I inflicted serious mental suffering on myself again today.
First of all I read something that said ‘clubbed fingers’ were a sign of liver disease, so I immediately thought of my two swollen fingers index fingers and convinced myself I’d got them (‘clubbed fingers’, that is) but then I read a little further and found it wasn’t what I thought it was, and remembered that they’d been that way for several years and were caused by my arthritis.
I then convinced myself that the palms of my hands were red - Palmar Erythema, to give it its posh name - and took this as a certain sign that my liver was about to fail, but then I remembered I’d just washed up in very warm soapy water, and so I promptly dismissed that one when my hands cooled down again.
Both these things sound almost laughable now, but are indicative of the kind of agonies that I’m suffering every day as a result of this terrible health anxiety.
I’d give anything to be free of it, but I didn’t see my doctor again until next Wednesday, so it feels like a long, long time before I might be able to get any qualified medical help, in which case - and as hard as I’ll resist them - I know I almost certainly give a safe landing space to any other kinds of false fears that come my way.
One very interesting realisation has come to mind in these last few weeks, and that’s that after every severe outburst of anxiety, I expound so much nervous energy in the worry that I am shattered when the worst of it has passed. I feel seriously worn out after the worst of the ‘storm’ has subsided even they I’d had more than sufficient energy when the frightening thoughts first entered my head.
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Kellan38
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I am like you graham every symptom I get is a serious illness yesterday I went for a MASSAGE and last nite I had tingling and convinced myself I was taking a stroke today I had runny stools now convinced I got bowel cancer it just goes from one thing too another I have been trying to get a health anxiety therapist in Scotland but struggling
Thank you so much for your reply. It arrived at the perfect time because I’ve had a better day, but my mood has really dipped in the last hour as the symptoms have been starting up again, and when they do I get very stressed and frightened, and when I get very stressed and frightened my symptoms get even worse. It’s a nasty, vicious cycle that I’d give anything to beat, and I’ve tried everything I can think off, but nothing at all has been close to working yet.
You mentioned ‘runny stools’ and I, too, have a recent story about that.
A friend rang me two weeks ago, and during the conversation she said that she had ‘runny stools’ too (It’s tea-time and I’m trying really hard not to say ‘diorrhea’), and that she’d had the problem for several months. I immediately panicked, and even though though my bowels had been perfectly calm all day, they immediately went crazy with the result that I had ‘runny stools’ myself for 2 full days, all of which convinced me that I was suffering from cancer, too.
This is horrible mindset to have, and we are so very skilled at capable of inflicting terrible self harm on ourselves, so please be assured of my genuine sympathy over this.
I have another appointment with my GP next Wednesday, and an appointment with a counsellor a day or so after that, but I’m already really scared at what tests the GP might order and what I fear they’ll find.
Again, you have my sympathy over this, and I’m always here if you want a chat.
Have to say Graham my gp has been great and I went for bloods today and the nurse said wow you are getting a full mot so hopefully nothing shows up I also feel more anxious during the winter months I understand where it all comes from graham I had an infected blood clot last year and was hospitalized for 17 days confined too a drip then my partner was diagnosed with prostate cancer in September this year he has had his prostate removed and doing great but knowing all this dosent help
Heck, you had it rough last year but it’ll hopefully be better for you now.
I feel almost ‘detached’ from normal life for most of the time now. The fears have almost entirely taken over my every thinking moment, and I feel like a city that has been overrun with angry conquering troops, and I have no means at my disposal of removing them and having my normal life restored.
I’d love to drown my fears in a couple of pints tonight, but I know for that’s only guaranteed to make things much, much worse.
Know how you feel graham and your right a couple of pints may help short term but def worse tomorrow my doctor put me on trazadone it helps me sleep but didn't last night always worse when I don't get proper sleep
GrahamB8, let me explain to you why you are worrying needlessly. When we become subject to anxiety disorder our nervous system becomes super sensitive. In this state our mind automatically exaggerates all our minor fears and concerns by a factor of 10 or more.Nobody wants to die before their time but multiply that feeling tenfold and you have someone convinced they are going to die shortly.
Everybody gets minor aches, pains and sprains but multiply the irritation tenfold and you have someone convinced that the ache is cancer.
Everyone gets indigestion occasionally but the anxious mind exaggerates that into an impending heart attack. When in fact it's nothing of the sort. It's just health anxiety doing what it does best: making our lives a misery of needless worry when we should be enjoying life.
You may well have realised all this yourself long ago - but merely knowing it doesn't mean we can switch it off. Our nerves have become far too over-sensitised for that.
May I suggest two things that in the fullness of time can bring about your complete recovery and restore your quiet mind?
Something must have happened to so overload your mind with anxiety and stress that your nerves become super sensitive. It may be over work, grief, loss, toxic relationships, disappointment, guilt or money worries. Or many other causes. But if you haven't already neutralised the problem that has caused your anxiety disorder then you must do it now. This may involve you having to be ruthless and draw on hidden reserves of courage and strength. But do it you must because nobody should be expected to bear the burden that you carry!
