Hi
I'm late thirties, male, work from home, spend most of my time alone although I'm married with a good close family. When I think back, I've had various brief flair ups of HA, all sorts of things but nearly always a possible cancer symptom. All sorts from early twenties through, bowel, testicle, skin, mouth, lymph, etc.
Last time I went to the doc I asked to be referred for CBT. I've been on it about a month, it's online "training" plus message from support person every 2 weeks. Getting F2F counsellor will take months. I get all the concepts, it's helped with general anxiety but not really HA yet. But I'm trying... mood monitors, TFB cycles, tons of self analysis questionnaires etc. Also trying stuff like ... 2 week wait before dr.
This year I've done many good things, become more active, start a couple of hobbies (music/sport), be more social, see more family, etc, but all under a haze of worry. In fact most of these positive changes have been a distraction attempt. It's the longest continuous HA period I've had.
This summer I've worried about various cancers including bowel, skin, etc, overcame them one way or another, but right now it's : -
a) Left arm seems to dip randomly for split second when lifting light objects, several times a day involuntarily, plus left leg twitches pretty much all day - ALS. (Just read the ALS sticky which did help a bit)
b) On/off recurring sore throat left side with possible enlarged lymph nodes - cancer
c) Centre/right chest pain when I started running (before I can walk...), followed by possible muscle strain in same area, this is easing up a bit past few days, but .. - heart.
Something new I'm trying this week that's helping a bit, is to make physical counter changes to the symptoms. eg. sore throat left side, stop over-swallowing, eat food right side, don't sit with head in funny left position. ALS stuff try to do more exercise including strength building left arm/leg, basically try to prove the opposite to clear the symptom and relieve the worry.
Glad I found this site, having a tough time with HA this year, can't seem to get out of the pattern. I found the page through googling and stumbling upon the HA page. I made a first post yesterday but I think it was too long and I hadn't done this intro post first either. Apologies as there is some duplication with this post too. Anyway, I'm going to update that post with today's update, but yeh, any comments on either posts would be great, in general I'd just like to feel less isolated than I currently do.
Thanks in advance for any support.
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