Mumfie
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Hi everyone, I can feel multiple lymph nodes (I think), mostly underneath my chin and in my neck. I don't think they are enlarged because they are the size of a pea, but what worries me is that they are hard. I always read that it is a bad sign when they are hard. I don't have any other complaints and don't know if they have always been there or not. At first I thought maybe this is just what lymph nodes feel like, but my girlfriend doesn't have these small hard balls anywhere in her body. Should I go see a doctor about it or is this normal? Thank you very much.
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Hello everyone, I have two swollen lymph in my neck, the doctor felt them and says they are indeed lymph nodes but not to worry. Now I feel like lymphnodes in my groin are also swollen, and for the last week I have been feeling a very unpleasant burning sensation (like a sunburn) on my chest, which has now spread to my neck and groin. There is no sign of irritation but the burning is there all the time and wakes me up at night. My left armpit also hurts, but I am scared to check for lymphnodes there. I am super scared that these are all signs of lymphoma. Does anyone recognise this and could it just be anxiety related?
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True. I am not scared that I have a ruptured aneurysm right NOW, but that the hit against my head caused an aneurysm (not ruptured yet). I know it is irrational and people hit their head all the time but still it is hard to reassure myself.
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Hi everyone, For about a year now my fear of heart problems has been replaced by a fear of aneurysms 🥴. Here is why: I often hear a weird pulsing in my ear (my doctor says it is tinnitus but I only hear it when I run, drink coffee etc. so I think it is related to my blood pressure). I'm also dizzy daily and feel a pressure in my head and 'behind' my nose very often. My doctor says it is nothing, but he didn't do any tests so I still worry. Has anyone here experienced similar symptoms maybe? Since yesterday I have created a new reason to worry about an aneurysm. My girlfriend accidentally hit me on the side of my head with her elbow. It was pretty hard and it really hurts today. I can feel that there is an artery/vein right underneath the sore spot, so I am scared something is damaged now and I have developed an aneurysm that is about to burst. I don't want to go to the doctor because they don't take me seriously anymore (can't blame them), but I am pretty worried/scared about it. Does anyone have any wise words? Thank you!
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I took lorazepam (1mg) and alprazolam (valium) 0.5 mg. Three lorazepam during the day and one or two lorazepam before I went to sleep. My psychiatrist described it this way while I was starting antidepressants. After 7 months my psychiatrist adviced stopping the lorazepam at night, then lower doses of alprazolam during the day, then back to two a day and then I stopped completely. I didn't take them for years, but I was scared about withdrawal too (especially because I was relying on them a lot) but in my experience it was not as bad as I imagined.
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Hi everyone, This year I was experiencing lots of health anxiety and panic attacks. During those months I lost 11kg, because I had a lot of stomach cramps, nausea and loss of appetite. Now I am doing much better, on antidepressants and finished my therapy. However, my weight is still an issue. I am underweight for my height and need to gain about 5kg to have a healthy bmi. I eat a lot (others agree on this) but it has become impossible to gain weight. If I do skip a meal (because of a busy day at work for example) I will lose a few pounds immediately. It wasn't like this before. My doctor has checked my blood and my thyriod but that was fine. I think I am not stressed anymore, I barely have panic attacks and worry less about my health but the weight is slowly becoming a trigger for my health anxiety again, especially because I don't see a cause and people keep saying that I am too skinny. Did any of you guys have a similar experience maybe? Could this still be the aftermath of a very anxious period? Thank you.
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Hiii, This last year my health anxiety has gotten prettyyy bad, but the last 3 months I have been on citalopram + therapy and most of my symptoms/fears have dissapeared. However, there is one (or two, or three) thing that keeps bothering me: almost every day I have a headache in a specific spot on the right side of my head. My right ear also hurts pretty often and multiple times a week I will hear a pulsating kind of sound in that ear, almost like I can hear the blood running through a vein (I don't have high blood pressure). When I get stressed it also seems like the right ear is blocked. I didn't pay much attention to it before, but now suddenly I am scared that it is a brain tumor or an unruptured aneurysm ? ? Anyone have any experience with this? Is it anxiety related once againnn? I am reluctant to go see a doctor about it because I have already been there a thousand times this year and everything turned out to be due to anxiety. Thanks!
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They did actually want to put me on citalopram but for some reason they then changed it to paroxetine. Had a lot of side effects with that so my psychiatrist told me to stop taking it after 6 days, but now they are going to prescribe a different kind of anti depressant next week. Might ask for citalopram then, thanks!
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Hm yes that is what I was afraid of haha. Yeah, being totally over all of this sounds like the dream..but I guess even the not constantly being sent down a deep spiral (like you said) would be a huge improvement. Thanks for the honest response
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Thank you! I believe alprazolam and xanax are the same thing (?), so I do actually take those twice a day already. I have heard a lot of positive things about meditation. I've bought the 'headspace' app a while ago and did that for a few weeks (I did like it) but in the end I stopped because a big part of the guided meditations focuses on the body scan, sensations you feel etc., so then I would just get lost in all the physical symptoms again haha. But reading your message I am thinking I should definitely pick it up again and stick with it this time. I also really like the idea of writing down things you are grateful for. I should give that a try. Thanks!
