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[IsItMe2]

This pain that I'm having now is just alongside the tips of my right ribs and it's sharp and intermittent. At times it's dull and radiates through the back and it feels like I have a tumor growing underneath my ribs. It is not cancer and it's not gallbladder stones and it's not my liver or pancreas that's growing a painful bubble; it's effen anxiety that causes all these syndromes and weird but painful symptoms all the time. IBS too is caused by stress/anxiety; all diseases are. It is called DISease... I am so stupid for worrying so much that I might have cancer or other serious issues when it is anxiety that brings about all this pain! You know most of us with anxiety will first think of cancer, even though one will KNOW they have cancer by the time it starts hurting and there is no reason to think of cancer when there are so many other conditions that make more sense or that are more prevalent.

In many cases, like mine, it's anxiety. Before this liver/galbladder/"canceratitis" pain, I had another "canceratitis" pain that pulled thousands of $ out of my pocket to find nothing - it was an esophagus pain that lasted a few months. It would radiate all the way through my ribcage and under my right breast and even lower into my back ribs on my right side. I felt every gulp of water going down and every ball of chewed food that would go down my esophagus and it would even hurt at times, shooting pain through my lung - it felt like - under my right breast and into the side of the ribs. I even got to the emergency room once because the doc said it might be pulmonary embolism and only the emergency room could do a blood test for such a scary condition fast enough. OMG, was I stupid to follow his advice!!! $975 later, no pulmonary embolism.

The other costly "canceratitis" I had was a few years ago when for about a year I had throat pain only on my right side, pain that would radiate through my ear and my tongue even, and I saw soooooo may specialists and ran so many tests, doctors got tired of me, silently judging me. But you see, when it hurts and you have no answers, you worry. So you go to the doctor and they are trained in a way that benefits the pharmaceutical industry so they don't suggest anxiety (why would they when you can continue costly pointless investigation) and will also try to get rid of you as fast as possible because the System pays them by the number of patients, not by how well they make you.

I took a few other trips to the ER back when anxiety sneaked into my life 5 years ago: OMG, heart attack! OMG, aneurism! OMG, sudden death! OMG, stroke! OMG, I'm fainting! And you know how doctors at the ER will run every test there is, because it's what they're trained to do, even though you're touching your nose OK and your reactions are normal, they still suggest to get a head MRI like it's only five bucks, and the anxious you who still has the finger touching the nose agrees to it, just to make sure it's not a stroke that left the finger out. I bet that half of the ER is just coo-coos like me who panic about persistent pains and accelerated breathing during panic attacks. "Yeah, I'm having a panic attack, but this heavy breathing could ALSO be caused by a cancerous heart attacking stroke".

So listen... my advice is this: if it's something BAD, you will know. Remember: cancer only hurts in later stages when it's large enough to press on nerves around it. Before then you feel ill. Not ill like nauseous because of anxiety, but ill from the body, not the mind.

I'm tired of letting anxiety make everything worse and bring about all these pains I think about. Because EVERY TIME I think about the pain I'm feeling, it gets worse. and EVERY TIME I've gotten to the bottom of things (for us anxious people that means "I don't care what the bottom is as long as I know it's not cancer"), EVERY TIME my symptoms started fading away until the pain was completely gone and then my amygdala finds another way (a different kind of pain in a different part of the body) to alarm me that something's not right and I always assume it's my other organs and not the brain, but it's ALWAYS anxiety. I'm done. Let it hurt and get over it. It's just too bad that this healthy body is governed by such an unhealthy brain...

[Hidden]

I was going to suggest Gall Bladder problems but I see you had that checked out? Anxiety [I KNOW] can cause so many, many symptoms WHICH CAUSE SUCH WORRY. I KNOW how you must feel.. I feel sosorry for you having togo through your problems and then face exhorbitant dr./hospital charges. Thank God we live in Canada. We still pay premiums but it's based on your yearly income plus you pay for your meds again based on yrly. income. We are so lucky. I don't know how you manage it in the USA [IF tat's where you are]. Unfortnuately you have the only option of having to go to doctors/emerg/hosp. to find a diagnosis and my heart goes out to you. If it IS anxiety simple meds can take care of you. I wish you the best.

[IsItMe2 in reply to Hidden]

Yeah, Canada rocks when it comes to healthcare. It rocks in many ways, actually. I love the US, I just hate its government.

It's not the gallbladder; I had everything checked out. It's anxiety, like always in my case...

[karenkoala]

I know exactly how you feel! I've had the worst IBS flare up since the beginning of the year, numerous (costly!) tests later I went on an elimination diet after the food intolerance blood tests and ended up with worst pains in my stomach. Went back to eating my "normal" diet and got the worst acid/heartburn/reflux which when it's bad makes me think I've got heart problems as I get palpitations, weird feelings in my chest or alternatively I get a slow irregular heartbeat. All this makes my anxiety even worse which leads to more pains, etc and it's just a vicious cycle. I'm scared to mention the "heart" issue to my GP as I can't face being sent for cardiac testing too as last time that happened a few years ago my heart was racing so much they wouldn't let me off the ECG table and called an emergency cardiologist to read the results - then I had to see one for more (costly!) tests and nothing was found.

[IsItMe2 in reply to karenkoala]

If you tell your doctor about your heart, he/she will send you in for testing, for sure. You know it's anxiety that's causing it though, so why waste the money. I'm sure your heart is fine. I can't tell you how many times I've gone to the ER for palpitations! It's always anxiety in my case.

[Hidden]

And what about the poor people that do have cancer??!!!!!

[IsItMe2 in reply to Hidden]

My point is, chances are most don't. So why waste time panicking and money testing and re-testing for things deep down you know you don't have. I don't know whether you suffer from anxiety, but it's a burdensome condition and all I'm trying to do here is to help other anxiety sufferers understand that if the doc says you're fine after a couple of tests, one should quit "what if-ing".

My understanding is that out of 7.4 billion people on Earth only 0.19 have cancer, so it's not as prevalent as we think. Again, chances are we're fine and we should stop worrying because it doesn't help in any way, even those "poor people that do have cancer".