fredwantstofeelgood
26-02-11, 11:50
Hi Everyone,
This is a great forum, i have serious health anxiety, its really making it harder and harder for me to cope.
I find out about diseases from an ad on the telly or by hearing of some poor person dying of some disease i hadnt really known about, and then google and google like crazy and sometimes i end up having a lot of the criteria that people on medical forums are screaming "get to your doctor". I may have never even known about these things, or given them much thought before, which i know is not great either, but as soon as i see the symptoms and can match a lot of them, i literally cannot function, its takes over my life!!! I have worried like crazy about breast cancer before and HIV and lung cancer.
My new major fear is melanoma. Unfortunately when i was younger for about a year i used a sunbed. I fills me with fear everyday now. Although in the sun i always used sunscreen and ive hazel brown eyes, light brown hair and tan fairly easily i beat myself up every day now for my stupidity and feel it is inevitable i will get melanoma as they say using sunbeds increases your chances by 75%.
I have a good few flat tan brown/darkish brown freckles/moles, all the size of a pencil eraser or smaller but although colour and size wise they all seem fairly normal, the shape and borders of some of them are not perfectly round and the edges on a few of them seem like shadowy rather than perfectly sharp. I have been to my doctor about my moles a few times, and she was not overly concerned about any of them, but said she will send me to a derm to put my mind at ease but ill be waiting probably a year because i wont be seen as a priority case.
There was one on my chest i was particularly concerned about, its 3mm, tan brown, the border seems slightly shadowy on one side and its not perfectly symmetrical and it has a tiny little white bit in it, it appeared about seven years ago, and i wasnt sure if it had grown a little since it appeared, as i didnt even know at the time this was a mole, i thought it was just a freckle. I know it definately hasnt done anything in the past few years anyway. I showed it to the doc and she said, just keep an eye on it but she wasnt worried in the slightest.
Now the thing is, in my anxiety, i did something stupid,the other day i felt like a pore in the mole was a little raised as if blocked like many little pimples i get in my chest area, so i applied a lot of pressure to it with a hot facecloth and then squeezed the area and a little water came out and now its scabbing and looks like the area i squeezed is missing and now im worried the whole thing will come off and i wont be able to keep an eye on it. Im so worried
:(
I intend to keep an eye on it for a week until it heals and then go to the doctor for her to look at. Do you think a lot of people with health anxiety sabbotage themselves further like i did? and will the doctor be used to situations like mine or am i beyond it and have i really done someting hugely stupid?
thanks for any input
This is a great forum, i have serious health anxiety, its really making it harder and harder for me to cope.
I find out about diseases from an ad on the telly or by hearing of some poor person dying of some disease i hadnt really known about, and then google and google like crazy and sometimes i end up having a lot of the criteria that people on medical forums are screaming "get to your doctor". I may have never even known about these things, or given them much thought before, which i know is not great either, but as soon as i see the symptoms and can match a lot of them, i literally cannot function, its takes over my life!!! I have worried like crazy about breast cancer before and HIV and lung cancer.
My new major fear is melanoma. Unfortunately when i was younger for about a year i used a sunbed. I fills me with fear everyday now. Although in the sun i always used sunscreen and ive hazel brown eyes, light brown hair and tan fairly easily i beat myself up every day now for my stupidity and feel it is inevitable i will get melanoma as they say using sunbeds increases your chances by 75%.
I have a good few flat tan brown/darkish brown freckles/moles, all the size of a pencil eraser or smaller but although colour and size wise they all seem fairly normal, the shape and borders of some of them are not perfectly round and the edges on a few of them seem like shadowy rather than perfectly sharp. I have been to my doctor about my moles a few times, and she was not overly concerned about any of them, but said she will send me to a derm to put my mind at ease but ill be waiting probably a year because i wont be seen as a priority case.
There was one on my chest i was particularly concerned about, its 3mm, tan brown, the border seems slightly shadowy on one side and its not perfectly symmetrical and it has a tiny little white bit in it, it appeared about seven years ago, and i wasnt sure if it had grown a little since it appeared, as i didnt even know at the time this was a mole, i thought it was just a freckle. I know it definately hasnt done anything in the past few years anyway. I showed it to the doc and she said, just keep an eye on it but she wasnt worried in the slightest.
Now the thing is, in my anxiety, i did something stupid,the other day i felt like a pore in the mole was a little raised as if blocked like many little pimples i get in my chest area, so i applied a lot of pressure to it with a hot facecloth and then squeezed the area and a little water came out and now its scabbing and looks like the area i squeezed is missing and now im worried the whole thing will come off and i wont be able to keep an eye on it. Im so worried
:(
I intend to keep an eye on it for a week until it heals and then go to the doctor for her to look at. Do you think a lot of people with health anxiety sabbotage themselves further like i did? and will the doctor be used to situations like mine or am i beyond it and have i really done someting hugely stupid?
thanks for any input