Hi All,

I've been browsing NMP for quite some time, but am at a particular low point with my Health Anxiety and decided to join. My name is Jess, I'm an American living in Canada, and I'm in my mid 30s. I've always been anxious, diagnoses with GAD and OCD tendencies in my late teens, and have been off and on various medications throughout my life to manage that. I've recently started on a very bad stretch with health anxiety after having some gallbladder pains, which I thought was pancreatic cancer, and also smelling some phantom smells which woke my from a sleep, or that I smelled shortly before falling asleep. I don't have a family doctor, because where I live is in a doctor shortage, but I've seen the clinic doctor who told me not to worry about phantom smells unless I had a horrible headache that didn't go away and was twitching, and an emergency room doctor who looked in my eyes and ran a quick neurological exam about a week and a half ago, but of course that's not enough for someone like me. I have restarted Effexor as of ten days ago and have a psychology appointment in early July (again, wait times here are bad).

Anyways, hoping to offer and receive some support from all of you wonderful people.