First time I notice my Health Anxiety and the symptoms are worrisome

[aega98]

I'm 22 and I think I've suffered from health anxiety since I was a kid, but I didn't realize it until now. I remember that many years ago I thought I was suffering from heart disease, and ruled it out after some tests. Recently, my mom told me the doctor said to her that I was probably having anxiety.

Last year I practically forced my doctor to schedule a colonoscopy because I was presenting very localized pain in the abdomen and blood in stools, I was, of course, thinking the worse. Fortunately, it was only a case of amoebas, I got treated and the symptoms disappeared.

These months, during quarantine, the pain came back so I took the treatment again. After that my symptoms went away again. But constipation started (I had never had it so I was a little worried). Days later, and after taking two laxatives, I started feeling pain in the upper abdomen, just below the ribs, like classic acid reflux.

Until that moment I was not too anxious, I think, and all the symptoms could be normal consequences of the medication for amoebas and the laxatives. But I started googling. What a mistake! After reading all about GERD and acid reflux I tried hard to sleep in an inclined (and very uncomfortable) manner, which led to.. neck pain and numbness in the head, and the hell began.

One thing led to the other, and suddenly I was reading all about meningitis, multiple sclerosis, ALS, diabetes, brain tumors... and eventually I found about Anxiety and how it can produce all kinds of neurological symptoms, muscular tension, tingling, numbness, cramps, and many others... And voila!, that same night I had all of those symptoms and what I think was a panic attack. I experienced tingling, numbness, twitching, and itching all across my body at the same time while trying to sleep.

That scared me a lot and I decided to do something about it. I started with meditation (with the app Headspace), and I'm trying to fix my sleep schedule which is broken because of quarantine. I want to say that by now all my digestive symptoms are solved and I have managed to diminish my other 'neurological' symptoms. But there are some that persist, specifically, I sometimes feel a funny feeling (like tickling or tingling) in the top and back of my head or tension headaches across the head or in the right side, or pain in the front or in my temples. Also, I feel a mild muscle twitching on my left thumb toe that lasts for hours. I also feel it in the right thumb toe but is milder. Pain in both wrists is also frequent and pain like needles in some fingers. Finally, my neck and the muscles of my upper back are a bit stiff. I have ruled out diabetes and meningitis but MS and a brain tumor are my present worries.

Sorry, I know it's too long but I needed to talk this out. I'm worried because these remaining symptoms look more consistent and localized and although they aren't present the entire day, they are for hours. Is it normal for anxiety to produce these kinds of symptoms so consistent in the same spots? The most worrisome is the twitching in the left foot and the tingling in my head, and that they don't always appear when I'm nervous but often when I'm calmed...

Thank you all for reading through this. Only having this post help me a lot!

 

[H.J.J.C.]

I am not a doctor, but like you, I have HA--and have for many years. HA can cause strange symptoms which come and go seemingly without rhyme or reason. This produces a feedback loop--the more symptoms, the more anxiety; the more anxiety, the more symptoms. And Dr. Google only exacerbates the problem. I presume you have a doctor whom you trust. If not, find one you CAN trust. My doc is a "less is more" kind of guy. His treatments (if necessary) are incremental. And thankfully, he listens to me and does not dismiss my concerns--real or imaginary. This seems to work for me, lessening, but not eliminating, my HA. He told me that anxiety especially wreaks havoc on the gut--causing all sorts of digestive/elimination issues.
I think that those of us with HA are acutely sensitive individuals which can be a bad thing when we turn that over-sensitivity inward to our bodies. By all means, if you are concerned about a symptom, contact your doc. He or she has the knowledge to weigh the importance of a symptom and to consider the interaction of one symptom with another, and whether some sort of treatment is indicated. There is a subtlety to diagnosing illness which your doc's many years of schooling and experience provide him or her. Dr. Google does not have it! And neither do we.
Take good care.

 

[BejeweledMexican]

I'm 22 and I think I've suffered from health anxiety since I was a kid, but I didn't realize it until now. I remember that many years ago I thought I was suffering from heart disease, and ruled it out after some tests. Recently, my mom told me the doctor said to her that I was probably having anxiety.

Last year I practically forced my doctor to schedule a colonoscopy because I was presenting very localized pain in the abdomen and blood in stools, I was, of course, thinking the worse. Fortunately, it was only a case of amoebas, I got treated and the symptoms disappeared.

These months, during quarantine, the pain came back so I took the treatment again. After that my symptoms went away again. But constipation started (I had never had it so I was a little worried). Days later, and after taking two laxatives, I started feeling pain in the upper abdomen, just below the ribs, like classic acid reflux.

Until that moment I was not too anxious, I think, and all the symptoms could be normal consequences of the medication for amoebas and the laxatives. But I started googling. What a mistake! After reading all about GERD and acid reflux I tried hard to sleep in an inclined (and very uncomfortable) manner, which led to.. neck pain and numbness in the head, and the hell began.

One thing led to the other, and suddenly I was reading all about meningitis, multiple sclerosis, ALS, diabetes, brain tumors... and eventually I found about Anxiety and how it can produce all kinds of neurological symptoms, muscular tension, tingling, numbness, cramps, and many others... And voila!, that same night I had all of those symptoms and what I think was a panic attack. I experienced tingling, numbness, twitching, and itching all across my body at the same time while trying to sleep.

