Have I got rectal cancer?

[BlueIris]

You've repeatedly stated you have no interest in helping others and that you find the people you call friends boring - what other conclusions am I supposed to draw?

[Toby2000]

You've repeatedly stated you have no interest in helping others and that you find the people you call friends boring - what other conclusions am I supposed to draw?

I think that was honestly nothing more than a cheap shot at me

"no interest in helping others" - how?

I'm sorry if I misunderstood but all I was doing was carrying on the conversation trying to be polite

[BlueIris]

Sorry if it came across as sharp, but you do seem to have remarkably little interest in anything outside of your own GI tract, as evinced by the responses you give when people here suggest volunteering, or helping your mother about the house.

Health anxiety makes a person selfish, there's no two ways about it and I'm thoroughly ashamed of some of the ways I've behaved when the panic kicks in. However, I like to think I've done my best to be aware of this, and compensate accordingly.

[Toby2000]

Sorry if it came across as sharp, but you do seem to have remarkably little interest in anything outside of your own GI tract, as evinced by the responses you give when people here suggest volunteering, or helping your mother about the house.

Health anxiety makes a person selfish, there's no two ways about it and I'm thoroughly ashamed of some of the ways I've behaved when the panic kicks in. However, I like to think I've done my best to be aware of this, and compensate accordingly.

I'm sorry I probably take things too personally

I mean the volunteering has more to do with, if I'm being honest, me not really having the motivation to do it alongside the whole social awkwardness thing and if I'm being brutally honest, it's just not how I'd want to spend my day. Neither is googling about cancer but you know.. plus I would probably look like a weirdo randomly volunteering during the Summer

I do sometimes help my mum but I'm just not good at jobs. I give up too easily and I get sidetracked. I know that's bad and I need to adapt to doing jobs etc but I was never really made to do "chores" growing up

But I do help people.. I was talking to someone the other day on Instagram, who was having a pretty rough time with actually some pretty alarming issues, and I gave him advice and he told me I should be a therapist because I'm good at, ironically, rationalizing things and talking things out. And I like to share links to fundraiser pages to my followers and go through and sign petitions, I know that's not huge but it can make a difference

I do help my mum and sisters when they need it or ask a favor from me but I'm just not good with physical jobs etc

[Unicorn1985]

I'm not trying to be annoying here but I think I have a point. I wish in these stories they would specify where exactly the tumor was found, it's frustrating, "I experienced bleeding" is that blood mixed in, blood on the stool, on the paper? How can you freshly bleed from your rectum if the tumor is higher up? I know I overthink things a lot but this is frustrating

I have been reading a lot a lot of your thread. I would like to say any newspaper articles don’t tend to print the facts right. For example my friends son has a tumour in his spine, she’s trying to raise money for treatment so she’s done several newspaper interviews. Every time they have printed incorrect information or not included important information. Point being I don’t believe anyone can form a diagnoses from reading a newspaper article. Stick to factual sites if you are going to look but honestly try not too. There is far too much conflicting information out there. I suffer badly with health anxiety myself and never once has google comforted me. It’s heightened my anxiety loads more than if I had stayed off.

Toby you aren’t living and that’s really sad. The junk food will be making all this worse.

My husband has serious bowel issues. I’m talking old and new blood, stomach cramps, constant loose stools, weight loss, anemia and numerous trips to the toilet every day. The poor bugger has even had accidents because of it and he doesn’t have bowel cancer. Look how severe his symptoms are and it’s still not cancer.

Im not belittling you and I was spiralling myself this morning but you are so young and I feel so sad for you.

[Toby2000]

I have been reading a lot a lot of your thread. I would like to say any newspaper articles don’t tend to print the facts right. For example my friends son has a tumour in his spine, she’s trying to raise money for treatment so she’s done several newspaper interviews. Every time they have printed incorrect information or not included important information. Point being I don’t believe anyone can form a diagnoses from reading a newspaper article. Stick to factual sites if you are going to look but honestly try not too. There is far too much conflicting information out there. I suffer badly with health anxiety myself and never once has google comforted me. It’s heightened my anxiety loads more than if I had stayed off.

Toby you aren’t living and that’s really sad. The junk food will be making all this worse.

My husband has serious bowel issues. I’m talking old and new blood, stomach cramps, constant loose stools, weight loss, anemia and numerous trips to the toilet every day. The poor bugger has even had accidents because of it and he doesn’t have bowel cancer. Look how severe his symptoms are and it’s still not cancer.

Im not belittling you and I was spiralling myself this morning but you are so young and I feel so sad for you.

Thanks for the reply Unicorn

Wow that's awful, I hope he recovers

I do try to stay away from Google but sometimes I get compelling urges to look up survivor's stories etc because for some reason my mind won't let me be at peace

Does he have Chron's or UC? That sounds bad, at least it's not cancer but of course whatever it is will take it's toll as you say. There were times when I was begging the universe for my problems to have been caused by something like that rather than cancer, if anything, but after thinking about it they're no fun either at all

It's fine I know you're not belittling me, thank you for sharing this with me, it really means a lot!

