Worries of Crohns, help logic me?

[SmallBat]

Hello everyone! My name is Bat, I’m turning 28 this month and am from the US. Let me begin by saying I’ve convinced myself I’ve had a gambit of disorders from brain tumors, lymphoma, leukemia, MS, pancreatic/stomach/bowel/ovarian cancers etc. I just recently started seeing a therapist for my health anxiety worries, and am trying to see if CBT therapy will help since I don’t want the side effects of going in SSRIs. I also suffer from PTSD around past visits that resulted in physical pain from doctors and emotional pain from doctors that had horrendously bad bedside manner and had no business working with the public. As you could imagine having fear of doctors puts another layer of difficulty to health anxiety.

TO THE POINT
I’ve been having some mild abdominal cramping very low down on my abdomen off and on for a few weeks. This was combined with stools that have changed caliber (narrower than usual but not pencil thin or flat and ribbon like), or where I’d have one where it was a normal shape and size followed by a bunch of a very narrow skinny ones in the same bowel movement, and the past two times I’ve gone they’ve been normal size and shape. The one before this afternoon seemed a bit softer or “stickier” than usual. This afternoons bowel movement showed a lot more mucus than normal, as in quite noticeable. I’ve also been much more gassier than usual. I’m prone to some constipation when. Where the discomforts been I couldn’t be sure if it was my bladder, my uterus, or my bowels.

Apart from the lower cramps, gas, and changing stools, I also get a noticeable mild cramp when my bladder relaxes to urinate, many times but not every time. (I suspected a UTI but I’m not having other uti symptoms nor would I think a uti would effect the bowels), and my anus feels a bit irritated and sore, again very mild, kind of hard to describe. I’m no stranger to fissures, I’ve gotten them during particularly large, hard bowel movements from
constipation and not drinking enough water, but my bowel movements haven’t been any where near big enough to cause fissures lately.

I started going down the colon/bowel/rectal cancer rabbit hole a few days ago, especially after seeing those articles coming out about how people my age are being diagnosed with these cancers more frequently, but have been able to keep myself out of that for now.

The reasons why I think it’s Crohns:
Low middle abdominal cramping mild in nature.
Changes in stool + mucus
anal/rectal discomfort that might be caused due to the inflammatory nature of the disease
cramping really has no rhyme or reason to when it occurs, but doesn’t subside after a bowel movement.
Last summer I had a period of persistent lower right sided abdominal discomfort (ironically this sent me on a huge spiral of ovarian cancer fear and bowel cancer fear), changes in stool caliber, and mucus in stool, nausea so bad I could barely eat for two weeks but no vomiting along with SI joint pain. I know that SI joint pain can be caused by ankylizing spondylitis and people with AS frequently also have an IBD disorder, so I’m afraid that was my first “flare”. The SI pain and lower right pain seem to subside spontaneously after I adjusted the firmness on my bed however. The summer episode came out of no where and wasn’t preceded by any anxiety. Until I started having these recent symptoms I hadn't had any anxiety episodes for over a month and a half, so I’m not sure how it could be an IBS episode triggered by anxiety.
The area of the the cramping.
I’m in the common age range for diagnosis.

Reasons why I’m trying to tell myself it’s not Crohns or anything else terrible:
No diarrhea (though I read a few stories from people with Crohns who said they never had diarrhea either but they did have constipation)
No visible blood dark or fresh
No appreciative weight loss (my weight has fluctuated a lot over the past two years starting from 90lbs, to 86, to 82 in the spring during my intense nausea and anxiety flair, back up to 86, and down to 80. I’ve maintained 80 for a solid 4 months so I would imagine if I’ve had anything bad I would continue to lose. Oh and I’m only 4’9” before anyone gets scared of my weight haha)
No nausea for quite a while (the nausea /does/ seem to get triggered by anxiety).
No vomiting
My appetites been up a little bit more then normal for the past couple of weeks.
No fevers
No fatigue
Possible hormonal factors. I know the gut has it’s own estrogen and hormonal receptors and can be affected by fluctuations in hormones. My hormones have been noticeably out of whack lately (went 95 days without a period starting in November, though this may have been caused by stress from thinking my bought of bronchitis that lasted the last three weeks of December had be thinking I had a lung tumor. It wasn’t unusual for me to skip a period here and there but I’ve never gone that long without one before even in time of stress) had a period in February and March, and the nature of my PMS symptoms have changed. This month right after my period ended my acne has been out of control looking like I’m a teenager again, and my breasts have been tender since the day I ovulated which is unusually early for me. I also have suffered with vaginismus and provoked vestibuldynia of varying degrees all my life so Im wondering if there is a pelvic muscle or nerve receptor involvement.

