Serious question.

[bigjetplane23]

Have you guys ever had something that you looked at and looked and were convinced that it’s bad news because everytime you Google it, there’s nothing but the c word. Like literally no benign reason that you can find.
And when you actually go to the doctor, it’s not all bad news. And there’s actually hope that it could be something other than c.
I’m in a really dark please and just need some encouragement to get me through the state and gives me the courage to make an appointment. I want to hear stories

 

[Cuchculan]

One story from me. I woke one morning and I was coughing blood up. Never a good thing. Your mind jumps to its own conclusions. Did the right thing and went to the hospital. They done a load of tests and could find nothing at all. Then a handheld camera was used. Not put all the way down the throat. That gave us answers. There was a tear in the lining. Probably caused by eating something with a sharp edge on it. A crisp or anything similar. Simply tore the lining. Hence the blood when I coughed. Was given something to stop any infection and sent on my way. Turned out to be nothing much at all. When the mind first thought the worst things it could think.

 

[bigjetplane23]

One story from me. I woke one morning and I was coughing blood up. Never a good thing. Your mind jumps to its own conclusions. Did the right thing and went to the hospital. They done a load of tests and could find nothing at all. Then a handheld camera was used. Not put all the way down the throat. That gave us answers. There was a tear in the lining. Probably caused by eating something with a sharp edge on it. A crisp or anything similar. Simply tore the lining. Hence the blood when I coughed. Was given something to stop any infection and sent on my way. Turned out to be nothing much at all. When the mind first thought the worst things it could think.

Thank you for sharing.

 

[Jonathan123]

Have you guys ever had something that you looked at and looked and were convinced that it’s bad news because everytime you Google it, there’s nothing but the c word. Like literally no benign reason that you can find.
And when you actually go to the doctor, it’s not all bad news. And there’s actually hope that it could be something other than c.
I’m in a really dark please and just need some encouragement to get me through the state and gives me the courage to make an appointment. I want to hear stories

I replied to your other post which see. But you are obviously very worried. My anxiety began many years ago with palpitations. I wore out so many ECG machines being tested. (!!!!) There was no Googling then thank god. If I knew then what I now know I could have saved many years of suffering, But hang on! Would I have wanted to miss the anxiety? Looking back, no, I wouldn't. Now to many on here that may sound crazy, but it changed me and my attitude to life so much. It was a very salutary experience and knocked me off the pedestal that I had erected for myself in my mind. It brought me down to earth, and what followed from it after many years was nothing but good.
As the medieval monk said, 'The dark cloud that breaks with blessings on your head'. Yes, every dark cloud has a silver lining, but it takes some believing when in anxiety. I was asked in the beginning, 'do you want to get over this or go through it?' I said 'get over it'. WRONG!!! Going through it you experience the redemptive pain but emerge a better person. 'Getting over it' means you go back to the old ways that caused the problem in the first place.

 

[bigjetplane23]

But what if I can’t find a benign reason online and the more that I look and I look and look, I fall upon the c word and go down that rabbit hole. I know the only answer is to go to the doc, but right now, I don’t have the strength or courage friends….

 

[Cuchculan]

Stop looking online. Online is not your doctor. You will keeping finding these answers the more you search online. Thus you will only end up in a worse place. You are the only person who has control over what you do. We can make suggestions. You can either ignore them or listen to what we say. Right now I would say to visit a real doctor. Instead of believing everything you see online. That is the only way your mind will get some rest.

 

[Jonathan123]

Stop looking online. Online is not your doctor. You will keeping finding these answers the more you search online. Thus you will only end up in a worse place. You are the only person who has control over what you do. We can make suggestions. You can either ignore them or listen to what we say. Right now I would say to visit a real doctor. Instead of believing everything you see online. That is the only way your mind will get some rest.

Absolutely right! We can only make suggestions based on our own experiences. What works for one may not for another, but getting checked out is good for everyone. Lets try and be logical. (Difficult!!). Going to your doctor will do one of two things. Either you will be reassured or get some treatment. Either way you win. Please pluck up courage and go or you will just finish up in the old spiral of fear/anxiety/symptoms/fear.

 

[Belizz]

Yes I was once convinced that I got C because everything I read online made me think that way but then when I went to see the dr and got it checked it wasn't the case.
Then I realised that actually it was my perception, because my mind only saw the signs of it being a C, my mind didn't want to believe it was possibly a benign thing.
Stop googling, it's the worst thing you can do to yourself.

 

[Jonathan123]

Yes I was once convinced that I got C because everything I read online made me think that way but then when I went to see the dr and got it checked it wasn't the case.
Then I realised that actually it was my perception, because my mind only saw the signs of it being a C, my mind didn't want to believe it was possibly a benign thing.
Stop googling, it's the worst thing you can do to yourself.

You raise an interesting question about perception, how we see things. It is said that if ten people in a room are asked 'what is God' you will get ten different answers. But illness of any sort is a fact. Anxiety is a fact, and a fact by it's very nature is indisputable. But anxiety sufferers rarely deal with facts but false perceptions. Illusions which are not facts. It's so easy to fall into the trap of false perception.
Mr. Anxiety's box of tricks is full of them, and sorting out the true from the false for an anxiety sufferer is not easy. We so often 'catastrophise', make something that worries us into something bad. Some see a glass of liquid half empty, others half full, but the glass of liquid is entirely neutral. Can we look at anything and see it's neutrality rather than comment on it? It's the constant questions we ask ourselves that constitute anxiety and fear. If we accept it all and see things as they are and not as we would like them to be, then maybe we will begin the journey out of anxiety.