I hope you're doing okay, I know it sounds ironic that I'm the one saying this but just relaaaaax and acknowledge the fact that you have health anxiety. Things are only as bad as you think they are illness wise with HA on the rare odd occasion, like 0.1% of the time. 99.99% of the time things are just blown out of proportion by your anxiety and aren't as bad as you imagine them to be. Just focus on that

[Toby2000]

Right now I'm nervous because I've eaten a lot naturally over the past day and I'm going out tomorrow as I said to see my Grandma and we usually get something to eat so I'm scared that if I don't go soon then I'll be needing to go when we go out and I'll experience those pains again

I think I'm more constipated now after having diarrhea and looser stools over the past few days :(

[Unicorn1985]

Thanks for the reply Unicorn

Wow that's awful, I hope he recovers

I do try to stay away from Google but sometimes I get compelling urges to look up survivor's stories etc because for some reason my mind won't let me be at peace

Does he have Chron's or UC? That sounds bad, at least it's not cancer but of course whatever it is will take it's toll as you say. There were times when I was begging the universe for my problems to have been caused by something like that rather than cancer, if anything, but after thinking about it they're no fun either at all

It's fine I know you're not belittling me, thank you for sharing this with me, it really means a lot!

I hope you're doing okay, I know it sounds ironic that I'm the one saying this but just relaaaaax and acknowledge the fact that you have health anxiety. Things are only as bad as you think they are illness wise with HA on the rare odd occasion, like 0.1% of the time. 99.99% of the time things are just blown out of proportion by your anxiety and aren't as bad as you imagine them to be. Just focus on that

Hes had investigations and they just say ibs. My friends husband is going through exactly the same and again they just use the blanket term ibs as they can’t find the cause. It really gets him down and he’s struggling as lot as he does suffer from anxiety himself but not to my extent. So every so often when it’s bad he will panic it is cancer. I can see it’s worse because he’s ate lots of cheese the day before or he’s incredibly stressed. It’s easy for me to say though as I can see it but when that doubt creeps in it’s hard to not panic.

I really think all your issues are related to diet and stress from the anxiety. Our stomachs are so in tune with our minds. As soon as I get a bad episode with my anxiety I will have terrible cramps and loose stools. The more you panic about being in pain tomorrow the more likely it will happen. My mind has created so many physical symptoms since my anxiety started. The more I fixated on it the worse it gets. I have had terrible breast pain in my right breast for a few months. I was convinced it was cancer. Yesterday my left breast had these huge veins come up. Because I’ve fixated on the veins I’ve had no breast pain in my right breast at all.

anxiety is a really scary thing.

[MyNameIsTerry]

I'm sorry, I don't want it to seem like I'm arguing with you or anything.

I just have the view that even if I help myself or relieve the anxiety it won't make the problem go away which is all I want, obviously I'm trying therapy but my main focus is making sure I don't have cancer

You are not being argumentative, you are simply fighting against anything rational as HAers do in their various levels of intensity. You've already completely undermined your GP's analysis with the help of the odd user story on the internet.

Let me ask you this. Have you read every single user story on the internet where they have had blood higher up and it's just as your GP says or something else other than cancer? If not how can your research be valid? You've completely biased it on a possibility and ignore probability. In which case why not be worried about being stabbed in the street tomorrow or a car mowing you down on the pavement? These are also rare yet they are possible and have happened.

Your main focus is part of the problem. You are prioritising chasing a test your GP has just assessed your new symptoms against and still agrees with a previous GP and specialist. All you have is your fear and some odd stories off the internet out of millions of people you haven't checked to see what their causes were.

[MyNameIsTerry]

I was trying to work out who Joe Bloggs was before I realised it was just a pseudonym

I don't know but it would help a lot. I guess that's just to satisfy my HA doubts and is just something I find annoying when they don't add more detail though, nothing more

Well the interesting thing about not having enough detail is often a clue into the person. Journalists often will skim over things because they are too much detail for the readers, as unicorn has mentioned, and they aren't trained in the same way a doctor is to question things. Journalists will also leave details out that dumb it down as that won't sell clicks and they can get away with making it scary through lacking detail more easily than if they make false claims.

Back to the person though. There is a very good chance the person doesn't know enough about their condition to explain every symptom they have experienced. Throughout their illness they will have experienced other illnesses that anyone can get as well as co morbid conditions (just look how many have mental health conditions...and these have their own symptoms including all the GI stuff, this alone proves your claim false) but when did having cancer make you an oncologist or any other "ist"? When did it make you an expert in bowels?

You leave detail out because it's details that often catch you out. The person may give a user story that is incorrect when examined by the more analytical raises concerns about the media outlet peddling false facts.