New Worry - Colon Cancer

[beasty340]

Hi everyone,

The past three months have been absolutely plagued with health anxiety. From an enlarged heart, colon cancer, MS, or leukemia. I have thought I have had every major illness possible. This "new" fear of colon cancer has already taken place about two months ago after I got a pretty bad pain in my lower left abdomen that took about 4 days to go away. During this time I went to the urgent care clinic and had a cbc, urine test, and dr felt the area. He said that everything seemed fine and if it got worse to come back for a CT scan. Lo and behold it got better and went away. During this time my stool was normal and I was only experiencing a mild pain.

Currently, last Thursday I had a new bloating feeling pop up in the left side of my abdomen with most of the bloating in the lower left part. This bloating feeling came just a day after I got some reassurance from my doctor about not having leukemia. Very frustrating to have one worry after another. Anyway, again I have all normal stools (no diarrhea, not really constipated). The only thing I am experiencing at the moment is some bloating and a fullness in the area. I have tried to see if I can get rid of any excess air from the area, but nothing ever seems to come out. Diet is not the best and have been under high amounts of anxiety (already taking part in some counseling and waiting on a referral to see a psychiatrist). I also talked to my parents and cannot think of any family history of cancer other than smoking induced lung cancer. My father has had his regular colonoscopies and they have never found a polyp. I do have a hiatal hernia which causes indigestion and take prevacid for.

The most frustrating part of this is every corner I turn, it is something about cancer. Cancer on facebook with ads and posts, cancer in the news, cancer stories about have they were young and had no idea that they had it. If anyone has some reassurance for me or suggestions, I'd greatly appreciate it as I am not doing the best at the moment.

Quick Edit: Does anyone know/think that slouching can cause abdominal pain? At work I notice that I am leaning to my left side and slouching kind of scrunching my stomach up.

[MoleHill]

This one is real easy to put to rest.....with a colonoscopy.

Sounds like your hernia though.

[Capercrohnj]

You have zero colon cancer red flags

[beasty340]

This one is real easy to put to rest.....with a colonoscopy.

Sounds like your hernia though.

My hernia is in my stomach so it is not in the area. It will be hard to get a colonoscopy since I don't really have any signs of colon cancer and I am only 23. Most of the time you do not get your first colonoscopy until you are 50.

[paranoid-viking]

The most frustrating part of this is every corner I turn, it is something about cancer. Cancer on facebook with ads and posts, cancer in the news, cancer stories about have they were young and had no idea that they had it. If anyone has some reassurance for me or suggestions, I'd greatly appreciate it as I am not doing the best at the moment.

I agree. It is a curse. And a good word for this monstrosity is disease mongering. The worst part of the disease mongering propaganda when they are using young people in ads for cancers which is in, fact, extremely rare in young people and colon cancer is one of those. But I guess it will not have the same shock effect to use a 85 year old in a colon cancer add. I bet people working in advertisement is involved in "awareness"; or as I call it, diseasemongering propaganda.

---------- Post added at 01:14 ---------- Previous post was at 01:13 ----------

My hernia is in my stomach so it is not in the area. It will be hard to get a colonoscopy since I don't really have any signs of colon cancer and I am only 23. Most of the time you do not get your first colonoscopy until you are 50.

23? In other words, your chances of having colon cancer is aproximately xero.

[beasty340]

Just thought I would do a little update. I would say 9/10 of my stools are normal with the odd one maybe being a little bit of diarrhea with or without mucus or maybe a little harder than normal. The thing that worries me the most is I have found a lump in the lower left abdomen. I have found this before about a month ago and forgot about it, but I felt around the area again and found it. It is what I believe to be my colon and is sausage shaped. It sometimes gets bigger and smaller, but seems to be there all the time. It runs from my hip to underneath my belly button and is anywhere from an inch to three inches.

[EmmerLooeez]

Beasty,

I really do not think that this is colon cancer, but your anxiety playing nasty tricks on you. Anxiety causes all sorts of distressing physical symptoms. Take comfort in the fact that you never had the other illnesses that you thought you had, this too will pass. It doesn't feel like it will right now, but it will. You will feel better and will be able to beat the cycle.

Sending love and positive thoughts your way. Xxx

[beasty340]

Beasty,

I really do not think that this is colon cancer, but your anxiety playing nasty tricks on you. Anxiety causes all sorts of distressing physical symptoms. Take comfort in the fact that you never had the other illnesses that you thought you had, this too will pass. It doesn't feel like it will right now, but it will. You will feel better and will be able to beat the cycle.

Sending love and positive thoughts your way. Xxx

Thanks for the love Emmer, currently going through some counseling for the anxiety and just waiting on my referral to go through for a psychiatrist. Hopefully can get this HA under control soon.

Only thing that worries me the most about this colon cancer stuff is the sausage lump thing in my abdomen. Can't help but think it is a tumor in my colon :(. It does not help that every where I turn is filled with stuff about colon cancer or cancer in general. Radio commercials, Facebook, TV uhggg.

[Murdock]

Thanks for the love Emmer, currently going through some counseling for the anxiety and just waiting on my referral to go through for a psychiatrist. Hopefully can get this HA under control soon.

Only thing that worries me the most about this colon cancer stuff is the sausage lump thing in my abdomen. Can't help but think it is a tumor in my colon :(. It does not help that every where I turn is filled with stuff about colon cancer or cancer in general. Radio commercials, Facebook, TV uhggg.

I imagine if the lump was a tumour and it was big enough to feel you’d have a lot more symptoms. This is currently my HA scare and I’m still struggling with it quite a bit

[beasty340]

I imagine if the lump was a tumour and it was big enough to feel you’d have a lot more symptoms. This is currently my HA scare and I’m still struggling with it quite a bit

Exactly what I was thinking. If I could actually feel it and it was big enough to be over an inch long, I would imagine that I would be experiencing some sort of symptom. No blood, no extended diarrhea or constipation, no big change of any kind, only a little sore in the lower left abdomen and some bloating.