Health anxiety pancreatic cancer worry

[Kris5]

Health anxiety! Can anyone help? Panicking the last week that I have pancreatic cancer. Seen my primacy dr, Er dr, and GI dr and no one seems concerned. I got a ct today and everything came back clear, but I obsess over going on google and seen that pancreatic cancer can be missed on a ct!? I’ve gotten blood work done and it was clear, I’ve explain all syMPTOMS (lower back pain that comes and goes, upper left abdomen pain that’s very dull almost gone honestly, stools are abnormal but that could be because I haven’t eaten, no appetite) I am just freaking out...

[Jeff1943]

Your worry has nothing to do with pancreatic cancer. It has everything to do with anxiety disorder. You've been seen by 3 doctors, had a CT scan and blood tests. None suspected pancreatic cancer. Doctors have a nose for these things, one could make a mistake but not three.

This is all classic health anxiety: you look up a couple of aches by Googling. You make a diagnosis you aren't qualified to make. You're seen by doctors and have a scan. Result: no sign of pancreatic cancer. But you don't believe them, they've missed something. It's classic anxiety, Kris5, we've all done it, all of us here who experience anxiety disorder. What I always say is: don't spend your time trying to cure yourself of an illness you don't have, you can't cure yourself of an illness you don't have no matter how hard you try. So concentrate your energies instead on the illness you do have: health anxiety. And how to recover.

[Kris5 in reply to Jeff1943]

Jeff thank you for your reply! Why do you seem so confident about what you say? As I lay here crippled unable to move away from dr google.

Have you been through this before?

Also, thank you for your advice, it’s greatly appreciated

[Jeff1943 in reply to Kris5]

Yes Kris5, I have had pancreatic cancer, kidney failure, liver failure, lung cancer, heart failure and many more, we all have, that's the nature of health anxiety. Of course we don't really have these things, it's our oversensitised nervous system playing the usual tricks on us😊.

Kris5, you have been seen by so many doctors, had a ct scan and blood tests, the last alone would have told your doctors if you had had pancreatic cancer. That's why we can be 100% confident.

Your back pain sounds muscular-skeletal, the normal minor pains and strains we all have from time to time. Nothing to worry about, specially after the very comprehensive medical attention you have had.

So accept the aches and pains, refuse to worry about them any more, deny them any more attention and you could well find that they clear up. Maybe the fact that you're stressing about them so much is actually causing them to continue: that's another thing many of us here have experienced.

So I say just accept the pains for the moment, your doctors are not concerned so that's a relief. And remember yhey went to medical school for 5 years whereas your medical experience is Doctor Google who has misdiagnosed millions of people like us.

[Kris5 in reply to Jeff1943]

What did you do when you thought you had all these things?

I’m trying to hard to push the thoughts away and the second I have a positive thought, the negativity comes right in..”well what if they missed your cancer? What if it’s to early and you just allowing It to get worse? You need to push for more testing. Your lower back pain is a sign. Somethings not right, somethings not right.”

I’m just very frustrated and so so beside myself right now. All I want is to step back, and feel so grateful for my life as I usually am able to do, but all I feel right now is dread and doom.

[Jeff1943 in reply to Kris5]

I simply stopped worrying about these fake illnesses because I understood that's what they were and why our mind and nervous systems play these tricks on us. I was lucky though, very early on I discovered the teachings of Doctor Claire Weekes, as set out in her first book titled 'Self help for your nerves' in the U.K. and also titled 'Hope and help for your nerves' in the U.S. She devised a method based on Acceptance which many others have found instrumental to their recovery of anxiety disorder in all its forms. Written many, many years ago but still selling briskly on Amazon. I commend this book to you.

[Kris5 in reply to Jeff1943]

Jeff thank you for your advice! I’m going to check her out.

[Indigojoe in reply to Kris5]

Kris5,

you diagnosed yourself perfectly when you said,

"As I lay here crippled unable to move away from Dr Google".

Obsession is an addictive behavior, not a cancer diagnosis.

[Hidden]

There are blood tests that can detect it... tumor makers, have you tried one?

[Hidden in reply to Hidden]

Serum amylase and/or lipase levels: Elevated in less than 50% of patients with resectable pancreatic cancers and in only 25% of patients with unresectable tumors. Tumor markers such as CA 19-9 antigen and CEA: 75-85% have elevated CA 19-9 levels; 40-45% have elevated CEA levels.

[Kris5 in reply to Hidden]

I’m not sure if they tested these. I know the dr said my Lipase level was complete normal and he did not suspect pancreatic cancer.

The info you sent me, is that good info or bad? I’m a little confused

[Hidden in reply to Kris5]

My point is there are blood tests that can detect pancreatic cancer.

[Kris5 in reply to Hidden]

I did get the lipase done and my dr said the level was great, you would think that made me feel better!

[Hidden in reply to Kris5]

I thought I had this at one point in time too... if you struggle with health anxieties like me, get the bloodwork done and rest assure that you are okay.

