Hi everyone, I'm a long term health anxiety suffer. Actually, make that a very long term anxiety sufferer....
My background woth regards to my health anxiety is very extensive but basically it got triggered by a bad pregnancy 4 years ago which resulted in me needing two years of EMDR therapy which helped. I'm on citalopram also and have been for 3 years. The therapy helped and although it's never stopped me being anxious, I am so proud at how I've managed my HA, especially during the pandemic. I'd be at the Dr's sometimes twice a week pre-Covid but now I pretty much avoid the place and try to use rationale. I've been a handful of times over the last couple of years due to ladies problems and tonsillitis but that's about it.
Fast forward to the weekend just gone. I went to bed Friday night after stuffing myself with a big Thai curry and a chocolate pudding and ice cream and could feel some bad reflux in my throat and like the food was just sitting there. I do sometimes get reflux and belching and some acid so it's not unusual but this made me feel so nauseous that I actually made myself vomit. Once I started vomiting I couldn't stop. I then shortly after opened my bowls and them again shortly after but this time with watery diarrhoea. I was due to trade at a market that day and although I felt dreadful, I went and felt awful the whole time. I felt like I was completely void of energy and could barely keep my eyes open, I felt exhausted. I kept getting the odd tummy cramp and felt so nauseous but I wasn't sick again. When I got home I literally collapsed on the sofa and couldn't get warm and I'd got duvets and got water bottles on me. I felt hot but so cold and shivery too and my skin and joints hurt. I assumed I'd got a fever and thought I'd got a tummy bug. I had a couple more episodes of diarrhoea and then slept for 9 hours solid. I felt a lot better the next day and did some cleaning but then started feeling nauseous again. I tried some toast and that was okay. I had a more solid bowl movement later on but kept getting occasional cramps across my whole stomach. I had a fall down the stairs that evening and thought I'd broken my arm. I went to bed and could hardly sleep as I was in pain. I'd managed a couple of slices of pizza that evening and my stomach did nothing but gurgle all night and i kept passong wind.On Monday morning I started panicking about my arm and felt I needed to use the toilet and had a bowel movement and this is where things got scary for me - I looked into the toilet and my stools were pale. Not light brown or yellow as I'd had previously with the diarrhoea and when I've had a bad tummy before but a beige colour and they looked greasy. I had it another two times that day the same colour. I immediately panicked and googled and you can guess where I ended up. I know pale stools are one of the symptoms and then what alarmed me ever further was reading that you get indigestion, vomiting, nausea and diarrhoea as well as a fever and shivers. I had all of those. A couple of years ago I was getting upper tummy pain in my right side and I worried about PC then. I had a scan to check for gallstones but there weren't any. Over the last couple of years I've had the same pain deep in my upper right abdomen and a pain that feels like a muscle spasm in my upper back that goes through to my tummy. This has come and gone.
I'm just terrified this is something bad. I've never had a stool that light before. I hardly slept last night and had a couple of episodes of watery diarrhoea, however, I was too scared to look at the colour. I went to the Dr today and saw a trainee Dr who checked me over and said sounds like gastroenteritis and not to worry about the colour as this can happen with a bug and he'd be more concerned if there was blood and to just eat a soft diet and hydrate and give my stomach time to clear itself up
I cannot stop focusing on the colour. It's really scaring me. It felt a bit like a stomach bug or virus but then the pale stools frightened me. Can this happen? Does it sound like a gastro bug? My tummy has been cramping and gurgling and I've had wind and belching. I've eaten mainly toast and jacket potatoes. I've found myself scrutinising my bowels the last couple of months because of this and wondering if something has been amiss and I'm frightening myself. Apart from some standard bloating and the odd upset tummy there's been nothing, all has seemed normal. No pains just that one that I mentioned I sometimes get but this seems to appear when I'm under stress but I'm worried it's my pancreas or liver.
I'm just in a bit of a bad HA place and wanted some sensible advice really.
I should add that my youngest daughter vomited on me a few nights before. She was complaining of tummy pain but felt fine after but the following night the same thing happened. I thought she may have a bug but she didn't have diarrhoea. I've also been extremely stressed for the last couple of months after a death in the family, I work full time in law and I run my own business and I have two children one who is autistic and whom were having problems at school with at thr moment. We also had some recent upset with a family member. My diet has been dreadful too. I've put on weight from all the rubbish I've been eating. Id noticed my HA was starting to ramp up a month or so ago as i know the signs. Basically I've been living with a lot of stress since the summer. Just wanted to give some background. I'm 44 and female btw. I don't drink or smoke.
Sorry for the long post, I just needed to get it all out of my head. Just wanted sensible thoughts on whether this does sound like a bug and can I attribute the colour that an upset tummy.
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