What would you do?

[Gagagalaxy]

I'm so sorry to be clogging this board with bleating threads about toxiplasmosis (well this is my 3rd this week). This is a long one so please bear with me.

Basically, I have been feeling very anxious this week about toxo since eating food that my husband had touched (specifically cheddar) after gardening with no gloves on. He did wash his hands and have a shower and i used it a while after. I also had a pinkish steak in a restaurant incident the other week after ordering it well done, sending it back a couple of times, thinking it was fine but then looking down after enjoying most of it to find out what i was eating was still a bit pink.

I went to the GP who said they wouldn't do a blood test and that I would be absolutely fine and to stop worrying.

I feel much better now the week has gone on and realise i was being over anxious and that the risks are very low. However, I have found a place near me that will do the blood test privately for me. They originally said it would be £60 and then when I asked more questions about time it takes to get results and how they can distinguish for definite between antibodies that show immunity and antibodies that show recent infection they came back with some detailed answers but the cost is either £120 for a 5 day turnaround or £180 for a 2 day turnaround.

If the test results come back positive I would need a further blood test 2 weeks later to check that the titres had gone up which would show if the infection was before pregnancy (and I would therefore be immune) or recent.

So in short, I don't know whether to have the test or not. I realise that the chance of getting toxo during my pregnancy is so low and kind of expect the test to be either negative or show immunity. But I'm scared because if I am immune then I will obviously get a positive result first and then have to wait 2 weeks to see if I am immune or not and that will be terrifying. (oh and the second test would incur further charger of which they haven't stated).

On the other hand, I'm scared that if I don't have it and get toxo something awful could happen to my baby. I'm scared that I'll never know and then something will develop in the baby after it's born or worse i'll have a stillbirth.

DH thinks I should just forget about it and carry on as normal. I feel like I've got this HUGE decision to make and don't know what to do.

If you've read this far, well done!

Basically I just want to know what you would do in this situation. Test or no test?

Mumsnet has been a big help to me this week so thanks in advance!

Gaga Your thoughts are not that rational around this risk. The risk is pretty much non existent. But they are just thoughts - allow yourself to have them and then let them go. I had a total freak about wells disease and toxo. But I had done gardening MYSELF, where I know rats were just the day before, without gloves and then wiped my eyes and put something in my mouth. Seriously, I kid you not. Everyone told me I was totally crazy for worrying even about that which was pretty dumb. Your risk is so minimal as to be off the scale. A slightly pink steak is not a real risk - a bleeding rare one is still even a tiny risk and the cheese thing is NOT A RISK AT ALL. He washed his hands. He had showered.
Your money would be much better spent on some CBT or a session with a therapist or just a good girls day out with someone you can talk all this through with and see it for what it really is.
Having a baby brings a lot of anxieties and I think you need to find some ways of coping with these better. Take care and I hope you can stop tormenting yourself with whats, if's and maybes.

Just to second what everyone else is saying, don't have the test and spend the money on some CBT, it works wonders for this kind of anxiety. This level of stress and worry is far more harmful then the tiny risks you're worrying about.

Hi,
Obviously you know you're being completely irrational, and the chances of something being wrong are absolutely minute. But I don't need to tell you that- it doesn't help.
To be honest, if you're that worried about this specific thing, I would say take the test for your own peace of mind. Otherwise, are you going to spend the next 20 weeks worrying and trying not to bond with your baby because you think something will go terribly wrong? I had a terrible panic about ectopic pregnancy at 6 weeks. I was getting slight pains on one side, but to be honest it was no where near bad enough to actually suggest ectopic and I'm not high risk. But I went for an early scan and just knowing that it was in the right place helped me to settle and enjoy being pregnant.
If you're this worried about several things, and you take this test only to be then fretting terribly about the next thing, then your anxiety is the problem and this particular worry is actually irrelevant.
But it's totally normal to worry during pregnancy- I worry about once a day that something might go wrong, but generally can rationalise that everything will be fine. Try and listen to the rational side of yourself as much as possible.

Don't have the test, spend that money on doing something relaxing for yourself instead because you sound really stressed and I think you're projecting your stress onto this tiny tiny risk.

Pregancy yoga, a mum-to-be massage or something like that will do you more good than that test. Because what if the results don't soothe your frazzled nerves? Give yourself a bit of TLC and try not to think about these kind of food risks after the event, because there is nothing you can do about them by then anyway.

Thanks for your advice everyone. I have decided not to get the test and try to relax and forget about it.

I also read somewhere that cats only have toxoplasmosis for a few days in their entire life so in the tiny event that any cat poo went on my cheese it would also have to coincide with the cat being infectious and the chances of that are also tiny.

I'm going to chat to my midwife and get myself a nice pregnancy massage I think

Gaga, the risk of you contracting toxoplasmosis is very small. Even if you did by some v small risk Contract toxoplasmosis and pass it on to your unborn child (around 3 babies per 100,000 are born with congenital toxo so a very very small risk) the later in pregnancy you do so the less likely your baby is to have Serious health problems. If you had toxoplasmosis at conception there is a less than 5% chance it'd pass to your baby. All in all the odds are very much in your favour, especially if you take normal precautions.

