Someone please help me with this health anxiety before I ruin my life

[Khuneycu]

I can't believe I'm posting in an anxiety forum. I can't believe how this completely crippling, debilitating anxiety has totally overtaken my life to the point I can barely function and I've been completely estranged from my family. Extremely long story short... Read an article about melanoma online, then panicked as I have moles and have never had them checked. Deteriorated quickly into a total state of uncontrolled panic for over two weeks until I got in to a dermatologist. The one particular mole I was most worried about she actually biopsied. My anxiety went through the roof while I waited a week for results. It was mildly atypical and nothing concerning. During this anxious time I'd had diarrhea off and on (I'm sure from nerves) but as soon as I got the all clear on my mole I IMMEDIATELY transitioned to colon cancer worries because of the diarrhea. It culminated once again into total debilitating panic and anxiety until I convinced my PCP to send me to a GI doctor. He seemed unconcerned but said I could do a colonoscopy if I wanted. Anxiety through the roof yet again while I waited a week until the colonoscopy. Lo and behold, completely normal colon. I felt relief for all of maybe an hour and then I started thinking "omg but I still have diarrhea sometimes and if it's not my colon it's SOMETHING in my GI tract and it must be cancer." I have been BESIDE myself with this panic and anxiety. I've now convinced myself I must have either pancreatic, gallbladder or ovarian cancer despite zero convincing symptoms. I am seriously considering going for a walk in self referral MRI of my abdomen tomorrow that's going to cost me $400. I am so panicked and eaten up with anxiety I'm willing to spend that money even after cost of the dermatologist biopsy and colonoscopy. I'm going broke with these medical tests and I can't stop. My terror is real. I can barely function. Someone help me. I don't know what to do with myself anymore and I miss being happy and I miss my husband and little girls so much. I'm ruining my own life with this belief I have a terminal illness that will kill me soon. Am I alone in this?

[Hidden]

Hello

I have suffered with health anxiety for so many years and once it takes hold all the support in the world or whatever tests you have never takes it away

Maybe for a few days and then it is something else again

I have had so many things wrong over the years in my head and some the Doctor has told me don't even exist , yet there I am believing it because that is how anxiety keeps a hold of us

It will ruin your life , a life you should be enjoying if you let it but you can take that control back

Rather than spending all this money on tests , the best thing I did was get Counselling /therapy .....spend your money on that if you can and get the help you need

We have to learn to change our way of thinking , it is not easy but with the right help it can be done

You are not on your own , you are not the first to feel and think the way you do and sadly you won't be the last , but what you can do is get better and slowly you will

Take Care x

[Icanbeathis2016]

You are totally not alone in this. Everything that you mentioned I can totally say I have feared and many times still am in your shoes as far as the convincing and ruminating thoughts. It's a slippery slope of dark clouds and worries and fears and "what ifs". This link to my channel is not about me trying to market anything. I simply want to prove to you that you are not alone. I basically talk about my anxiety journey in these videos from all my ruminating thoughts, my fears, my tales of this anxiety. Feel free to look at them.

Just know that I completely understand.

Wish us the best.

youtube.com/channel/UCnL8f1...

[SpiritualT]

You are not alone. I suffer with severe health anxiety, I have copious amounts of medical testing (see my previous post) and it still does not reassure you that there is nothing wrong, for example I was convinced and I mean utterly convinced I had stomach cancer. I had a OGD and even a colonoscopy and it was clear, did it stop there???? Absolutely not couple of days later I went to hospital for chest pain because I thought I was having a heart attack (I’m 34 with no risk factors) and once I was reassured about that I had a pain in my side which convinced me I had pancreatic cancer. I always self diagnose myself. The thing is the more testing you get done the more restrictive your life becomes because you constantly need that reassurance. When we are sensitised our bodies will produce symptoms have to try and practice acceptance of a worn out nervous system as opposed to it being something medical. Simple but not easy.

[SpiritualT]

I also had an MRI where they found non specific white spots in my brain. I had a doctor told me it was showing signs of MS (I was absolutely distraught and was vomiting and shaking) an hour later a doctor came and told me the doctor only glimpsed at my scan and got it wrong it wasn’t MS just a few non specific white spots with no medical significance.

My point is with all these tests I was having done when they did find something what could I do about it???? Absolutely nothing.

[Kkimm]

Hi

I really feel for you. The person who replied and said it is really important to have therapy is correct. This is however not always easily assessable or affordable. CBT of some sort may be the most effective that is available.

Another option that you could take is to consider antidepressants. I had severe anxiety triggered in a very similar way to yours and showing the same symptoms and many more. The antidepressant Venlafaxine worked wonders for me. 4 months down the line I was alot better and after a year I was fully recovered. It is not an easy fix as you can feel worse before you feel better and it can be difficult to get off antidepressants if you decide you want to. I do not think that far ahead and am happy to take them as long as I need them, for life, if they continue to keep me well as I could not face going through what you are going through again.Now on them Life is as full and rewarding as it has ever been now.

You deserve to get your life back and your family need you.

Feel free to message me any time if you want to talk more.

Very best wishes.

Kim

[Cat33]

I would recommend you try CBT They will help you rationalise your fears and give you strategies to help

Good luck remember you are not alone in this

[SpiritualT in reply to Cat33]

I’ve had endless CBT

[Arlene99 in reply to SpiritualT]

Hi....I would just like to add the I am going through cbt at the moment & to be honest I don’t really feel any benefit....there is no quick fix with anxiety, but have experienced it for so long now, I just try to ride with the bad patches ( not easy though) & wait to come through the other side again. Would be interested to know what you thought of CBT if it was helpful x

[Demeter1975]

It's so debilitating.

I suffer from health anxiety. I have a fear of being dizzy and don't believe that anxiety is the cause of it. I have spent 8 hours of a whole day at one stage googling diseases. I am on anti-depressants but sometimes think, what if they aren't working... what if I have some disease and they can't find what it is. What if there meds don't work. So when I panic, I can get dizzy or have vertigo, which makes me worse. I have been reading books on health anxiety and trying to find reassurance through them rather than Google. It's like an addiction, I used to go to the Dr and ask him to check my ears for imbalance and it is so hard not to give in and go.

[Dennis1234]

Wow. What you are going through is very hard and trust me you aren’t alone. A month ago, I had similar issues... I am not going to state it here because there is a high chance you will find the symthoms on yourself because thats exactly what happened. I was able to hold myself to not go to the doctor. Remember your other health anxieties, you probably do not have cancer. I also got scared of skin cancer. It usually peaks after several days and goes away. If you always go to the doctor, you will give your anxiety chances to debate and it will come back like it is so it is very normal but try to not go to the doctor. Be strong. If you go to the doctor you will spend more and more money on endless amount of health concerns :/ Don’t worry it goes away trust me. Just wait a few days and live the hell and just like a panic attack it never lasted forever. Mine lasted 3 days with an increasing severity. It was very bad, I had dizziness, lightheadedness, I felt like I was going to die and I had this extreme nausea and stomach pain which I had no idea what it was. Anxiety will cause weird symthoms lol.