Severe anxiety from possible chronic illness (Hypochondria?)

[AnthonyMG]

Hi everyone!

A short update. I was very down in the first days of the month. Then I spent one week with softer symptoms, not so bad. Now I'm down again since yesterday, it's destroying me, but I have to be strong and expect better days soon.

One thing I wanted to ask in this forum, although I know this is not a medical forum. Maybe some of you know a few things and want to share an opinion. Or if any of you have a friend who is a doctor, it would be great if you could pose this question:

If we were to accept the possibility of cartilage destruction/damage/deformation in the epiglottis from an exaggerated immune response to a bacteria, allergen or toxin, how painful would the damage process be? Very painful? Or there's a chance it could be just slightly painful, almost as a "quiet" process?

I assume that losing 10-20% of the cartilage of the epiglottis would have to be really very painful. And maybe, it would have to be accompanied by fever in all cases. But I'm not sure. And it would be very important to get to better conclusions in my situation.

I remember that the day I felt more pain was the 3rd or 4th day after the episode. It was not pleasant at all, but it wasn't so much of an intense pain. I only had one painkiller one time and it was more as a test, to see if it could lower the symptoms. I could have been well that night without the painkiller, I mean, the pain was far from unbearable.

Maybe a doctor with knowledge of throat structures or cartilage tissue, could tell me that for a damage or shrinking of cartilage in the epiglottis to happen, I would have faced the most terrible and unbearable pain, in which case I would have one more clue in the road to exclude the permanent damage theory.

Thanks.
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[AnthonyMG]

Hi everyone!

Almost 4 months since my last post... Time to a quick update.

Living through the same nightmare. No improvements. The first 3 weeks of December were actually ok, with softer symptoms. I even started to believe that I was going to keep on improving and that the worst was already gone, but then, as usual, the symptoms kicked back in. Then sadness and anxiety joined. The last 3 months were hard.

I have been taking the antidepressant (30mg mirtazapine) for 7 months now but I feel so depressed anyway. It's hard to get up from bed in the morning, I wake up so sad and desperate for feeling that the symptoms are already there even in the first second that I gain conscience after waking up. It really is a life that I don't want to live and the idea that it will be like this forever totally destroys me emotionally.

But yes, I expected more from the antidepressant. Actually, I even thought that I could get cured from it, if it was a purely psychossomatic disorder and the antidepressant could distract me from the symptoms and also make me less anxious from its anti-anxiety effects. But not only it failed on that, it not even seems to be helping me to be more emotionally balanced and happier (or less sad in this case).

I'm visiting the psychiatrist again in 3 weeks, maybe he will change the medication and try a different one...

What a strange and extremely rare thing. I have a diagnosis but no one can confirm it or prove it wrong. And if it is correct, than I know I will have the symptoms forever. The eternal suffering...

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[bigjetplane2]

Hi everyone!

Almost 4 months since my last post... Time to a quick update.

Living through the same nightmare. No improvements. The first 3 weeks of December were actually ok, with softer symptoms. I even started to believe that I was going to keep on improving and that the worst was already gone, but then, as usual, the symptoms kicked back in. Then sadness and anxiety joined. The last 3 months were hard.

I have been taking the antidepressant (30mg mirtazapine) for 7 months now but I feel so depressed anyway. It's hard to get up from bed in the morning, I wake up so sad and desperate for feeling that the symptoms are already there even in the first second that I gain conscience after waking up. It really is a life that I don't want to live and the idea that it will be like this forever totally destroys me emotionally.

But yes, I expected more from the antidepressant. Actually, I even thought that I could get cured from it, if it was a purely psychossomatic disorder and the antidepressant could distract me from the symptoms and also make me less anxious from its anti-anxiety effects. But not only it failed on that, it not even seems to be helping me to be more emotionally balanced and happier (or less sad in this case).

I'm visiting the psychiatrist again in 3 weeks, maybe he will change the medication and try a different one...

What a strange and extremely rare thing. I have a diagnosis but no one can confirm it or prove it wrong. And if it is correct, than I know I will have the symptoms forever. The eternal suffering...

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I was actually thinking of you the other day and hoping we would hear from you soon.

 

[Kingdoey]

Hi mate.

So sorry to hear you are still suffering. Did you ever have the cyst removed? Can I ask is it something you think about 24/7 or when you are occupied do you forget about it and is that when the symptoms start to ease?

 

[AnthonyMG]

Thanks my friends

"Did you ever have the cyst removed?"

Not yet. It's as if I'm keeping it as a last hope. And it actually seems like a very small cyst for the symptoms I have. Unfortunately most probably it is not going to be the solution, but we will see. I expect getting back to an ENT in April or May. One of the reasons is to get an opinion about the cyst and consider its removal.


"Can I ask is it something you think about 24/7 or when you are occupied do you forget about it and is that when the symptoms start to ease?"

Of course you can ask. You can ask anything you want. And I understand very well the reason to pose that question.

As I usually mention, the symptoms are always there but they vary in "intensity". Identifying the reasons why it varies, could be the key to get to a diagnosis or to at least be able to improve a bit. But I haven't yet identified any reason for this variation.

Well, it's not 24/7 but it's probably 90-95% of the time. It's the first thing I think of when I wake up and it's the last thing I think of when I go to sleep. Not that it is my option, I'm kinda forced to, because the symptom is there and the zone and type of symptom make it impossible to ignore it.

When the symptoms are more intense, I can't forget about it even if I'm occupied with the most interesting activity. Actually, sometimes it even gets worse, as it becomes clear that I can't enjoy whatever I'm doing the way I used to enjoy before, because of the symptoms. And if it's something that I don't like to do, it becomes even harder.

When the symptoms are less intense, sometimes I can forget about the symptoms for a while. But not for long. About 30 or 60 minutos might be the best I got and it only happened a couple of times. But even when it happened, the problem was there. Unfortunately it's always there.

If I had times when it is not there, even if just for one or two days, it would help me to believe that I don't have a physical damage and that it's all psychosomatic. Which, I suppose, is the reason why you asked me about it.

But I still have hope that maybe if I could just stop worrying about the symptoms and accept them as normal, it could improve with time. The problem is that the symptoms are too terrible and "active" for one to be able to accept them without worrying.

Thanks again

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[AnthonyMG]

The other day I joined a facebook group for "globus sensation", as I still have hope that it can be a reversible situation. There's thousands of people with this type of problem. Of course there are many different causes for globus sensation, but people in the group have in common the fact that medical investigations failed to find a reason for the symptoms.

Most of them complain of a lump sensation, with pressure, which is not my case. But some of them seem to complain from symptoms somehow similar to mine and a very small number of them say that they improved when they finally gave up and accepted the terrible feelings as "normal".

The theory is that the sensations were already there long before, as normal sensations that they already had previous to the rise of the globus sensation. As if the sensations I have were already there before the 14th of November 2020 but only after that accident in that meal they became noticeable and problematic, because of the excessive focus and attention that I dedicate to them.

I try to consider this possibility, but man... Alongside the symptoms there is an obvious and objective sensation of something in the throat that is touching somewhere it did not touch before. As if there was a piece of tissue hanging (could be the cyst, I reckon) that moves even when I breathe and the air passes through that area. It was not there before, I'm almost sure, or else I'm going insane.

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