enidoreilley

I've been doing a good job of squashing my ALS fears these last few months as I've noticed very occasional breathing/speaking/swallowing issues, but it's just exploded for me in the last 24 hours and I spent all night crying and refusing to speak. I think I can feel soft palate inadequacy. It's called velopharyngeal dysfunction and it's really just associated with a few structural issues that are much more common in kids and motor neuron disease. I am beyond panicking. I am crying for my son who won't have a mother and fearful because I won't let anyone spend money on my care. Help. I appreciate anything anyone can contribute. I have a background in ALS fears and spent a very long time convinced I had limb-onset ALS, until a clean EMG showed I did not. I am a teacher and have a lot of stress about next year, both for me and my son. I generally feel ok and everyone I know says I am not slurring my speech at all, but I can feel it.

I used to be a big regular on here and suffered from ALS fears for more than a year - the intense kind that stole a lot of my time with my family and work. Well... I've not been on here for about a year or so and here I am convinced of my bulbar onset ALS. I got an EMG about 2-3 years ago and it was clean. Now I am convinced I am experiencing velopharyngeal incompetence. I just googled what it is today 🙄. I can't stop thinking about it and I am seeking reassurance of my health EVERYWHERE. It is making me crazy. I have much more important things I need to use my faculties for: I am going through a divorce and have a 7 year old and am a teacher planning for a chaotic school year. Just wanted to reach out and say hi and make some kind of aconnection with someone who knows what I'm going through.

Thanks everyone. I have never lived on my own. I was living with another boyfriend when I met my husband and I was 20 years old. I moved in with my now-husband almost immediately and we've been together for 16 years. This is incredibly scary and I am having a hard time wrapping my head around this.

I am in the process of probably separating from my husband. There are 12 million things about this that are stressful but the thing that keeps hitting me and making me second guess everything is what would happen if I were to get a serious illness in the next couple years? I'm so afraid of facing an illness all alone. Has anyone else faced these fears?

I love that idea! I have a lot of reasons to want to be healthy and strong and I am feeling somewhat inspired by my recent success in quitting smoking. I have a real opportunity to roll this motivation into diet and exercise.

Hey! I have PCOS too! And some other weird hormone-related chronic conditions that I am sure are contributing to some degree. But I know that for me, weight loss is possible, just tough and if I'm being really honest, I am not doing much to try right now. I welcome any and all tips on how to be healthier with PCOS (or just in general)

Hey Nick! I just wanted to share that I quit smoking 3 weeks ago today and I have been having insane effects, including the feeling full all the time. Feeling sleepy. I have, kind of "attacks" of not being able to breathe, and then feeling better. I'm struggling too, but we're both doing the right thing!

Intellectually I know this. When anxiety takes over, I find myself on here, seeking reassurance. I know that it is a problem, but my rational brain is rarely as active as my irrational brain when I am on this particular forum.

**I started to post this as a comment on another thread but decided it was different enough that I should start my own. Also, I use swear words - my apologies, I am typing fast and have shit mouth. My main sources of anxiety and catastrophic thinking have always been around my health (and often, but not as frequently the health of my loved ones) and ecological collapse. I have been terrified of this since I was a kid in the early 90s; some version of this. Obviously, we are having our fears more clearly articulated today than every before. I took that fear and anxiety and have become very politically active locally. I work with 2 different local action networks that advocate for green energy and waste reduction, plus, as a high school teacher, I am working with a group of students to advocate for more conservation in the school system. The world is a shit show, the same shit show, but I feel more like I am doing what I can and I feel more in control of my fears because of it. To me it sounds like many others on here are doing that with their health, and that is awesome. The shitty flip side for me is that I gained 50 lbs this past year and am now considered "severely obese". I am pre-diabetic and I have actual, real health threats that I need to attend to. Instead of dealing with this in a productive way, I still get random panic attacks about ovarian cancer and ALS and things that I am statistically unlikely to get, while I know for a fact that all the crap I eat is killing me. The number one thing I derive pleasure and peace from is long hikes, and my size and poor fitness now make those impossible. I know what I need to do, but I feel paralyzed to do it. Does anyone else sympathize with this? I feel like HA sufferers tend to be pretty fit, but I just get less and less healthy. And why doesn't this scare me as much? Why am I so powerless to make myself actually healthier while I fret over imagined health threats all day?

