otten

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otten last won the day on September 7 2021

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  1. I had a lump like that in my arm pit several years ago. I was clearly doing well with my HA at the time because I never saw a doctor about it and decided to watch it for a while before panicking. It went away on its own and never returned so I assume it wasn't cancer! Does your GP know you have health anxiety? It's really important that you make them aware of it so they can be sensitive to it in their care.
  2. No it isn't too early. Your blood volume is already higher even this early in pregnancy and you can develop them without being pregnant too. You could also just have a fissure. I am not surprised at all that pregnancy has ramped up your health anxiety. It's really really common which is why you need to be very proactive fighting against it.
  3. You are pregnant yes? Are you sure the blood came from the rectum? Spotting is quite common in pregnancy. So are piles. I strongly encourage you to seek therapy for your anxiety. Pregnancy hormones make us susceptible to anxiety and depression even if we have no history of it. When you do have a history of it you are a great deal more susceptible. Pregnancy causes so many weird symptoms and sensations so for someone with health anxiety it is really easy for it to get out of hand. There is no quick fix for this. We can reassure you that a clean colonoscopy means you have nothing to worry about but your anxiety will move on to the next thing. My anxiety developed during my first pregnancy. I didn't seek help for it soon enough and it got very out of hand and eventually became a pretty severe case of postpartum anxiety and depression. You really REALLY REALLY want to deal with this now.
  4. No. I do get ovulation pain but this is different. My doctor isn’t concerned either and certainly if I suggested checking for ovarian or colon cancer she’d say I was crazy. I am working on reminding myself to be okay with not always having an answer or explanation.
  5. There are prescription medications that are meant to be taken longterm for GERD. Best to discuss with your doctor.
  6. I haven't been to PT yet but I'm supposed to. I'll make an appointment when I get back from vacation.
  7. I have been dealing with hip pain for the past few months. I recently had some xrays done which didn't show anything. I am totally convinced that the cause it either colon or ovarian cancer. I have googled and googled (I know) and I haven't found anything connecting hip pain with either cancer. So that should be reassuring right? Except that even though for once google didn't come back with terrifying results, I still struggle to convince myself that it's not cancer. So even in those rare instances where dr google provides some reassurance, if you are in the throes of health anxiety you won't believe it. So the lesson here is don't bother googling. It mostly hurts and it never helps.
  8. Have you checked out online CBT modules while you wait? I don't think they take the place of seeing a therapist but it can help in the meantime. This one has helped me: https://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/Resources/Looking-After-Yourself/Health-Anxiety
  9. Everything you just said is your anxiety lying to you. It does that. You do not need to know nor is it even possible to know. You have to learn to accept uncertainty because life is uncertain. if you want to stop having anxiety rule your life you have to work on it. It isn’t easy but it is worthwhile. This forum can’t help you if you won’t help yourself.
  10. You need to see a therapist. You are coming up with more and more outlandish scenarios to worry about.
  11. TMJ (temporal mandular joint) problems are a/ really common in the general population and b/ very common with anxiety. The jaw is one of the places where we often hold our stress and anxiety. I suspect that either you didn't simply google 'stiff jaw or clicking jaw' but rather added cancer to the search terms in which case yes scary results come up or you search for cancer so much that google prioritizes those results because the most popular results when I search is tmj disorder. Or you are zeroing in on the scary results. In any case this is a big lesson is DO NO GOOGLE SYMPTOMS. Not ever. Sit with a symptom a while, at least 2 weeks and if it is still bothering you, consult a doctor. But never ever ever google. Googling symptoms for a hypochondriac is like an alcoholic having one drink. You have to go cold turkey. You cannot google a symptom just this once because it will be different this time. It won't be. You have to stop.
  12. One of the lies of health anxiety is that we need to be hyper-vigilant lest we 'miss' something. In the HA brain that vigilance turns into constant body surveillance. And if you look for something 'wrong' you will find it. We think, in our subconscious minds that this vigilance will protect us. What you are looking for, what all us HA sufferers are looking for is certainty and since the reality is that life is uncertain we have to stop looking for it and start learning to be okay with uncertainty.
  13. No it doesn't. I've had it something like 20 years or so now. Since ganglions are fluid-filled it gets bigger at times and then smaller. Sometimes I can hardly feel it and mostly I forget it's there.
  14. It’s quite common for a ganglion cyst to recur. That’s my the surgeon didn’t want to remove mine from the base of my finger. He said there was a risk of nerve damage doing the surgery and a good chance it would come back again anyway.
  15. Everyone twitches. It’s actually very normal. The non-anxious mind just doesn’t notice them the way the anxious mind does. I had a run of health anxiety where I was convinced I had ms because of twitches. I’d literally lie in bed and count them. It was awful. I’m not anxious about ms or twitching anymore but you know what, if I pause and wait for them the twitches still happen just as before. They just aren’t at the forefront of my mind all the time so unless I am concentrating on them I don’t notice.