My story. Please, read this.

[John33]

This is my first post here. I plan to tell you my life in a few or more paragraphs. Guys, I’ve just received some news that has changed my life forever. Why do I feel like I need to write this all out? Because I’ve been plagued with anxiety for 13 years and now is enough.
I urge you to take the time to read this, I hope this will be the most inspirational read yet and you will take away so much and relate to this. This is my story …

I was a young healthy lad, 13 and full of life; very active, no worries and generally full of life.

My parents told me I had a heart murmur. I wasn't too sure what this was and as a kid, didn't seem to phase me much; life went on, or at least I thought it did.

One day my friends and I decided to play football on one hot summer night. The ball got kicked way way up the field and me being me loved to run and sprint (was the fastest runner at my class). So, I dashed after the ball but slowly stopped, thing's didn't seem right. I fell to the ground as my whole world spun around me, faster and faster. I lay there on the ground and remember crying and thinking "this is it, I'm really going to die here in-front of my friends". Well, from that day forward, my life changed and for the next 11 years was to become a victim to a very deliberating health anxiety that would control almost all aspects of my life.

My parents too me to the doctors the next morning to which they assured me I had hyperventilated. They also mentioned the murmur too and this is what started it all. I now had a reason to worry, what was this murmur they were talking about? whats wrong with my heart? Am I going to die or need medical attention?

Months past where I remember endlessly looking at the ceiling in my room crying and thinking that there was something wrong with me and that this would happen again and that I was no longer like everyone else.

I was sent to hospital for an ECG which showed I had an elevated heartbeat; probably due to anxiety however they weren't convinced so ordered a 24hr ECG to which I had to wear at school too. I lost count of the ECG's I had and finally they decided to try me on beta-blockers; propranolol (a medication that slows heart rate by blocking certain chemicals such as adrenaline and taking away some of the strain). They made me far worse I remember feeling ill. This went on for some time and my worry grew and grew.

I was finally referred to a psychologist, Mr Pickles was his name Great chap. I felt some relief after the 4 months of CBT treatment. What I wasn't expecting was that things were far from better, this was just the beginning.

I developed a fear of running around and playing sports due to my previous incident and then grew into a fear of going out the house due to having to walk about and kept thinking "if my heart rate gets too high I may die". This caused me to become very anti-social and this became the next 5 or so years of my life. I had a very rough child hood too to which I wont go into detail here.

As I grew anti-social I grew to stay at home and even didn't go to school in fear I collapsed or became ill and very very often made up excuses to go home or just get out of school so I could be back in my room; the only place I felt safe.

I plummeted quickly into depression although, didn't realize it at the time. I would have days, even weeks on end where I would cry in my room thinking about how my life was ending and that I was dying. My life was empty and had no dreams or aspirations as I was convinced I was dying.

The Dr suggested I try Citalopram; an anti-depressant. This again made me worse and stopped the medication. I then made one mistake that again made the rest of my life a misery and health anxiety a lot worse.

Google became my friend and then quickly my enemy. I used to Google all of my symptoms in hope that I would find out what was wrong with me and why I felt dizzy 24/7. Almost like I was walking on a giant mattress or that I was slightly drunk. Google came back with things like Brain tumors, brain aneurysm, cancer and all sorts. From that moment on my anxiety took another turn. I was convinced I had everything I was reading about on line. Ill come back to this in more detail in a moment as this was the biggest part of my struggle.

So up until now I was around 18 maybe and went a further 2 years at a new school and trying to find a job. I decided that I had to get out the house and something to occupy my mind that I had learned from my psychologist. Slowly, I began taking part in martial arts, boxing, cycling and all sorts. I even tried playing football again but over years this happened. One day I would start off walking then gradually I would be jogging and before I knew it months had passed and I was doing it, was out the house and involved sports and getting out there. I can say that this chapter of my anxiety had closed. The fear of playing sports and getting out the house had almost gone completely; I could finally move on. Then the next new wave of anxiety hit.

I was then plagued by thoughts that I had more illnesses and not just heart worry. What I had originally typed into Google got me thinking about other stuff and what if something was really wrong but no one knew about?

