Health anxiety and my aunties cruel comment.

[APositiveMind]

I was over my mum's yesterday evening for a NYE party with some drinks and games.
I have health anxiety and my family are long term aware of this and often make comments about being a hypochondriac.

I had a beer last night and my younger cousin asked to try it with my aunties permission I let her take a sip. I carried on drinking my beer and then my aunty pointed out to me that my cousin had been up all the night before being sick and on the toilet.

I immediately thought of all the norovirus going around and I am now absolutely convinced I'm going to get poorly.

I have a horrible fear of being sick and having a upset tummy.

On a humorous note my aunties a veggie and I had a dream last night that I rubbed one of my pigs in blankets on all her veggie options because I was annoyed. If only!

I have health anxiety too OP but I would see the incident with your aunt as a trigger rather than a deliberate ploy to get at you. You are projecting an intention on your aunt, and creating a narrative where none exists. This is your anxiety manipulating you. All this you would learn to tackle if you are seriously trying to rid yourself of this unpleasant and debilitating mental health condition. You have my sympathies for the anxiety but you can’t expect the world to bend to you. I also want to know how you are, hoping no ill-effect following the incident?

I think anyone, anxiety or not, would be really pissed off at sharing a drink with someone to be immediately told that they had just been really ill. Anyone.

I’ve reported a post as l can’t believe how ignorant it WAS. Lots of you aren’t much better. Almost making op explain herself to you

Exactly this ^^. Some of the replies to the OP have been fucking awful

As PP have said, it is unlikely that your niece would be enjoying the party if she had a Norovirus.

Not sharing glasses is sensible for everyone.

Alcohol hand gel needs to be at least 70% alcohol to kill bacteria. I'm guessing the beer wasn't 70% proof!

"If Person A has HIV or Hep B. Is it Person B's responsibility to know? If they haven't told them how can you possibly know?"

If there isn't a chance of transmission, then neither have to be declared. Leave HIV out of it, you obviously don't know certain facts about it.

I agree that more responsibility is needed and lose the attitude that everyone has to be aware of your issues at all times.

It was NYE, let your Family have a day off.

Did your DN show any symptoms? As said, alcohol kills a lot of germs. It was probably an oversight, which you are making more out of, understandably, that's what anxiety does.

Funny joke about the treatment and slaughter of pigs, who are as intelligent than dogs. An animal, living and dying in misery, is, obviously, as minor as the made up scenario, of you becoming ill. Perhaps its you that needs to cop on.

daisypond it's her health condition that's stopping her taking her medication. I've done the same, was prescribed amitriptyline for anxiety but after reading the leaflet was too anxious to take it!

And yes, the Aunt was unreasonable. Regardless of whether someone has health anxiety or not you don't spread anything like norovirus around like that. If the cousin had been up all night with d&v why on earth was she taking them anywhere the next day and why would she allow them to drink any alcohol? Can't believe anyone would think that's reasonable.

Why are people diagnosing norovirus because a kid was sick and had the shits at Christmas?

As others have said, it's very unlikely she'd be up to attending a party hours later.

Let alone wanting a sip of beer.

*SoyDora

Very very unlikely she has norovirus, she certainly wouldn’t be happily socialising at a party if she did. We’ve all had it at various times and all of us were very fragile still for a couple of days after the sickness stopped.*

I visited my aunt and her family once. We were invited, as were my grandparents. Everyone seemed fine, no sign of ill health. They told us the next day, just mentioned in passing, that they'd had d&v a few days earlier. My grandmother ended up in hospital, dh had to have a week off work. They'd had norovirus and not thought to mention it.

Koneko Yes, I know it's her health condition that's stopping her taking her medication. But she needs to overcome it just a tiny bit to take that first step to progress.

having worked in dentistry myself my thoughts are people mostly don't say when they have Hep B or HIV because they are scared you won't treat them (we would) or they worry about confidentiality leaks not so much from the dentist but maybe receptionists etc
I have occasionally said I won't treat someone because of health like having D&V or a heavy cold as they were coughing too often to make treatment feasible they were annoyed but I think people don't say they have stuff in case it changes your plans involving them

Birdsgottafly got in there ahead of me on the HIV thing - totally irrelevant in this discussion, as is Hep B. Neither are spread from sharing drinks.

Just for info, my (adult) DD was taking the odd sip from my wine glass just after I was diagnosed a couple of years ago and hadn’t yet started treatment. Then last night everyone who want had a sip of a cocktail I’d made for myself at a party. There was no risk to them.

Health anxiety aside, which I do understand is something very real to a lot of people, if you work in dentistry you should be a bit more informed about risk etc.

www.nhs.uk/conditions/hepatitis-b/causes/
www.nhs.uk/conditions/hiv-and-aids/causes/

As far as what happened to you goes - well I’d be pretty pissed off too If my aunt told me my cousin could have a sip of my drink in the knowledge that she has a bug.

