :unsure:
This whole thing is stressing me out – I can’t cope with it. I wake up feeling depressed each day and would give anything to go back to feeling normal. I want to be ok and try talking myself out of it but it’s so hard. It helps to know others are in a similar boat.