I've spend so many days in A&E due to anxiety and trying to convince people I was ill but they just shrugged it off. I would seek so many doctor opinions and pay for specialist treatment trying to find answers, answers that I never got. I would constantly seek reassurance and seek the need to be comforted and ask 100s of questions to doctors to feel better only to go home and Google things to find out they may have missed something and I was believing Google over my own doctors. This fueled my anxiety to new heights. Ill try cut to the chase now I've given some in depth stuff

My granddad had been diagnosed with stomach cancer 2 years ago, I was then convinced I had stomach cancer ... beyond words I really did believe it. I had acid reflux every day, bloating and all sorts. Dr said it was GERD and gave me lansoprazole medication to lower acid secretion. I wasn't convinced and went to my Doctor again and demanded to see a gastroenterologist who agreed to carry out an Endoscopy. Before the procedure I spent hours convincing myself that it was cancer of the stomach and even planned how I would deal with this news. You see, anxiety leads us to live a quality of life as if we actually had the illness itself. Its heartbreaking, it really is.

Anyway, results came back normal and GERD was the diagnosis so to this day still on Lansoprazole; they work for me but I can honestly say I thought that was game over for me.

I felt relief for a few months, until I started getting headaches. I was now convinced I had a brain tumor. My mum also said my uncle died of a brain aneurysm and that was it. My anxiety blew up and I was definitively dying this time!! This is what I had and this horror went on for 5 months. Daily headaches, stiff neck, stiff shoulders and shooting pains in my head without warning. I would not go out again in fear of something rupturing and me dying and many of times had to come home just because it got so bad. Doctor said its nothing more than tension build up and I need to relax and stop using google. Again I brushed this off and one day after the gym I lost vision in my left eye. That was it, I was straight to A&E as I knew that brain tumors affected vision. They sent me to ophthalmology who concluded this was migraine and no further treatment was needed. I was not convinced and demanded to see a neurologist who tried to calm me and say there was nothing wrong, again I believed, really really believed I had brain cancer or something and he ordered a scan. I attended the scan yesterday .....and waled out almost broke down as I came to a realization that anxiety has got me to this stage and really is destroying my life! I walked out of the hospital but was offered a cancellation if I changed my mind.....

Let me say that Anxiety has ruined so many years of my life trust me on that. If you let it eat you up and worry you it will over come you and you will be living in shadows rather that living your life. You're preparing to dye rather than living what is a wonderful gift. I have missed out so much here on other events such as relationship breakups due to my constant worry, depression, job interference and hell and the role anxiety plays on you and how real it can feel.

I went back to the hospital for my scan. I had a head MRI scan. I was scared of what they may find but I can honestly say the procedure itself is simple, I made it out to be so much worse by reading up on how MRI works. There is nothing to it. I lay back and listened to Queen for 30 minutes lol All done, no ill effects, no headaches, no dizzy feeling no nothing. Just a sense of relief. My results came back normal this morning!! An email from my neurologist confirming a one liner email "Normal scan" .....

I am so please but at the same time made me realize, life is short. I'm now 24 and spent so many years in and out of hospital and seen so many doctors. You know what? Anxiety has had so much time and stolen so many years of my life. Well, anxiety its time for you to F**k off and for me to start living my life again and to experience the world fear free.

Please, don't let it rule you. I did, for years and it really will take over you until the point you become obsessed with your health and believe no one.

Please email me if you need any support or help or even have questions as I would hate for anyone to go through through this mess. I will help in any way that I can. There is so much I have missed out but wanted to keep it quite short ... well, kind of

This for me was my way out, there is no going back now; I have a life to live!

John

[BobbyDog]

You have been through a lot over the years John, good to hear that you are now going to have a positive attitude and get on with living your life.

Good luck.

[sjp91]

Hey man, thanks for the story. It's nice reading things like this sometimes.

I'm a lot like you. I've been dealing with this for a while. Any small ache or pain that goes on for a long period of time sends me darting to Google to diagnose myself with the next serious disease. It's all I do anymore. I'm 20 years old and for the last week I've been trapped in my house, afraid to do anything. I don't have any motivation to do anything.

My current situation is what could be (can't really tell) a lump in the back of my neck to the right of my spine. It's been there for about a month, and it kind of feels like a muscle knot or something, I don't know... but along with that I've had slight soreness in my left armpit (no lumps though) and ran to Google and diagnosed myself with lymphoma, because to me, it's impossible for it to be anything else.

Basically over the last 2.5+ years, I've convinced myself I have a brain tumor, lymphoma, testicular cancer, lung cancer, bone cancer, etc. I know just going and getting tested would bring me peace of mind, but I'm just afraid of a bad result. I'm deathly afraid of it, and I wouldn't be able to wait for the result.

I try to tell myself every now and then that it's a million different things before it's cancer. Doctors have told me that too.. but my health anxiety prevents me from believing it. Hopefully one day I can be as strong as you and just move past it.

