HA is Back...again...

[mark212312]

My word this is a battle!

21 years have gone by since I started having blood on my poop and the start of this rubbish journey - I know i'm anxious, I have my second covid jab today and a week ago my stomach started playing up just like it did last year when I convinced myself I had pancreatic cancer; its exactly the same bumbling feel in my gut, gas and feeling tired so why is it that the Abdo & pelvic CT scan from last year hasnt settled my nerves the Ultrasound the blood tests all told me I was fine but 10 months on everything must have changed and this time its real this time I must have colon cancer....

I know in my rational mind the consultant gsatro Dr was propably right I just have nervous Stomach/Anxiety IBS - I get worked up and confuse those butterflies with something worse, I know he told me that at 39 (38 then) it would be highly unlikely to be anything sinister and it went away for ten months but I just can't shake the feeling...

Still doing CBT and mindfulness after last years fiasco but when the HA is gone it really is gone so Dr doesnt want to put me on meds.

Just knackered with it all, which leads to a few to many red wines which in the long run doesnt help one little bit.

Thanks for reading

M

[ankietyjoe]

The wine will destroy your gut at the same time.

Quit that first, then work on the HA.

You cannot beat any kind of anxiety whilst relying on alcohol. Short term or long term.

Meds wouldn't make a difference anyway if you're medicating with booze and in a HA spiral. HA is a habitual condition more than anything else.

[mark212312]

What I find odd is that I’m so quick to dismiss doctors but not other professionals; if I was buying a house I wouldn’t second guess my lawyer yet I know I have piles a Dr examined me and told me so - why don’t I believe him, I know I had a clean CT and Ultrasound and they got good images - why do I think all that could change in ten months; four doctors have told me I’m fine yet I’m keen to believe that one person in Ohio in 2012 who says ten doctors mistook ‘insert deadly disease here’ for IBS…

What’s sad is that I know I’m doing it yet feel I’m letting myself spiral.

[ankietyjoe]

Fight or flight doesn't kick in when you're buying a house.

And...if you were going to second guess anybody, it would be a fvcking lawyer.

[fizzymoon86]

Fight or flight doesn't kick in when you're buying a house.

And...if you were going to second guess anybody, it would be a fvcking lawyer.

Hey...lawyers aren’t all bad...said the lawyer


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[NoraB]

Just knackered with it all, which leads to a few to many red wines which in the long run doesnt help one little bit.

Alcohol can actually trigger panic attacks because it's a stimulant and when you're highly anxious (and sensitised) the last thing your body needs are stimulants!

If you want to beat HA - you have to throw everything at it - including abstaining from the hooch. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news Mark - it was a massive bummer for me too - but I got fed up of the 2am panic attacks, racing heart, and feeling like I'd slept in the wheelie bin!

Health anxiety takes a long time to control, and then there's always the potential for the little git to find it's way through a crack, so do yourself a massive favour and stay off the alcohol and stimulants in general. Boring? Yes. But your body will thank you for it..

P.S - what I used to spend on wine, and real ale (weeps) I spend on books, so now I have shit loads of books and a body which is behaving itself. (ish)

[mark212312]

Cutting out the drinking is the tough one for me, I totally get what you guys are saying and you’re right about why for sure - small steps is my approach; first stop panicking at every symptom, second go to the Dr if something bothers me, follow up as required and No Googling! I have two very distinct and self destructive coping mechanisms one being over eating to put on weight even if I am training (as I know losing it is a sign of cancer) and second is if the pain and stomach churning goes away with drinking I know that half a bottle of white isn’t curing stomach cancer…my next steps are to find new coping mechanisms then hopefully not need reassurance at all and just go see a doc if I feel bad enough.

[ankietyjoe]

So what if giving up drinking is tough?

It really depends on how important your mental health recovery is. One of the biggest mistakes people make is thinking they can carry on what they are doing and for other things to change. It's just not going to happen.

If you want to recover you have to stop drinking and never Google. Even cutting down alcohol is still going to cause you problems.

[mark212312]

100% - then I lose weight and **** myself, I know what your saying is right totally and only I can do anything about it; I don’t have it together enough yet to talk myself down from the nervous stomach rumbling in the same way that alcohol does I.e. stops almost immediately. Like you said earlier I’m self medicating with alcohol and I need to knock it off to make the real changes - I feel like a child knowing what I need to do but refusing, not from petulance but from sheer terror at the thought of losing my crutch.

[ankietyjoe]

It's not about being a child, but I frame my advice in a way deliberately. It kinda knocks you into that more pro-active way of thinking, even if you can't do it....yet.

Fighting anxiety is hard, you are trying to switch off a fundamental survival mechanism. It's like forcing yourself to keep your finger in a flame.

The thing is, you can't switch off anxiety, it's inherent to being a human being. The only way to 'beat' anxiety is to learn to accept and live with it, and this is paradoxically the practice that does actually make it go away.

Right now it's not the stomach issues that are bothering you, it's the anxious reaction to them. So, deal with the anxiety, not the one billion (including stomach issues) symptoms that anxiety can provoke.

So you don't drink for an evening and you feel anxiety. So what? It's just sensation, right? Takes time, but that's the only way out of this. It's how CBT works.