Often the original cause of our nervous sensitisation becomes a thing of the past but the cycle of fear-symptoms-fear-symptoms-fear we have entered self perpetuates the feelings of high anxiety and resulting symptoms.
Graham, there is a way to break the cycle of fear and calm your nerves allowing you to see things that now terrify you in perspective. You can overcome the fear on which sensitised nerves feed. You must replace the fear you feel with something else.
That something else is Acceptance. No I don't mean you just accept the symptoms of your anxiety forever, that's ridiculous. I mean that FOR THE TIME BEING you accept all the bad thoughts and feelings. Let them come. Do nothing to resist them. Fighting only causes more stress and strain making matters worse.
Simply accept everything that jangled nerves send your way: knowing that they are false ideas and fake feelings that can do you no harm. Do nothing else. It's called 'masterly inactivity'. As a result you stop feeding your sensitive nerves with fear hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. Result: your nervous system loses its super sensitivity, stops sending you false worries and so calm returns to your troubled mind.
That's the story, Graham. The way out of the nightmare. And you CAN do it believe you me because millions have used the method of Acceptance devised over 50 years ago by Claire Weekes to recover. And there's no reason you shouldn't be next.
If you only read one more book in your life then 'Self help for your nerves' by Claire Weekes is that book.
Thank you so much for taking the time to write to me as you did. I appreciate that so much, and what you’ve done for me might well be the very thing that turns me round and gives me my life back.
I’m sure I’ll be e-reading your post again a few times during the day, and I’m intending to have a look at some of your other posts, too, as I’m now ‘following’ you on the this forum.
Perhaps most importantly, I’ve taken your advice and have ordered the book you’ve recommended, and I’m expecting it to arrive sometime tomorrow.
Thank you so much again, Jeff, for all your help so far, and I’m looking forward to being in touch again in the forthcoming days and weeks.
Graham, that book you have ordered, which I clumsily tried to encapsulate in my post, has changed untold numbers of lives since first published more than 50 years ago. One Professor of Psychiatry suggests the total runs into millions!It is concise, easy to understand (hardly any technical terms) and as you read it you feel that the author, Claire Weekes, knows you personally and is speaking to you directly.
Always remember: just acquiring the knowledge of her method does not restore your quiet mind. It is the days and weeks of practice that bring respite and recovery.
I wish you well. One thing's for sure, after reading her book your life will never be the same again. It brings understanding, reassurance and a method that allows us to eventually rebuild our lives.
Her biography was recently published and its title says it all: "Claire Weekes - The woman who cracked the anxiety code."
I felt a duty to write to you you this morning to apologise for the comments I posted yesterday in which I basically said I’d had enough and couldn’t take any more of all the fears and all the worry about what I might or might not have.
Having slept on all those comments, I realise that it was absolutely no help at all to all the people on here who have a lot more courage than me in dealing with their problems.
I really didn’t mean to throw your help back in your face, but I apologise to you personally, and to everyone else who reads this, if that’s what I seemed to do,
Thank you again for all your help, and very grateful thanks again for trying to help me, even if those efforts have efforts have ultimately been in vain. The failures are/were entirely mine, and mine alone.,
Graham, I have read nothing here for which you need to apologise. As you haven't yet had a chance to read Doctor Weekes' book it's too early to say your effort here has been in vain. You got a good response from others, a couple of days exchanging posts here is only the beginning of the support and encouragement you will receive here.
The book duly arrived today, and I’m getting on with reading it.
I think I’m doing OK, and have been trying to practice the ‘accepting’ part of the technique, but I have to be honest and admit that I failed after only a disappointingly short while.
I will stick at it, however, partly because I it must be good to have worked for so many people, but also partly because I’m beginning to see the logic in the theory , even though the actual practice of it seems entirely counter intuitive, and doesn’t sound like it should work.
Thank you again for helping me, Jeff, and I’ll be back in touch with more thoughts as I try to make the practice work for me.
Graham, you appear to have read a few pages on the Acceptance aspect of Weekes' method, decided you couldn't make it work and are disappointed.Sorry Graham but that's not how it works. You have to read the whole book, maybe more than once, and make sure you fully understand her six word protocol of 'Face. Accept. Float. Let time pass.'
Then when you're ready you start to practice it but there's no question of immediate results. This is no quick fix, far from it, your recovery will take weeks, maybe even months. You probably spent years getting your nerves into their present state of over-sensitivity, don't expect to overcome that in half an afternoon.
But you have discovered that the path to progress depends on doing that which is counter-intuitive.
For example, when faced with the symptoms of anxiety disorder, our instinct is to fight them. But fighting only causes more stress and strain, more anxiety hormones, when in fact we need LESS of these not MORE. That's why fighting only makes things worse condemning us to the vicious circle of symptoms causing fear causing more symptoms causing more fear causing more symptoms.