[John33]

Hey man, thanks for the story. It's nice reading things like this sometimes.

I'm a lot like you. I've been dealing with this for a while. Any small ache or pain that goes on for a long period of time sends me darting to Google to diagnose myself with the next serious disease. It's all I do anymore. I'm 20 years old and for the last week I've been trapped in my house, afraid to do anything. I don't have any motivation to do anything.

My current situation is what could be (can't really tell) a lump in the back of my neck to the right of my spine. It's been there for about a month, and it kind of feels like a muscle knot or something, I don't know... but along with that I've had slight soreness in my left armpit (no lumps though) and ran to Google and diagnosed myself with lymphoma, because to me, it's impossible for it to be anything else.

Basically over the last 2.5+ years, I've convinced myself I have a brain tumor, lymphoma, testicular cancer, lung cancer, bone cancer, etc. I know just going and getting tested would bring me peace of mind, but I'm just afraid of a bad result. I'm deathly afraid of it, and I wouldn't be able to wait for the result.

I try to tell myself every now and then that it's a million different things before it's cancer. Doctors have told me that too.. but my health anxiety prevents me from believing it. Hopefully one day I can be as strong as you and just move past it.

Hey

Thank's for the words. You will be strong; you already are you just don't know it yet.

We are our own worst enemy, all these feelings are brought on by us. It's impossible sometimes to relax and even when I did it would be short lived and find myself running to Google and then some days I would feel better but most I would have a new illness. Google will always help and in some cases and has it uses but for people with anxiety they filter out the good stuff and focus on what they want to see, evidence to go back and think "see, I knew it was something serious" despite our doctors best efforts to help.

I'm almost certain it will be muscle knots and don't stress over it either (easier said than done right ... how many time you heard people telling us that) ...

The armpit holds lots of modules called lymph nodes and these can become larger and tender during periods of infection i.e. Colds, flu, bugs and can even remain like this weeks after infection has cleared. I too had this, under my right arm and scared my for a bit as would be drying myself out the shower and move my arm in certain ways to trigger it. Again I can pretty much tell you its nothing! I bet your doctor would say the same.

One thing on Google I did find reassuring was a cancer research site showing incident rates of certain cancers in male and likely hood to get it with age trends. I can say that it iv VERY rare to have cancer and especially at our age. Bro, it was like 0.2 % chance of me having colon caner, 0.3% chance of brain cancer ect and this made me feel a little better but I know what you mean. It's all about the control. One thing I will say is when those thoughts come into your mind don't try to get angry or dismiss them, but actually know they are there and dont pay them any attention. I was tought to think "so ... the thougts of cancer are there ... and yeh? .... so what .. its just a thought" ... this kind of thinking actually helped.

What evidence do you have to suggest its something serious? And don't tell me Google said so lol

Live life ...

[sjp91]

Hey

Thank's for the words. You will be strong; you already are you just don't know it yet.

We are our own worst enemy, all these feelings are brought on by us. It's impossible sometimes to relax and even when I did it would be short lived and find myself running to Google and then some days I would feel better but most I would have a new illness. Google will always help and in some cases and has it uses but for people with anxiety they filter out the good stuff and focus on what they want to see, evidence to go back and think "see, I knew it was something serious" despite our doctors best efforts to help.

I'm almost certain it will be muscle knots and don't stress over it either (easier said than done right ... how many time you heard people telling us that) ...

The armpit holds lots of modules called lymph nodes and these can become larger and tender during periods of infection i.e. Colds, flu, bugs and can even remain like this weeks after infection has cleared. I too had this, under my right arm and scared my for a bit as would be drying myself out the shower and move my arm in certain ways to trigger it. Again I can pretty much tell you its nothing! I bet your doctor would say the same.

One thing on Google I did find reassuring was a cancer research site showing incident rates of certain cancers in male and likely hood to get it with age trends. I can say that it iv VERY rare to have cancer and especially at our age. Bro, it was like 0.2 % chance of me having colon caner, 0.3% chance of brain cancer ect and this made me feel a little better but I know what you mean. It's all about the control. One thing I will say is when those thoughts come into your mind don't try to get angry or dismiss them, but actually know they are there and dont pay them any attention. I was tought to think "so ... the thougts of cancer are there ... and yeh? .... so what .. its just a thought" ... this kind of thinking actually helped.

What evidence do you have to suggest its something serious? And don't tell me Google said so lol

Live life ...