Last Friday, like, a week ago? If so, definitely call them and bug them tomorrow, ultrasounds should be quick reads. The odds aren't any higher for your SO than they are for everyone else (very very low) even though you have lost a young friend to this in the past. I hope you both get good news in the next few days and can put all of this behind you. I'm sorry she has a crappy doctor who is leaving you hanging, but it is probably just due to clerical oversight and I wouldn't look into it as a sign of anything else. Maybe check out a new gyno after this is resolved.

I have had the old health anxiety itch creeping back up. My body has not been handling eating pretty normal foods lately. I developed some lactose intolerance recently, so I know that, but sometimes I get horribly sick after just a bite or two of food. Very bloated, full feeling, feelings of nausea, both constipation AND diarrhea. Most frighteningly, I get these occasional pangs of pain in my lower pelvic region. My lower back hurts, but that feels very musculoskeletal. I am very very concerned about ovarian cancer. I am convinced I have it. Over the years, this fear keeps coming back. I have been to the gyno within the past few months and she didn't do any imaging but she did a pelvic exam and told me my ovaries are fine. I still feel like she needs to do imaging. I feel like they are not. I have lots of hormonal issues happening and all this fear is taking a toll on me. I have been in my room all day and don't want to leave or eat because I am afraid I will get a pain and it will re-convince me that I have ovarian cancer. Please tell me about any experiences anyone here has with this. I have been on top of my anxiety lately but now I feel like I am being smothered. I can't take an ativan because I have a paper to write.

I leave for a week at the beach tomorrow and I am starting to get very very panicked about my health. The last time I took a vacation I spent the whole trip crying in my hotel room, convinced I had a brain tumor. In the last couple weeks I have been very easily winded and I sweat very easily. Even while doing very moderate house chores in air conditioning. I get out of breath pretty severely walking up the stairs. I am out of shape but I've been working out lately and I've taken my cardio recovery measurement and it's pretty poor. I'm very worried about my heart health. But I also am afraid that it could be lung cancer. Google and Facebook keep showing me ads about lung cancer risks and I feel very panicked every time. Additionally, my 5 year old has lots of weird bruises in unusual places like his hip, back, and chest. I try so hard to shield him from my anxiety but I keep inspecting his bruises. I need this vacation. But I can feel myself sabotaging myself. Please, any tips on how to keep focusing on relaxing at the beach with my family and trashy vampire romance novels are appreciated. BTW - I plan on quitting smoking when we get back from the trip and I'm working very hard to lose 70 lbs to get back to a healthy weight.

I go through phases where I do this! Good luck! Smaller bites or something? Eat something cold every day to help bring the swelling down. Maybe even get some crushed ice and let it melt on the spot that hurts.

Hey just wanted to pop in and say I hope you are feeling better. I am also in the middle of a lung cancer spiral and am also a smoker (I have been off and on - quit for 5 years and picked it up again last year - just in the past year I have quit 5 times). If you need to rant, I will listen. Hope you got some peace.

I did go to the Dr today in urgent care because of horrible, tight, stabbing pain in my upper back when I inhale. They did an EKG, a chest X Ray and a bunch of blood work - primarily, he said, to check for blood clots. Everything was perfectly normal. I am starting to feel more classically sick - sore throat, low grade fever, body aches. I don't know what it is, but I am assuming that if it was lung c***** something would show up abnormal on a chest x ray. At least it would if there was a mass large enough to impact my breathing? IDK. Sorry for continuing to post here. I do know deep down that I am catastrophizing. HA is hard to navigate, well, always, but particularly when you are actually sick, because I really do have to think about my health right now but I don't really have healthy habits when it comes it thinking about illness, obviously. I feel reasonably self-conscious about posting here in this forum after reading the mod post earlier.