Health Anxiety & Private Scans

[Blossombo]

Hi all,

I’m a 31 year old female.
I appeared to develop health anxiety after a bizarre event in April this year where I lost my sight in one eye and couldn’t speak whilst at work, I was rushed to hospital suspected stroke etc which turned out to be nothing as in my symptoms slowly retuned over the night I was in hospital and scans were clear of any brain issues so to speak. I was discharged with no follow up (not that I needed any really?).

Since then I have be hyper sensitive about my health. Iv had a mole removed which I fixated on, GP thought it was nothing but referred due to location (on my scalp), dermatologist wasn’t sure so suggested we remove it and test it. The 3 weeks for the results was horrendous, I stopped eating (I always loose my appetite when I’m stressed but it’s usually 2 days tops!) lost about a stone, became very tearful, actual panic attacks (never had these before). Results came through, it was not cancerous but did have potential to turn nasty in the future. Right I’m happy with that it’s gone.

My appetite returned, but eating was painful so went to GP he said I’d damaged my stomach by not eating so prescribed omeprazole, which has stopped the pain so I can eat again.

In this time I fell over the dog gate and really hurt my hip, it doesn’t seem to have healed (feels bruised). - haven’t see a GP for this.

In all this I have managed to convince myself I have MANY different sinister illnesses arising from my symptoms.

Iv started CBT but tbh, it doesn’t really help at the moment.

I’m thinking of paying for a private full body scan to just make sure I’m ok inside? My therapist thinks this won’t help, but I’m struggling with the anxiety of worrying I’m about to die of some terrible illness.

Anyone who understands what I feel, what would you do??

I take sertraline and it helps. I wasn’t keen but I couldn’t deal with the level of anxiety. I’ve also found a lot of little ways to deal with the thoughts when they occur.

As PPs have pointed out, scans will only help you temporarily. People with health anxiety are, generally speaking, not reassured by a health professional telling them there is nothing abnormal on tests. It is possible your original issue back in April was caused by anxiety.

The issue is your anxiety is manifesting itself in hyper vigilance to your body and your brain is unable that switch off from this.

I would put all your time, effort and money into treating your anxiety. It's the only long term solution.

Good luck

Sooooo. I have had cancer. My health anxiety over this has been horrendous, although I am different in as much as I am too scared to have scans and I have to be really, really worried to ever have one.

However, i have had CT scans in the past and I can assure you that even with a clear scan your worries will only stop for a second. Unfortunately health anxiety is a cycle and that worry will replace with something else. An example is, I had bowel problems and I was convinced I had bowel cancer. Tests showed I didn’t, but within a week I was convinced I had Ovarian cancer and recently lung cancer.
Every test/blood test/scan I have only alleviates the fear for a very short amount of time.

Best thing I’ve found is to use Anti depressants as they allow you to break the cycle and a lot of symptoms are usually stress.

You have my sympathy, it is awful to feel like this.

@Gaaaahhhhhhhh do you worry that speaking to your GP about your anxiety would mean they they won’t take your physical health symptoms seriously in the future?

@wooliewoo I know, I know, it’s just so horrible this feeling i think I’d take a couple of days reassurance at this point. I am sticking with the CBT too

@Weewilliewinkie123 oh bless you. Honestly it’s a horrible place to be.

I know what you mean I have also convinced myself of all the above cancers. It’s exhausting.
Did you worry about asking your GP about medication?

@Blossombo, no I’ve never about asking for meds. I’m not on them now, but I was a while ago as I was getting stomach pains which were clearly anxiety.

Most Drs are pretty good about this kind of stuff and tbh I had loads of counselling after my cancer and although it’s useful to talk no one actually has that magic suggestion that removes your fear, so it never did that much for me. This is the problem. We need someone to reach into our head and take that fear away, but that’s sadly not possible yet!

Now, Sertraline worked a treat. I always have the lowest dose but it dulls the anxiety enough for me to realise that what I’m experiencing is anxiety, not lung cancer, skin cancer, ovarian cancer, some random cancer that Google has suggested because I’ve googled too much, it’s just my head.

Sertraline and CBT but it still came up sometimes. Then I had a full on proper health scare where I was almost certain I was going to die. I had planned my funeral in my head, written my goodbye letters and become very zen about death by the time I actually got the all clear. Since then I no longer feel the stomach dropping terror every time I look at my normal freckles or get constipated or get pins and needles. My advice to those with health anxiety is to work on control and realising that you literally can do nothing about your mortality. When symptoms appear ...wait for 5 day. If they are still there then you call your GP.

[quote Blossombo]@womaninatightspot so sorry to hear you have had similar. One of the things that was mentioned was the fact I had had COVID and I had recently had my 2nd vaccine (about a week before) so they said there was some possibility it could be related to either of those but there isn’t any real research to back it up so couldn’t say for definite.[/quote]
It's interesting that you say that I had my second vaccine a fortnight before. I did come across when googling that for individuals who are genetically predisposed to auto immune disease some vaccines can cause auto immune responses.

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to update. Against some better judgement, I caved and booked a private abdominal and reproductive organ ultrasound scan. Tbh, the whole experience was really lovely, it was completed by a radiographer so she was able to talk me through everything and including the results which I also got a paper copy of the same day.

All scanned normal. (I’m aware ultrasounds are not 100% accurate for 100% of things) but aside from a small cyst in my ovary I’m all ok by the looks of things.

They will rescan my cyst in 6 weeks for free (or rather included in the cost lol).

Personally, I felt instantly better after this and I do feel my anxiety has lessened (also just got a new rescue dog so my time is very taken up atm!) but I honestly think the opportunity to pay private and have someone really sit and talk me through everything even my worries etc was a great benefit.