Health Anxiety - part three!!

[MrsWhites]

Hi ladies, back again for thread number 3!

Yes, always lumpy and ridgy. I refuse to touch them as I'll just spiral and I have enough "triggers" as it is.
I was fine when I woke up this morning but I've just put the shopping away and I feel slightly light-headed. Feeling faint is one of my triggers so now I obviously feel MORE faint with anxiety and am lay on the floor fretting that the covid jab has irreversibly damaged me.
So fed up with the whole thing 😔

@Skyliner001 yes I’ve never felt them without lumps, they are always there xx

@ofwarren I get random dizzy spells and spiral too! It’s usually when I realise it’s 11am and I haven’t had a drink or something to eat though and then I settle again! Have you been eating/drinking enough?

This is so helpful ladies, thank you so much. Does anybody else find the Internet so difficult to navigate when you are looking at symptoms?

It feels like they are all catchall in their information on websites. And often one document, will spawn several websites saying the same information.

Phrases like "lumps that disappear after your period" are really triggering for people like anxiety, and also can't be true With such a buildup of tissue due to hormones over years and years of menstrual cycles…Which in my logical head I fully understand.

@ofwarren I get odd dizzy spells, sometimes when I stand up, or move suddenly. And sometimes I feel generally dizzy for a period of time. Dizziness is not a trigger for me, so I tend to ignore it. I also get some post vaccine anxiety! I very rarely have to have vaccines, but I even get anxious when the dog has his yearly booster!

@tmh88 I thought the same so I sent one of my kids to get me a snack while I'm lay on the floor.
Home Education is just out the window at the moment as I just can't concentrate at all.
I just want my life back.
I have dealt with low level health anxiety for years but the pandemic has just made it far worse. I even had a panic attack attempting to meditate yesterday. I felt my shoulders relax and my brain was like, Nope! and the waves of anxiety came instead.

Yes @Skyliner001 when I Google now for example I put “whatever lump not cancer, tight chest not cancer” the trouble is the cancer ones come up first online because they’re the most clicked links by people x

@Skyliner001 That made me laugh about your dog's booster 😁
It's all so irrational isn't it.

I search Google by eliminating the word cancer.
If you say something like: Breast lump menstrual cycle -cancer
It will ignore articles with the word cancer in.

@ofwarren awful isn’t it! I never had health anxiety until I found lymph nodes in my neck last sept! I honestly don’t know how people manage it x

I just don't Google at all any more as it always, always is a trigger for me. If I really need to look something up I get DH to do and then he will tell me the facts and not go down the cancer rabbit hole!

I have low blood pressure and often feel faint. It doesn't usually bother me except when I used to commute by train. I think its because I once fainted on a train when I was pregnant and its that fear of not being able to get off if you need to. What really helped me is a book called "Dare". It is a way of reducing panic attacks and really really worked for me. Dare is an acronym and there are 4 stages that you do. I actually can't remember them now but the most powerful thing about it is that if you e.g. feel faint, rather than try to push that feeling away you actually egg it on. I know it sounds crazy but it really works. You can't actually make yourself faint on demand! So when I felt faint I would tell my body, go on then, make me faint and then when it didn't happen and the feeling didn't get any worse I would feel massively reassured. It kind of turns the automatic fear response on its head.

www.amazon.co.uk/Dare-Anxiety-Stop-Panic-Attacks/dp/0956596258/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=dare+anxiety+book&sprefix=dare+anxiety&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&qid=1612438038&sr=8-1

I think I will reread it as it might help me with the tight chest panics.

@KasparKat I also fainted on a train when pregnant! Then I suffered from cervical shock during a miscarriage and the sensation was the same at the start so it's a HUGE trigger now.
Actually going with the flow and seeing if I faint is really scary. I do anything possible to not feel that sensation.
I'll have to give it a try though. Scary 🙈

Looking at an online health anxiety course that's been put together by our NHS trust and it's really crap 😔
It has a section on "exposure" which talks about going on the tube and then not using hand sanitiser. Not really relevant for covid times really.

Hi everyone, newbie here. I've been lurking this thread a while, nice to have finally found people who can relate to the mad health panic! Mine's been off the charts recently after finding a mole on my boob. Worked myself up into such a panic, took ages to build up the courage to go to the doctor, he had a look and said it was benign but offered me an excision to put my mind at ease (I think he could tell how much of a wreck I was, he was very kind). But now I'm back onto worrying about everything else! I've been prodding at my armpits and now it hurts but just on one side, anyone else get this?