My current plan of action is to wait and see if things subside after my next period when my hormones shift (I’m due in 5-7 days), go to my gynecologist to have my hormones measured and get tested for a UTI while I’m at it. She wanted to do an ultrasound during my summer problems, but I never did follow up with one after my symptoms went away, trying to save myself some pain/discomfort with my issues with penetration and being in a medical environment which causes me more anxiety. Grit my teeth and get the scan to check my ovaries and uterus for anything big and bad or something like endometriosis and see if they can image my bowel while they’re there (I read from another person with Crohns that she had an ultrasound done which showed a thickened bowel from the inflammation). If my symptoms get worse/persist see about getting a referral to see a gastro doc. Hopefully convince them to give me a sigmoid or colonoscopy to check for all the “C’s” (Crohns, Colitis, Celiac, Cancer), and if everything comes back negative rest easy that it’s just IBS.

What I’m afraid of is no doctor will take my concerns seriously because of my age (stories of young people dying from cancer or in a severe state of Crohn’s disease because doctors would dismiss their concerns because of their age, anyone?)
I’m also afraid of if it’s Crohns, the implications. I don’t want things to get so bad I need an ostomy bag, or the increased cancer risk that comes from the disease or the increased lymphoma risk that comes from the medication you have to be on ( you can’t win).

I’m sorry to have written a novel to you all, I just need some help getting through and keeping calm. Yes I’m doing my CBT homework, yes I’m seeing my therapist. I’m actually doing a fair bit better than I was months ago before I started going to therapy.

[BlueIris]

It sounds as though you've really got a handle on this, and as though you've planned a sensible course of action. This is great!

The hard part now is accepting that you've got this, waiting and taking action if it becomes necessary. Every time the worries spring up, remind yourself that you know what you're doing and then find something more fun to do.

[Fishmanpa]

It sounds as though you've really got a handle on this, and as though you've planned a sensible course of action. This is great!

The hard part now is accepting that you've got this, waiting and taking action if it becomes necessary. Every time the worries spring up, remind yourself that you know what you're doing and then find something more fun to do.

Agreed. You're light years ahead of many in that you recognize you have anxiety, are getting real life help and working on it. Your post is practically a CBT worksheet. I think you know reassurance won't be beneficial and just feeds your dragon. Keep up the good work and stay the heck off of Google!

Positive thoughts

[ankietyjoe]

I also suffer from PTSD around past visits that resulted in physical pain from doctors and emotional pain from doctors that had horrendously bad bedside manner and had no business working with the public. As you could imagine having fear of doctors puts another layer of difficulty to health anxiety.

To add to what the others have said, this is not even remotely close to being PTSD, it's anxiety based on an experience.

I would recommend not telling yourself you have PTSD as you're elevating something into something which is far more serious.

You do not have PTSD.

[SmallBat]

Ah well my therapist would say otherwise. They can never get an accurate pulse rate because it get a higher when I pull into the parking lot, it gets higher when I walk into the waiting room and even higher when I have to sit on that examination table and sky rockets when the doctor comes in. I shake controllably and the tears start to come. It doesn’t matter what I’m there for, it happened the last time I got checked for a simple UTI. It even happens, though not to as a severe extent when I accompany my girlfriend to her appointments. I cry when I’m at home sometimes when I think about procedures I might need, or when having such a disease means that I’ll have to be in a medical environment more often than the average person. I’ve been prescribed a low dose Valium to take before most appointments. So, not to argue with you because I don’t want to seem confrontational but yes, it’s /bad/.

[SmallBat]

See the hard time I’m having is that both IBS and Crohns seem like it’s equally likely, and I can’t shake the Crohns idea from my brain. Like to me it seems since my symptoms are more mild but persistent I might be having an early stage flare. Like it hasn’t progressed yet to where it would start showing the classic diarrhea, especially when thinking about the lower right side issues I had during the summer, and the fact that Crohns commonly effects the lower right colon. And then I start to think about how I finished growing so small (again 4’9” and 80”bs) and I’ve learned that Crohns can cause stunted growth years before digestive issues start. Although my mom is small also (5’ and 126) and while she also how has shoddy bowels, she doesn’t have Crohns that we know of. My puberty also wasn’t delayed. My mom said her cousins have Crohns and told me they describe pain like they’re dying when they have flares, but I don’t know how long they’ve had the disease. It would be so much easier if there was one single hallmark symptom of the disease that every single person who has it had, that I don’t.

[KK77]

Suffering is subjective to the sufferer and you can't judge a person's suffering based on how you would cope in a similar situation. Also, labels tend to be unhelpful in the long-term. Eg, the trauma someone could have experienced cannot be gauged and judged purely on the "experience" they went through. People react in different ways based on many factors (one being previous events). So the cumulative effects cannot be seen and based solely on that particular experience.

But the question still remains... How helpful is it to know all this and in what way will you use this knowledge in your recovery?