I mean this kindly, OP. Your aunt didn't make a cruel comment. She made a relatively normal comment.

It's you who have a problem, and you who needs to deal with it. Have you sought help for your anxiety?

I don’t think it’s that normal to agree to your kid sipping someone’s beer and then tell them the kid had sickness and diarrhoea the night before.

Unless you start working out how to live with your illness, your family and other people, your life will continue to get harder and your family will become more intolerant as they move from teasing to irritation to indifference.
You have a serious problem that you don’t want to take medication for, or continue therapy, or take control over. And into this distress and anxiety, you want to add a baby? How do you think your anxiety will react to a baby in your life? To the stresses of keeping a baby safe and healthy?
Deal with your own issues first, before adding the complication of a vulnerable child.

I don’t think it’s that normal to agree to your kid sipping someone’s beer and then tell them the kid had sickness and diarrhoea the night before.

It's not good, but she probably didn't realise until the OP had sipped. And it really isn't such a big deal. These things happen.

I hope that you are ok OP and have ignored the more ignorant and aggressive posts on here. I am sad that MH problems still carry such a stigma because I did think that things might be changing with the raised profile that MH conditions have been given of late. Sadly much of this seems to be virtue signalling bullshit as this thread seems to prove.

She was fucking with you because she knows you'd have started panicking. What a dick. I'm sorry you've had the responses you've had here as well

*maddiemookins16mum

There really are some drama Llamas out there. What on earth is a health anxiety*

This is absolutely fucking disgusting. It's dramatic to have a mental illness now, is it? I've reported your vile, ableist comment.

Thanks OP. I asked if you'd been diagnosed because I've been diagnosed with PTSD, GAD and severe health anxiety myself.

I don't have germ phobia at all. My health anxiety (which is a professional term for the medical condition "hypochondria", by the way, for all the dickheads on this post) manifests in a fear of death, fainting, heart attacks, strokes and cancer. I have chronic illnesses, a bowel condition and disabilities - no fear of diarrhea or vomiting at all.

Health anxiety is different in EVERY case. I can't take medication due to fear of side effects. I have a phobia of anything medical - tablets, doctors, hospitals. I can't leave the house on many occasions and I can't even drive past my GP surgery. It's a serious and debilitating condition and those who have mocked it or scorned it on here should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

OP - if your family are being anything but supportive, you need to think about your next steps.

WhyDontYouComeOnOver I agree that post was disgusting and beyond ignorant too.

But I hope you remember to report your own post as well.

Sorry, to be clear, I meant because you repeated what the other poster said.

Really not good to share, anyone could be harbouring anything.

Grim if your cousin came out after having noro. Bloody selfish. You may all get it, aunt included.

Grim for your aunt not to tell you first and grimmer if she was lying to make you anxious

Hi all,
I'm
Not quite sure if I'm posting in the right place so apologies if not .

I have health anxiety . I had blood test taken in November all bloods were normal every one .

Mind was put at rest for like a day and then the panic started again .

I had terrible anxiety over Xmas and ended up with really bad tight pains right side of chest and back .

Had 2 ecg done all fine , dr said was muscular tight muscles etc. I had also had a slight temp that day but my kids and I had a virus ( coughing etc) .

Dr done bloods again to recheck and urine sample , had 3 urine samples one lab and all normal . Bloods came back normal , I asked her to repeat that they were normal again and she said yes all normal but your white blood cell count had increased slightly , but you've had a virus so that's probably why .

So now all I can focus on is that the white cell had increased .. would a virus increase wbc?

I'm due a repeat on Tuesday and I'm really already panicking in case they are worse .

Thanks for reading .

You need to start your own thread, rather than hitch-hiking on someone else’s . But yes, any infection or virus would easily raise your WBC, it’s their job to fight infection . Two members of my family have had the same diagnosis before Chrismas, and once the virus had gone, the WBC went back to normal.

@Aspenoliver as already said...your white blood cells are like the little soldiers of your body. Mostly they stay dormant unless you have an illness - like a virus. Then they get roused into action to help fight the illness and protect your body.

So your raised WBC count is perfectly normal - it shows your body is capable of defending itself and doing exactly what it is supposed to do. FWIW thebody makes about 10 billion white blood cells every day and what is “normal” for each person varies vastly.

I’m afraid that if your dr. Is willing to keep on repeating these tests that have already shown up normal, this is not helping your anxiety and is a waste of resources. Perhaps seek help for the anxiety itself?

In the meantime - no panic needed.

Thank you , yes I’m dealing with that now .