Hi there. I will not mention the name of the illness because I don’t want to trigger anyone but it started with symptoms here and there in my body. Now I don’t know if sometimes what I feel is anxiety and sometimes what I feel is the illness. Has anybody ever have been in the situation as well and how did they handle it?
I’ve been diagnosed with a serious illness, how do you other people with health anxiety handle this kind of situation?
- Thread starter LotusTree
- Start date
Interestingly enough, I had to take a Tylenol today for sore neck and sore hip which worked quite nicely. And it relaxed me from my anxiety as well and now my body feels much better. It’s just too bad I can’t get in the habit of that. Thank you for your reply.
Cuchculan
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Apr 14, 2019
- Messages
- 4,810
- Reaction score
- 3,573
You know this is why so many people with health anxiety think they have a serious illness. Things can overlap with each other. Some look symptoms up. They see an illness that matches their symptoms. They assume they have that illness. In your case, with a serious illness, it will be hard to know one from the other. At best, if anxiety, the symptoms can go away. With an illness, the symptoms are always there.
It’s quite amazing that the relief of pain can also give us some anxiety relief. I’ve noticed that when I am in pain for whatever reason, I tense up quite a bit which then gets the anxiety riled up too. Very good observation on your part.
I've been diagnosed with potentially serious things a few times; luckily they've shaken out in my favor thus far. It's a different kind of fear when you're told "you're right, this is really happening." I can't say I've ever dealt well with it. But this sounds like something you'd want to let your doctor in on and also see if they can refer you to a counselor or social worker within the medical facility. If they don't offer that, you can ask for recommendations on where to go. No shame in needing outside support in the time of a new diagnosis; I've seen therapists list it as a sub-specialty.
bigjetplane23
Active Member
- Joined
- May 31, 2022
- Messages
- 343
- Reaction score
- 239
You have been told you potentially have something bad then? And in the end it wasn’t what they thought?
Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say they THOUGHT that's what it was. They were serious possibilities that needed to be looked into in a timely fashion, but I wasn't told "I think this is the worst case scenario." For example, I had a fibroid that was abnormal. I was told it was a 25% chance of being an extremely rare type of cancer. (Cancerous fibroids in general are one in a thousand, if that.) They still thought it was more likely it wasn't that, but it was a real possibility I needed to consider when deciding how I wanted to treat the entire situation (hysterectomy vs. just taking the fibroid out). It was an equally rare type of atypical fibroid.
I had a biopsy come back positive for thyroid cancer. After I had my thyroid removed, it got downgraded to pre-cancer. Now I do regret that I had my thyroid out when it wasn't necessary, but it fooled one of the top surgeons in the city; nothing much you can do about that! And it would've needed to come out anyway at some point.
I had true numbness that concerned my doctor. He sent me to a neurologist immediately, who sent me for some scans. No specific cause found. Maybe it was leftover from my hysterectomy and I'd never noticed that particular area before, maybe it was a pinched nerve (I have a bunch of herniated discs), guess I'll never know. The feeling never came back, and I developed a similar patch on my back. Went to a neurologist for THAT, found out I'd lost a lot of hearing in one ear, got sent for another MRI to see what was going on there, but in the meantime also found out that I have no tumor or MS causing anything weird. Again, pinched nerve? Maybe. No way to know, but nothing serious. Oh, and I have some congenital issue with my ear on one side, which makes a ton of sense because my hearing on that side has always been poor.
An ER doctor once thought I had a spinal infection because I had back pain with a high fever and extremely high white cell count. Ironically, this was the time I was convinced I was fine and just wanted to go home with antibiotics for the UTI or kidney infection I was sure I had, paired with the flu I'd picked up from my dad. Amazingly, this was the ONE time I was right and the doctor was wrong. No spinal infection. My body had just responded to a very normal couple of infections by going absolutely bonkers for no reason. They kept me anyway; I slept off the fever and my blood tests were normal in the morning.
My mother also was diagnosed with probable ovarian cancer. It wasn't. Just a really weird cyst that was picked up incidentally.
Thx everyone for your contributions on this thread. Anxiety is part of the condition, as is depression. Both of which I had for many years before this diagnosis. Still waiting for MRI this weekend to rule out anything else and then we’ll prolly move onto treatment, which I am and I’m not looking fwd to (potential meds’ side fx nasty, possibly lotsa tweaking required). I’m tired of being sooooo fatigued, being dizzy, weak in the legs and having ongoing GI problems. Meanwhile a friend I care about deeply is prolly in the end stages of the awful C.
I really still have much to be grateful for.
I really still have much to be grateful for.
My health anxiety didn’t really start until I was diagnosed with my serious autoimmune disease. I remember hearing about someone with a different illness, and it caused me to spiral wondering if I had the same thing. I searched and searched any previous symptoms I had ever had and diagnosed myself before the doctor did. When I was officially diagnosed, it was that “I knew I was right” feeling. And now, any time I think I have something wrong with me, I get that same feeling. I was right once before about something serious, so I MUST be right again. However, it just usually isn’t the case. Lately, I’ve been writing down all of my “health worries” so I stop telling my spouse who is quite fed up with me telling him everything that could be wrong. It’s really tough to have a serious illness with health anxiety.