Instead of fighting we Accept, we do nothing, we agree to coexist with the symptoms (for the time being).
Instead of reacting to the flash of first fear with second fear, we do nothing. We do not add even more fear/anxiety hormones into our nervous system. That which we resist will persist!
I'm so sorry I gave you the impression that Doctor Weekes' method can be mastered and begin to produce results in just half an afternoon.
I do not know of any self help method, type of therapy or even medication that can bring respite in half an afternoon. Except Diazepam of course but nobody would want to take that every few hours for the rest of their life and no doctor would prescribe it to be used in that way.
I sincerely wish you good luck in your search for an instant solution to health anxiety and all the other asscociated disorders. I have to confess though that in 50 years I have never heard of such a quick-fix solution.
I hope I didn’t give the impression that I was in any way giving up as that’s certainly not the case.
I think it would have helped if I had explained that I think part of my difficulty lays in the fact that I’m not sure whether my problem - ie the itching - is the result of my anxiety over an imagined (or feared) problem and that I am ‘feeding’ the problem by my worrying, or whether it is being brought about by an underlying systemic condition such as the emerging symptoms of cancer.
I’m so sorry if I in any way gave any impression that I didn’t like the book - I do, and I think it’s very good - but it’s just the fact that I’ve reached a stumbling point because of the uncertainty of the root cause of my presenting problem.
I’m devoting more time again this evening to try to move further into the book, and Ill continue to report back as I go along.
Graham, as you understood in your main post, with health anxiety half our brain believes we have some serious illness, the other half knows very well it's fake.That's why we're having this conversation on 'Anxiety Support' not 'Cancer Support'.
First for reassurance you talk to your doctor who may send you for tests. When those tests come back with the all-clear you may well repeat the clichée of health anxiety which is "Maybe they've got it wrong!"
It seems to me that you are still on the first part of Weekes' protocols: Face. This involves facing the fact that you have health anxiety and not the real thing, a fake illness as you describe it.
Funnily enough about a month ago I had itching all over, the more you test for it the more you feel it. But I accepted it and forgot about it and sure enough there are no signs of it now.
I saw my GP again this morning, and he said that as my only symptom is itching, he thinks it’s extremely unlikely that I have cancer.
He also said he thought there’d be more presenting systems than itching if there was very much wrong with my liver - which I know that people on this forum would strongly dispute - but that he would arrange a panel of blood tests for me, and I’m seeing the nurse tomorrow to have them done.
He prescribed me some more cream to try to sort the itching, and even though I’m very doubtful that it might work, I’ll try it nonetheless, and adhere to the doctor’s instructions until we can find the actual cause. It’s all down to the blood tests then now, and I doubt if I’ll hear anything back before the weekend, so I’m pretty much in limbo again now.
Just going back to what you said about the cliche that says ‘Maybe they got it wrong’, and I can completely identify with that one! I’ve thought that so many times, and tend to be swayed by the assertions that I’ve heard on forums like this so many times that ‘blood tests don’t prove anything’, which I’ve been too afraid to doubt since it was first said to me. I do suspect, however, that there was also some merit in the counter assertion that I read that anything really major could fail to show up at some point, but of course my health anxiety comes back to me saying it’s to risky to believe that…
So you had had itching yourself a few weeks ago? Do you mind me asking how long you had it, and how long it went on?
I don't believe that 'blood tests don't tell anything.' That is not my experience. I believe that if you had liver cancer you would be presenting with a lot more symptoms, as your doctor rightly says. How long did my itching last? Can't remember as I believed it was a fake symptom and paid little attention to it.May I suggest you think about the following statement:
"You can't cure yourself of an illness you don't have no matter how hard you try."
Always concentrate on dealing with the cause - anxiety disorder. Not the 'fake' symptoms.
I trust your judgement and your opinions, and I feel a little bit better for the things you’ve said.
You’ll see that I’ve written another, longer post which I’ve just addd to the forum which is an update on my latest appointment today. I just feels I wanted to keep people informed as to how I’m doing.
With hindsight, I think I might be adding to my problems by constantly posting about them here, but I think I do it to ‘collect’ assurances even though I know that’s not a great way of carrying on.
I have a telephone counselling appointment tomorrow that my GP arranged through our local Mental Wellbeing Service, so I’ll be discussing the book with them, and seeing what they have to say. I’ll be back in touch with you on that tomorrow if I don’t get back to you before.
Thank your so much again for all your help, and have a happy rest of the da6.,
Its highly unlikely that your Wellbeing Service will have heard of Weekes' book though much modern therapy is based on her concept of Acceptance but worth mentioning, you never know. Good luck.
I wasn’t aware of that, Jeff, and I haven’t been informed, but I suppose that’s entirely the prerogative of the admin, team, so there’s nothing I can say.
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Never delay seeking advice or dialling emergency services because of something that you have read on HealthUnlocked.
xx
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