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Hi again When I posted my first thread on AC (a few months ago) I found it hard to deal with my health anxiety/panic attacks - like most people on this forum I guess. Now, despite added medication and more CBT, I find myself still getting worse. It has become difficult to function in daily life or even talk to friends or family. My days consist mostly of worrying and feeling sick, in the evenings and at night I usually get panicked about getting a panic attack or a heart attack and I won't be able to sleep. The only thing that will help at night is walking around the living room for hours. I take alprazolam during the day and lorazepam at night, but my psychiatrist says the anxiety/panic has become so high that it is just 'kicking through' the medication. It has now gotten to the point where I don't really see a way out of it anymore. My therapist and psychiatrist are really trying to help me and I really appreciate it, but I feel like the worrying and fear of becoming ill/dying is such a big part of my personality (and has been ever since I was a child) that I've lost faith that I can ever overcome it. I also feel like I am burdening other people with it. I can now use CBT to rationalize a fear but then my brain will immediately move on to the next sickness. I'm so sick of myself, it's just an endless cycle and I've been trying to end this loop for a long time but I just can't seem to do it. The worst thing is that it is getting worse instead of better. This makes it very difficult for me to see the point in keeping up the fight. Because I feel like that is what it is; fighting fears 24/7. This anxiety has completely taken over my personality and my life. The therapy is one hour per week, but the time between two appointments feels like weeeeks to me and I will basically be counting down the days, telling myself to just hang on until my next appointment. A few months ago my GP has called my therapist to ask if I could get more intensive therapy (because I went to the ER four nights in a row ) but that didn't happen. My therapist/the organization is very busy and I don't want to burden her by asking for more, because I know there are other people that need her time as well. These past few days I've just been in bed crying most of the time. When I think about my future I now only see struggles (always living in fear of disease and wasting my life until I will actually get a disease) and I blame myself for being like this. I have kind of lost faith and don't really see a way out at the moment. Not sure what to do. What keeps you guys motivated to keep fighting health anxiety and panic attacks? Can you actually learn to handle/cope/accept it? How? Is the highest thing we can achieve that the periods between 'freak outs' last longer? Or are there people that have 'conquered' all this? Sorry for all this negativity & thanks for reading!
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Thank you for your reply Jonathan. You are right, the biggest problem is the fear of the fear. Every time I feel something in my chest I automatically become hyper alert to it and I'll start seeing images of me having a heart attack and dying. Panic because we panic, very true! When I think about it rationally I can see that it is most likely not my heart..the chest pains started at the same time I've started taking the SSRI's which led to all the panic attacks, so it makes sense that the chest pains really are anxiety related instead of heart problems. The ECG *should* also be enough proof of that. I guess there is enough evidence that it is once again all anxiety related and my body is -like you said- responding to what I think. It sounds very logical and I try to remind myself of these things, but as soon as I feel the chest pains all rational thoughts fly out of the window and the only thing that remains is complete certainty (in my head at least) that I will die of heart problems. So tiring! Thanks again for taking the time to reply, really appreciate it.
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Hi everyone, It's me AGAAAAIN. I've already posted so much in these past few months but it really helps to read your answers. Because my constant anxiety is not getting any better my therapist recommended antidepressants in combination with therapy. I started this medication (paroxetine) 1.5 week ago but was having a lot of side effects. I was warned that my anxiety might increase in the first few weeks, but I was getting extreme panic attacks almost 24/7, didn't sleep at all for five nights in a row and got extremely depressed and even s*****al in the space of one week. My therapist didn't think this was normal, signed me up for crisis + arranged for me to meet a psychiatrist, who found out that the dose of the medication -prescribed by my GP- was too high and told me to stop taking them. The thing that started the series of panic attacks was that I was having a lot of chest pains 2 days after starting the medication. This led to a panic attack in the car. I've had panic attacks before, but nothing like this one. After that it was just panic attack after panic attack (day and night), and the chest pains never went away. It was seriously the worst time of my life. It's now been four days after I quit the paroxetine and I've been seeing my therapist and the psychiatrist every day. They are both telling me that there is nothing physically wrong with me and that this is all caused by the medication because the dose was just too high, so now it is going to take some time to stabilize. They have prescribed me with alprazolam and lorazapam, which helps a bit but the chest pains are still there. I've also had an ECG two days ago + two doctors have listened to my heart, and everything was fine. I just saw my psychiatrist today and told her I was doing a bit better (I felt like I was) but on my way home I started freaking out again because I won't have another appointment until wednesday. I have now fully convinced myself again that I really do have a heart disease and that I am going to die soon. I don't believe the results of the ECG anymore because I've read that not all heart disease shows up on an ECG and that is why it is better to do a stress test -which I haven't had-. Also, the ECG was only 9 seconds and at the time it was taken I did not have any chest pains, which is why I am scared that they've missed something. The chest pains, cramping and fullness in my chest have been there for days and feel so serious that I just cannot believe that it is not a heart disease. I've had chest pains before and know it can be related to anxiety, but this time it feels very different, more serious/painful and constant. It is not only my chest, my left arm also feels numb and my stomach/the area below my sternum feels like there is a heavy weight on it. Anyway, does anyone recognize this? Can all this really be from anxiety? I do (momentarily) believe my therapist when she says it really is anxiety..but once I leave her office and am on my own again I think 'no she doesn't know, she is not a doctor, I can feel that something is wrong with my heart'. What do I do? I can't take this much longer
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Hi, My therapist thinks it would be good for me to start taking citalopram. Apparently you have to take it for at least six months and I've read a lot of negative things about the side effects. I don't want to start taking medication, but my therapist says it might be good because the therapy is less effective at the moment since my fear of disease is constantly very high. Does anyone have any experience with citalopram? Did it help with the health anxiety? Thanks!
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https://www.buzzfeed.com/hilarywardle/tumblr-land-of-the-hypochondriac?utm_term=.rrw8nEPrr#.kd4YvBp55 Accurate