Well basically like 3-4 years ago, I had this discomfort in my left testicle / groin area after playing hockey. I thought it was testicular cancer, and I stressed out about it and one day I woke up feeling light headed.. so I went online and looked these things up on Google, and convinced myself that I had testicular cancer that went to my head. I went to the doctor about it and he didn't find a lump on my testicle, and said the light headed feeling is more than likely your anxiety.

Over time I got over it. I didn't get tested or anything like that, I just went on living my life.. but now with this "lump" on my neck or whatever it is, I've told myself that I've had cancer all along and it has spread rampant throughout my body.. but I try to tell myself if I've been sick with multiple cancers for 2.5+ years, I'd be feeling physically sick.. but then I go back to worrying again.

[cattia]

Thanks for sharing your story. You've descried perfectly the endless cycle of tests, reassurance and then moving onto the next 'life threatening' problem. This is why the tests don't help. They might show us that we don't have the illness we fear, but the nature of anxiety means that before long we'll be moving onto the next illness. Even if there was a way to test for every single illness in the world and we found we didn't have any of them, I doubt it would help for long because a few weeks later we'd just be thinking that we had something that wasn't there when we had the test or was at too early a stage to show up, and so it goes on. You're right that the ONLY way to deal with this is to tackle the anxiety itself. I'm so happy to read that you've finally reached a point where you're empowered to do this. Keep going!

[saab]

Great post, John. You have summed up so well what many of us on here have gone through. My anxiety over my ectopic heartbeats made me almost agoraphobic at one point too. You didn't mention the bit where you can only leave the house if you have your 'safe' person with you, or only going to places you feel ok in.

I though the most telling point you made was that "anxiety leads us to live a quality of life as if we actually had the illness itself. Its heartbreaking, it really is." That is so true.

One of the reasons I post on NMP is because I don't want people to spend years of their life worrying over imaginary disasters like I have, waiting to drop dead. I won't say wasted, because life did go on, but it was not the quality of life that I would have wished.

I have started to accept uncertainty and acknowledge that yes, I could be ill, but in all probablity I am not. We can't always affect our physical health, but I hope your post encourages people to tackle the one thing that they can address - the anxiety, and the irrational thinking that causes us so much distress.

[cham]

Thankyou for your story, it really helps me. I have been through stomach worries etc, but am now petrified I have a brain tumour or something of the sort. This was all brought on by a bout of double vision and 2 days in hospital. I had a CT scan and was given the all clear, but I just havent been right since, ok I havent haf anymore double vision, but my eyes have been strange with pains also. Im trying my hardest to press on but I am constantly worrying as I didnt get an answer for the double vision!

[virgin747]

Wow! How much of me i can relate to this. I've had anxiety either health or generalized for about 15 years. I've got acid reflux and shortness of breath, on lansoprazole. Have been having the worst kind of headaches for many months and have been to see a consultant dentist at my local hospital. He's ordered an MRI just to rule anything else out and also as a way of calming my anxieties. My GP has said its all related to Anxiety and stress. I'm also having Botox injections to calm the muscles in my jaw as i grind my teeth and wear a mouthguard. I'm on 20mg of Amitriptyline which just makes you feel drugged up and spaced out. These are to try and calm the headaches down. I am trying to get a grip of all this because like you "John" it's taken over my life. I am due to have some counselling sessions to try and talk through all thats in my head. I'm sick of waking up feeling like crap and from the moment my eyes are open till they close i worry. Your post was almost as if i had written it. My worries started years ago when i had diagnosed a "Non-Ossifying Fibroma". Sounds scary doesn't it? Its non calcified bone, very very common. To the lay man its a worry. I then lost my mum with breast cancer when she was only 57...let the worrying begin.
So, like you, i'm trying very hard to do all the right things. I have got to get a grip before i cave in. Can i ask you John, what exactly did you do to alleviate the worries or anxiety? Was it out of a book or external sources like counselling etc.
Good luck everyone on your journey. Upwards and onwards as they say.

[almamatters]

Hi John, really liked reading your story and can relate to so much of it. You have described so well the position so many of us find ourselves in. The constant self diagnosing of terminal illnesses, the demanding of tests from our GP's and the worst one I think is putting our lives on hold because of fear. I remember once going for an abdominal ultrasound , not only did I cancel my holiday because I was convinced that the news would be bad and I had liver / pancreatic / stomach cancer but I cried and became hysterical at the hospital due to my stupid health anxiety. Thanks again for sharing.