That scared me a lot and I decided to do something about it. I started with meditation (with the app Headspace), and I'm trying to fix my sleep schedule which is broken because of quarantine. I want to say that by now all my digestive symptoms are solved and I have managed to diminish my other 'neurological' symptoms. But there are some that persist, specifically, I sometimes feel a funny feeling (like tickling or tingling) in the top and back of my head or tension headaches across the head or in the right side, or pain in the front or in my temples. Also, I feel a mild muscle twitching on my left thumb toe that lasts for hours. I also feel it in the right thumb toe but is milder. Pain in both wrists is also frequent and pain like needles in some fingers. Finally, my neck and the muscles of my upper back are a bit stiff. I have ruled out diabetes and meningitis but MS and a brain tumor are my present worries.

Sorry, I know it's too long but I needed to talk this out. I'm worried because these remaining symptoms look more consistent and localized and although they aren't present the entire day, they are for hours. Is it normal for anxiety to produce these kinds of symptoms so consistent in the same spots? The most worrisome is the twitching in the left foot and the tingling in my head, and that they don't always appear when I'm nervous but often when I'm calmed...

Thank you all for reading through this. Only having this post help me a lot!

Hello! I was about your age when I started suffering from HA and it's been a constant battle for the past 6 years, BUT you will start to get better. Your situation sounds similar to mine, though I ended up just having hemorrhoids but I had to change my diet in order to really help me get any relief. You could talk to your doctor about going gluten free or dairy free, honestly both helped me immensely and they don't have to be forever diets!
Personally, I recommend talking to a therapist. You can have friends and family that love you to death and want to help you but sometimes they make matters worse and to top it all of, we don't always do so good in the fight by ourselves. We tend to be our own worst enemy sometimes, or at least our mind is. I highly recommend finding a therapist you trust as well as coming here and talking to everyone as often as you need! We understand the struggle and we're here for each other. I would also recommend finding things that help you relax, I know that's helped me in the past with my tension headaches. Personally I love taking a hot shower in silence and then coming to my bed with my heating pad, a favorite snack, and my favorite tv show. It's really helped with relaxing. The last thing I would recommend to you, that my former therapist helped me with, is setting aside a time every day to 'worry', but only for like 5-10 minutes. This means when something pops up throughout the day that wants to make you worry you say, "I don't have time to worry about this. I'll write it down and when my worry time comes later THEN I'll worry about it." Set aside that time everyday for those worries, and honestly, a lot of the time you forget about them by the time the worry time comes! I'm not an expert at all and many other HA members have much better advice than me, I know my worries and struggles have been changing overtime so I'm always learning something new, but I hope that maybe this helped a little! You're not in the fight alone!

 

[H.J.J.C.]

Hello! I was about your age when I started suffering from HA and it's been a constant battle for the past 6 years, BUT you will start to get better. Your situation sounds similar to mine, though I ended up just having hemorrhoids but I had to change my diet in order to really help me get any relief. You could talk to your doctor about going gluten free or dairy free, honestly both helped me immensely and they don't have to be forever diets!
Personally, I recommend talking to a therapist. You can have friends and family that love you to death and want to help you but sometimes they make matters worse and to top it all of, we don't always do so good in the fight by ourselves. We tend to be our own worst enemy sometimes, or at least our mind is. I highly recommend finding a therapist you trust as well as coming here and talking to everyone as often as you need! We understand the struggle and we're here for each other. I would also recommend finding things that help you relax, I know that's helped me in the past with my tension headaches. Personally I love taking a hot shower in silence and then coming to my bed with my heating pad, a favorite snack, and my favorite tv show. It's really helped with relaxing. The last thing I would recommend to you, that my former therapist helped me with, is setting aside a time every day to 'worry', but only for like 5-10 minutes. This means when something pops up throughout the day that wants to make you worry you say, "I don't have time to worry about this. I'll write it down and when my worry time comes later THEN I'll worry about it." Set aside that time everyday for those worries, and honestly, a lot of the time you forget about them by the time the worry time comes! I'm not an expert at all and many other HA members have much better advice than me, I know my worries and struggles have been changing overtime so I'm always learning something new, but I hope that maybe this helped a little! You're not in the fight alone!

Well said! HA manifests itself differently in each of us and talk therapy can often discover the best tactic(s) we can use to hold HA at bay!

 

[aega98]

Thank you both, I really appreciate it. Well, I think one of my major concerns is that the current situation (the pandemic and basically my country's circumstances) is not appropriate for me to visit the doctor unless I present serious illness, at least that's what my mom tells me. She said it's not worth it to take the COVID-19 risk when it could all be anxiety-related, and I think the same as her most of the time. On the other hand, right now I don't know any doctor I can talk about this. So, at least for now, I have to handle this by myself, that's why I came here. Having said that, I found some relief in your words.

It's good to know you all have experienced gut problems because of this. Some years ago I was just fine and after all the amoeba situation that worried me for months, nothing has been the same, even though I was treated and the pain was gone. I think that it contributed to my anxiety taking root.

I'm trying to do what I like, to code, well, actually I'm just learning and I've been doing it during all this quarantine. But I think lately it hasn't been so healthy, I mean, being for hours sitting in front of the computer is not the best for the neck, and probably it has a connection to the variety of symptoms I've experienced, which then I tend to boost. So I think I'll take your approach of just relaxing in bed while watching some nice tv shows, and I'll try the 5-minutes-for-worrying technique for sure.

Again, thank you both for taking the time. I wish you the best!