Be kind to yourself.

Oops, sorry didn't read to the end of the thread,

I agree with bettybat.. you sound like you're suffering from a bit of pregnancy induced obsessive worry! Its pretty common during pregnancy I think. I was the same: I kept thinking I had stepped on a dirty needle in the street and had contracted HIV which had passed to the baby! I even had tests! A friend of mine was the same..she was convinced she had toxeplasmosis, cholostasis, listeria - she had loads of tests..and she was perfectly okay! It is so easy to go a bit bonkers!!!

IMO do NOT get the tests. You will be feeding your obsessions and worries and making them worse. Antenatal CBT (cogntive behavioural thrapy) can work wonders. It would be good to try and get your mind a little more relaxed before the birth as with a newborn around your anxieties have the potential to be magnified even more.

Gaga I'm not trying to be flippant so I truly apologise if it come across that I am, but the first thought I had was, what would you do if you had the test and it came back positive? Because if you would proceed with your pregnancy anyway, then it really makes no difference what the results of a blood test are, except maybe preparing you for the possibility of problems.

I agree with everyone else, you are doing the right thing by not paying for the test. I'd personally go back to the dr's and ask to see a different dr, explain that the other one wasn't sympathetic if need be and insist on seeing someone else. I suffered terribly with antenatal depression (never had depression before, or since) and the first dr I saw was useless, the second was outstanding. He understood how I was feeling, signed me off work and referred me for CBT, which I only had to wait 3 weeks for due to being a 'priority' due to pregnancy.

I really hope you feel happier soon.

Please, please, please stop worrying. It's not good for you and it's not good for the baby! You will be paying good money for a completely unnecessary test; take that money and book yourself in for a mum to be pamper package at a salon.

If you weren't pregnant would you be worried? I know that the £64,000 question but you are at no increased risk of these things while pregnant. Many of these things are guidelines that HCP have to tell you to cover their own backs so that IF you decided to eat an entire raw steak or a nice bowl of earth fresh from the garden then wondered why you got ill they would be able to say "well we did tell you..."

OP, it always helped me, both during pregnancy and when DS was tiny, to remember that babies have survived being born and to adulthood this long for us to have been born; in stone hoses and straw & mud huts with no effective heating in winter, meat that was going rotten, famine, plague. Your baby isn't going to be affected by you eating one pink steak, any more than mine was affected by me drinking one coffee laced with Baileys, eating mayonnaise or 3 tuna sandwiches in a week, but it doesn't stop you worrying.

Go out for a walk - preferably somewhere historical and think about what their babies and pregnant women must have survived. You'll realise how durable baby really is - I fell over on an icey pavement when 3 / 4 months pregnant. My mum was terrified that the baby would be hurt but he was fine.

I completely understand your worries, and also agree with all the other posters about anxiety being the issue. The specifics you describe I really wouldn't worry about from a germ pov, I've been gardening with no gloves and made sure I washed well. And eaten a pinkish steak and brie (bad mummy!) Germs really are everywhere and you can go nuts thinking about it - I know as have experienced exactly the same scenario due to slapped cheek.

I work with sen children, its very hands on, they are snotty and we hold/cuddle/restrain them etc. I'm not usually fussed about germs! A child in the school had slapped cheek - the process of checking my immunity (but then couldn't go back to school incase of re-exposure) opened a can of worms as I wasn't immune. In the mean time more cases appeared in children I have contact with. Luckily I was not there. However as soon as I knew I was not immune I went nuts with paranoid anxiety about potentially going back (and for a while not seeing anyone, swimming etc) and how school were monitoring cases (they weren't informing parents as hpa guidelines state). The day before I was due to return there was another case so the doc has just refused me going back till 20 wks, partly as we really don't know which children may have it and partly to save my sanity. The risks are in reality ridiculously small but enough to necessitate it. I couldn't have done my job effectively and as it turned out had more to worry about with a thyroid problem. it can be caught anywhere, but mostly from your own children and in child care situations but is really hard to spot.

I hope I can be so bold as to say that
I really think you would definately find it so much harder to embark on the testing - if not immune your anxious mind would potentially find another time where you suspect toxo between or after the tests and be worried all over again. From the almost exact experience I honestly don't think it will set your mind at rest.

Soooo many people have cats and babies, and also live in squalor but are fine. I'm going to have to be brave going back to work as I could still catch it but the mc risk reduces, worst case could be baby gets aneamic but its a 3% chance. Believe me I have wondered about being tested again when back at work for the last week before summer or later in pregnancy. But my anxiety is less now so it doesn't last long.

Your anxiety could be more of an issue Gaga, please consider going to a doc - perhaps ask the receptionist which doctor has a special interest in anxiety and depression (as a general area) they do specialise, and try and see them. Hope you get sorted x

You sound very stressed hun. Do you think it might be worth talking to your GP about your anxiety? It seems to me that you have fixated a bit on toxo and its becoming a bit of a burden on your life. I say this as someone who has suffered from extreme anxiety. xx