This will be a long post, prepare yourself!
I have had health anxiety for as long as I can remember.. I literally would obsess over various ailments and convince myself I had some awful illness. Meningitis was my go-to freak out back in those years. I know that I am definitely capable of manifesting my anxiety into physical symptoms. 2 years ago I had constant heartburn, nothing helped it.. I was miserable. I convinced my doctor I needed an endoscopy and once the endoscopy came back "all clear" I was magically cured. That being said I have been having a problem for the last 2 years that I don't think can be caused by anxiety.. but may be the real deal and I am BEYOND scared. So here it goes..
2 years ago I noticed that my pupils were uneven in dim light. Made the mistake of googling this and came across Horner's Syndrome, which can be a pretty grim diagnosis. Went to an opthamologist who told me he thought I was fine and that I was part of the 20% of population that just had simple anisocoria (uneven pupils).. I believed him although thought this seemed kind of strange I would have never noticed it considering how aware I am of my body and how i feel, look, etc. I forgot about all of this and was totally fine up until about 4 months ago. I started to obsess over my pupils again, checking their size constantly, having my husband look at them, taking pictures of myself, literally driving myself nuts with worry. But I kept trying to convince myself I was fine.. if I had Horner's then I would definitely have a droopy eyelid too, which I didn't have.
Well, about 2 months ago I woke up and bingo I had a droopy eyelid on the same side in which the pupils is occasionally smaller. I have had it ever since then.. initially I thought it was just swollen, maybe allergies in one eye, but steroid drops did nothing for them and eye drops don't help. I currently have a referral to a neuro-opthamologist in October and a neurologist in September.. but that is still quite a ways a way and I am FREAKING OUT that I have a brain tumor or cancer or stroke or something awful happening. Over the last 2 months I have gone to both an opthamologist (who told me this was possibly something developing and he described this as variable ptosis that certainly didn't seem emergent) and my GP (who told me she couldn't order an MRI off of a drooping lid which didn't seem noticable to her, btw she gave me antibiotics as she thought perhaps I had a chronic sinus infection causing my eyelid to swell??). Anyways, I'm going through the worse case scenarios on over drive and am convinced that I am basically going to die from whatever is causing this.. and everyone just keeps making me wait. I could really use some advice/reassurance as I think my family and husband are sick of listening to me. I'm only 27 and I have a beautiful 4 year old daughter, wonderful husband and work full time.. I do have a lot of stress in my life and am wondering if perhaps it is showing through my health anxiety again.. but how could it cause these symptoms?? I'm trying really hard to not worry and am on medication and go to therapy, but I'm sick of feeling this way and feeling like I don't know if I can trust myself. If there is something wrong with me I want to know.. but I also don't want to waste all my time worrying.
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