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It's not all in my head!

14 replies

SuperProudMummyOfTwo · 26/08/2025 21:36

I have Anxiety because I'm an over thinker and I lost my mum suddenly to Cancer.
I am doing talking therapy because my doctor said this will probably just be my anxiety..
But...
I have REAL pains. I'm going to list my pains and if anyone could tell me if they have the same and/or they found out what it was please?
I have pain when I urinate in the morning especially and the pain travels up to my lower left pelvic area. It usually hurts to sit down or walk as its a stabbing pain.
I get pain then sometimes into my stomach and it used to be just sometimes under my left rib and the very bottom on the left side too but this is almost a constant pain now.
I have lower back pain and struggle to walk more and more as time goes on. I have to shuffle before I can walk properly after sitting down.
I get mucus in my stool and sometimes feel like I have pressure like I need to do a poo but I dont.
I have been referred to gynaecology but they won't see my until I take contraceptive pill for 6 months.
I am also soooooo tired even if I get a good night sleep.
I did have 2 cesarean sections 2 years in a row.

OP posts:
Clingingontosummer · 27/08/2025 03:38

Sorry for your loss.
What’s the rationale for taking the pill?

Bonnybairn · 27/08/2025 07:33

Hello lovely. I can’t advise you on your pain. However as a sufferer of extreme health anxiety due to loss of parents, I can fully sympathise with your situation. I’m also doing talking therapy currently… how long have you had the symptoms for? Go back to the GP and tell them the impact it’s having on you mentally and to leave you this stressed for 6 months will only make matters worse.

SuperProudMummyOfTwo · 27/08/2025 07:54

Clingingontosummer · 27/08/2025 03:38

Sorry for your loss.
What’s the rationale for taking the pill?

Thank you. The gynecologist said (without seeing me) that it is either normal painful periods or endometriosis. They usually treat endo by using BC apparently, so have to trial that first.

OP posts:
SuperProudMummyOfTwo · 27/08/2025 07:59

Bonnybairn · 27/08/2025 07:33

Hello lovely. I can’t advise you on your pain. However as a sufferer of extreme health anxiety due to loss of parents, I can fully sympathise with your situation. I’m also doing talking therapy currently… how long have you had the symptoms for? Go back to the GP and tell them the impact it’s having on you mentally and to leave you this stressed for 6 months will only make matters worse.

Sorry that you share the same grief and health anxiety, its awful! I have had my symptoms since I had my second baby almost 2 years ago. I have 3 more weeks left of taking BC to be referred to gynaecology, but I feel like the doctor has made up her mind already because she keeps talking about my anxiety and wont refer for certains things such as colonoscopy or MRI because I has a colonoscopy 7 years ago and there was a small polyp that was fine. I did ask, do things not change in that time? And I just feel like it always goes back to anxiety no matter what I say. I lost faith in doctors after losing my mum and I worry I'm not being taken seriously 😔

OP posts:
CherryogDog · 27/08/2025 08:12

A lot of what you are describing is how my diverticular disease started, I had shooting pains lower left pelvic area, initially coinciding with my cycle.
Ended up in A&E with constant pain like a red hot poker going right through to my back. Couldn't sit down (because my bowel was inflammed), could only stand or lie down.
Gynae scanned me because they thought it was an ovarian cyst, but they passed me to the GI team who diagnosed me after a colonoscopy.
Hope you get some answers.

Bonnybairn · 27/08/2025 08:13

SuperProudMummyOfTwo · 27/08/2025 07:59

Sorry that you share the same grief and health anxiety, its awful! I have had my symptoms since I had my second baby almost 2 years ago. I have 3 more weeks left of taking BC to be referred to gynaecology, but I feel like the doctor has made up her mind already because she keeps talking about my anxiety and wont refer for certains things such as colonoscopy or MRI because I has a colonoscopy 7 years ago and there was a small polyp that was fine. I did ask, do things not change in that time? And I just feel like it always goes back to anxiety no matter what I say. I lost faith in doctors after losing my mum and I worry I'm not being taken seriously 😔

i’m exactly the same. I just haven’t been right since having my second a year ago. C section too. I keep getting random symptom after random symptom and it all gets put down to anxiety. I have no confidence because parents were dismissed too. I always feel awkward going to doctors but then I have to remember it’s their job and im asking them for help. They have 10 minutes of me and im in my head all the time so I have to advocate for myself.

