What on earth is wrong with me?

[Stygimoloch]

I know only a doctor can answer this but I have terrible health anxiety and am looking for some reassurance before I can get to the doctors.

I suddenly have so many symptoms that I don’t know what to talk about first. For the last few weeks I’ve had daily loose stools. Maybe once/twice a day. Throughout this time, I’ve had a sometimes sharp, sometimes nagging and sometimes dull ache pretty much constantly down my lower right side. It sometimes radiates to my back. I’ve also had indigestion.

My joints, especially my knees, are agony. This has been for a couple of months.

I get numb and then tingly fingers and hands and more cramps than I’ve had before.

Last night I woke up at 4am wet with sweat. This has never happened before.

I’m so tired but not sleeping well.

For context, I’m just 41. My periods have become more painful but shorter. My cycle is also shorter. This has been for around a year.

I’ve also been vegan since January of this year.

Any ideas? I just feel so unwell and scared. My anxiety is huge! I have a doctors appointment in a couple of weeks. I could get one earlier but I would really like to see my female GP and for that I have to wait.

Any help/comments gratefully received.

[bionicnemonic]

Possible mild food poisoning?
Or
Too much wheat? Gluten intolerance perhaps would give a lot of those symptoms.
The tingling could be anxiety.
The symptoms may not related don’t forget!

[bionicnemonic]

You may also be going into peri which could explain a few things too...but do go to the GP
www.webmd.com/menopause/guide/guide-perimenopause

[Keepaddingpets]

Vitamin or mineral deficiency due to the vegan diet??

[Harleyisme]

It could be the heath anxiety. I suffer badly from it and have alot of the symptoms you are stating. Anxiety reaks havoc not just mentally but physically too.

[Stygimoloch]

Thanks everyone. I have had bouts of really bad health anxiety in the past. I just feel so grim though.

[Mumma1984]

I have terrible health anxiety, in the past I've had loads of neuro symptoms and thought I was really poorly, had an mri and all fine, atm I smell smoke now and then and it's making me think I have a tumor - HA is miserable - I don't know what's real and what's serious and what's not, currently unsure if this is HA or a tumor - no one else seems to of had it!

[eurochick]

Are you supplementing B12? This is often low with vegan diets.

Peri could explain the sweats and some of the other stuff too.

[Stygimoloch]

euro having spent the day googling B12 deficiency and the perimenopause it seems both could explain the symptoms. I do take a B12 supplement but have only being doing so recently.

mumma health anxiety is absolutely miserable. It has made long periods of my life miserable. It is hard to know what to worry about and what’s in my mind. I’ve been so much better with it recently but am now fully back in its grips 😪.

[Oldmum55]

Stygimoloch I can sympathise I've had health anxiety all my life. Like you say it gets better than you have periods when it's as bad as ever. Not sure whether physical symptoms bring on the anxiety or the other way around! I've had all the classic ones with the smell of smoke, thinking tumour straight away, the stomach problems thinking of pancreatic cancer, and so on!

[Mumma1984]

@oldmum55 I'm glad you have had this smoke thing to ! I'm struggling to find many who have which is making me panic more! Jeez I wish I could switch my worry switch off just for a few weeks of relaxation and enjoyment of my life! X

[Oldmum55]

Mumma as I said before I've always found that a visit to the opticians helps with any brain related worry as they would spot some abnormality and refer you. And I feel less stupid that going to the GP and explaining the smell related worry. In my case I came across it after googling weird smells and was obviously horrified. It eventually went after a long time and my sense of smell has become poor. It's good to know we are not the only ones with these symptoms.

[Mumma1984]

Yeh so I went to the opticians Friday, all fine but now they do these retina pictures and there was a tiny white dot on one of mine, he said it was either a birth mark or one cell damaged by the sun and to wear sunglasses - as someone with HA I kept asking him about tumor - he said no this is your eye not your brain, we would of caught a tumor on a different test u just did, so then I said ok so I def don't need to talk to the GP about this dot and he was like ... no! @oldmumma55

So now I'm worrying over the stupid bloody dot and wish I never went!

[Oldmum55]

Mumma if the dot was something to worry about the optician would have had you seen at the eye hospital.