 

[blueberries]

You know you shouldn't google and I know you shouldn't google and everyone else here knows none of us should google, but it won't help to tell you that because you (and I and most everyone else) will still google. I get it and I understand where you are coming from because I'm in the same boat. I am seriously convinced I have metastatic cancer at this time and assume it is too late so why even bother going to the doctor. I do nothing all day except worry about this 100% of the time. Actually I no longer google because there isn't anything that tells me I don't have it. I've had many doctor visits and tests over my latest worry (nothing serious has been found) but have lost all faith in doctors because they have not taken me seriously enough and cannot tell me what my problem is, or maybe it's me and I haven't complained loudly enough.

Your other post said you are worried about BC, I assume that is breast cancer, is that right? You didn't mention what your symptoms are so I can't address that directly but I can tell you I have had more breast and underarm lumps and bumps biopsied/removed/aspirated/etc than the average person. I truly have lost count of how many of these my body has had. Not one turned out to be cancerous, yet I was convinced each and every time that the end was near. (In all fairness I will tell you that I was diagnosed with bc 19 years ago. I tell you this because I most likely made mention of it in other posts so I just wanted to be up front about it in case you read some of my other posts and see that I had that yet say here that none of my lumps were cancerous. That is because my diagnosis came with no lump, no bump, no symptoms at all, just an abnormality found on a routine mammogram, it was very early and very small.)

It's hard to believe that everything you read shows that your symptom is cancer and absolutely nothing else. I'm not saying you are lying, but as others are saying, it may be how you are perceiving things. At my worst that is how I perceive things also. I will look everywhere to try to find one positive thing, but even if it's staring me in the eye I won't see it as I am so convinced of the worst.

I think you know that what you need to do is go to the doctor and get this checked out. Making the appt is the hardest part but once you do that you will have taken the first step and will begin to feel better. Everyone will be here to go to your appt with you, even if it's only a virtually, , and most likely you will only get good news. It might help to share what you symptom is as there are others who can probably relate.

 

[bigjetplane23]

Yes I was once convinced that I got C because everything I read online made me think that way but then when I went to see the dr and got it checked it wasn't the case.
Then I realised that actually it was my perception, because my mind only saw the signs of it being a C, my mind didn't want to believe it was possibly a benign thing.
Stop googling, it's the worst thing you can do to yourself.

Did the doctor have any doubts of it possibly being something bad?

 

[Gooze17]

The internet is not your friend. I convinced myself I had rabies with 0 history of any interaction with wild animals. Everything I googled pointed straight to rabies and I became convinced that’s what I had.

 

[SB2017]

Yes! About 10 years ago, I randomly began having stomach pains. I went to the bathroom a few times and all that came out was blood and mucus. Literally, nothing else except that. I had to have an emergency colonoscopy. It ended up being a small infection that went away on its own, and it was from eating bad fish. I was convinced it was colon cancer.

I also had a lump in my breast that I was convinced was cancer.

 

[bigjetplane23]

Yes! About 10 years ago, I randomly began having stomach pains. I went to the bathroom a few times and all that came out was blood and mucus. Literally, nothing else except that. I had to have an emergency colonoscopy. It ended up being a small infection that went away on its own, and it was from eating bad fish. I was convinced it was colon cancer.

I also had a lump in my breast that I was convinced was cancer.

Did the doctors have any thoughts that it could be bad news? I’m glad in the end it wasn’t tho,

 

[SB2017]

Did the doctors have any thoughts that it could be bad news? I’m glad in the end it wasn’t tho,

Oh yeah! When I had the blood and mucus, they specifically said to rule out cancer, even though I was young.
With the lump, it was a little more vague. They kept saying it could be cancerous, but they won’t know without a biopsy.

 

[Belizz]

Did the doctor have any doubts of it possibly being something bad?

I told the dr my fear and before the ultrasound check up (it was a gyn issue) they told me that it was very unlikely with the symptoms I described and then the ultrasound didn't show anything bad. He was so sure before, and after.
Also the last time I went to dr for my macro blood in urine I was sure I had something sinister and even before CT scan the dr was sure I didn't have any form of bladder or kidney cancer. She was right.
If the dr doesn't suspect then they have a good reason for that. I think.

Now what you are trying to do in this post is trying to get relief by finding support for countering your fear but actually your mind doesn't want it and that's where the HA OCD loop comes from.
HA is (or maybe was in previous DSM) listed under OCD category and there is a reason for that. I don't know how DSM describes HA in the latest version tho.
Imo two things you can do now in order to push yourself out of that fear loop, you can either gather courage and go to dr to get relief (if you don't have the habit of not trusting your dr it will work) or totally distract yourself and focus other things until your mind finds something else to worry about. But then with the latter you are still doing the same thing and it will be another loop.

As far as I remember from your other post you still didn't visit dr for your recent C. worry? Please do so, I know it's very hard to do but we will be there with you <3 You will have great relief when you get a small check up.
There are a couple of things I haven't visited dr for even though now I think they are not sinister, I know that problems are growing. But I am gathering the courage to have them checked and I am ready to take the challenge now. Let's do this BigJet! I know we can.

 

[Iugrad91]

Think about how you can end this cycle of worry. You have two options. Go to the doc about your legitimate concerns and find out what is causing your symptoms or accept that your anxiety is getting the best of you and Google is not the all knowing entity we think it is. I would first do #1 and then practice #2 when you find out you do not have the C word. What’s the worst that can happen? They find something and treat it. Isn’t that better than worrying 24/7 and feeling hopeless and depressed, etc…you have control over how you want this to play out. You have to do something, you just need to figure out what that something is. Doing nothing will get you nowhere.