Hi @Vitis
It's really easy to make your armpits/breast sore from prodding. If I prod there, I only get pain on one side too. My left breast is much more glandular so it gets tender easier.
I'm glad you are finding the thread helpful

Hi @Vitis We are all with you here! Yes I do get armpit pain, it seems to come and go. With on my left side, which is where my bigger breasts X

Hi everyone,

I'd like to join the thread after spending the last week or so reading all the previous posts from thread 1 and 2. I can't begin to tell you how much they have helped me! I can relate to almost every post, I've had many of the same symptoms and worries and your experiences have given me so much reassurance. There's no way I can reply to everyone where I've felt 'YES!, that's me' but every single post has helped, thank you all.

I've had HA for around 20 years and mostly been able to control it, talk myself down. I'm similar to pp in that it is real symptoms that trigger it and that over the years I've had different body type fixations. When I was younger it was brain tumours and neurological diseases when I had headaches, but since having children it's my female biology I worry about; boobs, cervix, ovaries, uterus. I totally relate to what you said about that @KasparKat. I work in a womens health related job so am exposed to this too through work, which has never bothered me until I had children - maybe being at the sharp end of it has triggered it? My periods have been heavy since having my little one last year, and now coming every two weeks. I am also having the spotting before prior to my period that I never had before. Add to that constant pain in my right boob and you can all guess where that has led me! My current fixation has been pain in my right boob. I do think it's hormonal but as my cycle is all over the place it has no discernible pattern, which starts me worrying. I have all the normal lumps and bumps and they're similar between boobs, but I worry about not having lumps as there's a specific condition related to that that scares me. I've been trying not to prod since reading the thread and have hugely cut down, my boob pain has decreased since I stopped poking at it constantly - funny that!

I am the same as you @tmh88 in struggling to watch anything about terminal illness, or where the wife is dead and the father has been left with the children on his own! @MrsWhites I definitely have OCD behaviours too so I was thinking of trying exposure to things that I find difficult, like programmes, adverts for cancer research etc.

Anyway, I could be here forever thanking you all and agreeing with you all so I'll stop rambling! Thanks for sharing your experiences, it helps to know I am not alone. I look forward to trying to extend the same help to you all xxx

@ofwarren it is a scary thought but the book explains really well how it is our efforts to push away the sensation that actually increase the anxiety. Once you realise that even when you will yourself to feel more faint nothing happens, it is a massive reassurance. I need to reread it!

Just went for a walk in the rain and chatted to my DMum so am feeling a bit better about things. She said to give it a week and if I still have the chest tightness to call the GP and the in the meantime to concentrate on relaxing. So I feel like that is a sensible plan.

DH also remarked that I have a hoarse voice and I've had a bit of a frog in my throat so maybe it is some kind of cold/virus causing the tight chest and then me panicking making it worse?!

Also did some HIIT exercise and didn't drop dead from a heart attack so telling myself that shows I'm not about to die from a heart attack?!

Welcome @StooriMidori

Welcome @StooriMidori you’ll definitely fit in here ha!! yes anything with death in it.. watched moulin rouge the other night and spent the hour after Googling what killed her first.. then symptoms of tuberculosis... I do not have tuberculosis or any of the symptoms she had in the film

@ofwarren
@Skyliner001

That's reassuring. The pain already seems to be going down, I'm going to do some stretching and exercise and try to de-stress a bit.

@tmh88

Welcome *@StooriMidori* you’ll definitely fit in here ha!! yes anything with death in it.. watched moulin rouge the other night and spent the hour after Googling what killed her first.. then symptoms of tuberculosis... I do not have tuberculosis or any of the symptoms she had in the film

Thank you! And thanks @KasparKat

I laughed at your Moulin Rouge comment, I had forgotten about that one! I had it on DVD and couldny watch it. You also reminded me that it took me about 4 years to pluck up the courage to watch The Green Mile after it was released because it was about death row! I think for me there's something in knowing you're going to die that freaks me out so even death row is off the table! 🙈

Yes I can’t watch green mile! It makes DP cry and he’s the most laid back person in the world so if it bothers him, I can only imagine what it would do to me @StooriMidori