[Kris5 in reply to Hidden]

Thank you

[Hidden in reply to Kris5]

Blood never lies and if you are like me, you just need the facts!

[Peacefrogs in reply to Kris5]

How are you doing now?

Pancreatic cancer is my crippling fear right now. I went to the er for chronic diarrhea and my lipase was elevated. They said most likely due to stomach inflammation from being sick. Then a week later my GP retested and it was back within normal range. After that I was doing pretty good with calming down and started back exercising. 3 days into it and I woke up with severe rib pain and now I’m back to full blown panic mode thinking my dr didn’t do enough testing.

[Hidden]

Kris, We've all been where you are. Convinced we have deadly diseases that we really don't, no matter what the doctor says. That's why Dr Google is the number one thing NOT to do. The internet is not a doctor and can't diagnose anything. Your doctors already ran tests, especially the blood work and all were normal. Accept that they're professionals and you are healthy. You just have anxiety. I also highly recommend reading Claire Week's' books. She was a physician and a pioneer in treating patients with anxiety. You can go on YouTube and watch her videos. She's like listening to your grandmother giving advice; older and very intelligent and loved helping patients.

[Kris5 in reply to Hidden]

Thank you so much for your advice and kind words

[Hidden in reply to Hidden]

Agreed to this...Google or even WebMD's symptom checker can lead you into thinking the worst. All the tests you've had done would have revealed something not working. Take this as clean bill of health. Time to treat the obvious thing bothering you which is anxiety. As mentioned by lovemybear, those recommendations are great. CBT, mindfulness, and meditation can also help. Best of luck, you can do this!

[carrieblevins1998]

If the doctors haven't found anything, the there isn't anything. Yes, it can be missed on a CT but I believe this is a rare occurrence. Is it possible your anxiety about having cancer could be bringing on these symptoms? Whatever you do, you should never google your symptoms, google will tell you your dying even if it is something harmless. You shouldn't worry so much, everything is going to be fine.

[SpinalPain]

Hi Kris, If you have worry about pancreatic cancer please don't take no for an answer from your GP. My hubby started with real bad heartburn, then came the wind - excessive bur ping and I mean real long deep burps. Then came the pain. All over his tummy at first. The GP misdiagnosed gastroenteritis. Gave him the door. 2nd visit was 3 days later as I booked via 111 and we saw out of hours GP at the weekend. He gave him Omeprazole but flagged up very high blood pressure. The blood pressure stayed high and I monitored him morning and night and wrote down the readings.

After a week I gave a copy of the blood pressure readings to our GP. He prescribed a B/P tablet. For the next week th

e B/P stayed high, the chemist folk told me this will calm down soon.

The next week we were back at the GP's and was put on an additional B/P tablet we talked all about his pain, to cut a very long story down:

My hubby's bloods were constantly coming back good, ultra sound came back good. I kept pushing the GP that something is very wrong. Hubby had lost 1 stone, the GP smiled and said this is good....He wasn't overweight and I was cross at this remark...

Hubby couldn't face a small meal, wind and pain constant. We ended up in an ambulance 1 night and after lying on a trolley for 6 hours and 1 clear chest x-ray and once again no markers in his blood they sent us home and back to the GP with a note with 3 medications wrote down to ask GP for Tramadol, Buscopan, and Paracetamol to get his pain under proper control also to ask for him to refer us back to them for an endoscope.

At that next appointment the GP laughed at the hospital not doing the endoscope whilst we were there. Later I found that this GP did not do that referral. He sorted the pain medication out but i was concerned that this was just going to mask the real problem. He ordered the ultrasound scan. Which came back normal.

After 4 weeks and many repeated GP appointments:

On the last appointment I think the GP was quite took back as my hubby had now lost 2 stone in weight.

GP then told us that he fears cancer and ordered a CT scan under the 2 week wait rule for cancer patients. after 10 days of frayed nerves and still stuck in this bad place the results came back.

My wonderful hubby has advanced pancreatic cancer spread to his liver. This was dropped on us on 23rd Dec....

Our GP said sorry a lot of times...He said that he couldn't understand why all other tests came back normal.

So please if you have pain that starts in your upper left and it radiates to to middle back AND your bloods come back normal..... Push for a CT scan as an ultra sound scan didn't show anything. The cancer is in my hubby's body and tail of his pancreas and in his liver. They are taking him in hospital next week for a liver biopsy.

We have a very rough road ahead and I am only telling you all about this to you to show how we found this dreadful news out.

If you're eating well and not got the really bad heartburn and long deep burps alongside that side to back pain then just be wary but not worry.

IF you have had a CT scan and that came back clear, then you have anxiety and your body is good.

Wishing you a happy new year and let 2020 be a healthy body happy mind year for you Kris

[Ironj]

At CT scan would show something wrong for sure. There’s also a blood test called Lipase it checks the condition of your pancreas. Pancreas pain is mid back pain that radiating to the abdomen , jaundice ,clay colored stool , swollen abdomen , excessive indigestion, try and relax if you had a problem the blood work and CT scan and the symptoms listed woukd be evident