i hope therapy is working to ease the anxiety but then also remember you might have anxiety but the symptoms are also real so don’t doubt yourself x

SuperProudMummyOfTwo · 27/08/2025 08:27

CherryogDog · 27/08/2025 08:12

A lot of what you are describing is how my diverticular disease started, I had shooting pains lower left pelvic area, initially coinciding with my cycle.
Ended up in A&E with constant pain like a red hot poker going right through to my back. Couldn't sit down (because my bowel was inflammed), could only stand or lie down.
Gynae scanned me because they thought it was an ovarian cyst, but they passed me to the GI team who diagnosed me after a colonoscopy.
Hope you get some answers.

I did actually google my symptoms and that did come up, thats why i asked for a colonoscopy. Im waiting for stool sample result but if nothing shows in that, I dont think she will send me for colonoscopy because I had one in 2017. Was your lower back pain getting worse over time too? Did it hurt to urinate?

OP posts:
SuperProudMummyOfTwo · 27/08/2025 08:30

Bonnybairn · 27/08/2025 08:13

i’m exactly the same. I just haven’t been right since having my second a year ago. C section too. I keep getting random symptom after random symptom and it all gets put down to anxiety. I have no confidence because parents were dismissed too. I always feel awkward going to doctors but then I have to remember it’s their job and im asking them for help. They have 10 minutes of me and im in my head all the time so I have to advocate for myself.

i hope therapy is working to ease the anxiety but then also remember you might have anxiety but the symptoms are also real so don’t doubt yourself x

Yes exactly, it's their job, so don't feel bad for going (easier said than done I kno. My doctor has never actually seen me in person. Everything is over the phone.
I'm going to keep annoyingthem though because I want to enjoy my life with my 2 girls and not be worrying every day. I also don't like taking painkillers, so deffinatly wont be taking them every day for pain when I dont know whats causing it.

OP posts:
Bonnybairn · 27/08/2025 09:39

SuperProudMummyOfTwo · 27/08/2025 08:30

Yes exactly, it's their job, so don't feel bad for going (easier said than done I kno. My doctor has never actually seen me in person. Everything is over the phone.
I'm going to keep annoyingthem though because I want to enjoy my life with my 2 girls and not be worrying every day. I also don't like taking painkillers, so deffinatly wont be taking them every day for pain when I dont know whats causing it.

Yes! Absolutely. You can’t mask something long term with painkillers not knowing what it is. Just putting it down to anxiety isn’t concrete either like. I hope you get answers from Gynaecologist.

PlayingDevilsAdvocateisinteresting · 27/08/2025 10:08

The pains you are describing @SuperProudMummyOfTwo
do not sound anything like the imaginary sort of pains that someone may get if severely stressed. However, I am not a doctor, but I believe that your pains are absolutely real, and what stress can do - particularly health related stress - is make us focus more on any real pains, which can then make us involuntarily and non- intentially, and probably unknowingly as well, tense our muscles which may then cause the pain we are feeling to increase to a lesser or greater degree.

Dear OP, I really feel for you, and as someone who also had the medics believing my symptoms were "all in my mind" - and if they really believed that, then why didn't they arrange for me to have intensive mental health therapy - as that was many, many, years ago, when we still had a reasonably well functioning NHS.- until they eventually did enough tests that they probably stumbled on my diagnosis, rather than expecting to find it from the beginning - and no, my disease/condition is not some rare, hardly ever come across, illness!

Anyway, back to you OP, if your left sided pains did not start until after, at least your first Caesarean, then the first thing I would want to rule out as your GP - by your GP conferring with a Gynaecologist, not him just asking for you to go on to the back of their very long waiting lists - is whether your pains could have been caused by internal scar tissue forming after your sections. If that is the cause of your pain, it could - but not a definite would - continue to get worse, if for example, any scar tissues already there, were pulling on, and possibly slightly tearing, some more tissue, that could then lead to even more scarring on the new internal wound.

Now the likelihood of me, as some random Mumsnetter (slightly intelligently) guessing, the correct diagnosis for your symptoms, must be quite - if not, very - low, so I am just suggesting this because (through some personal experience) it seems like the most likely candidate to me. Another cause of the pain - again to do with your Caesarean sections - could be a slightly more worryingly accidental tiny tear made in the wall of your bowel during one of your operations, but I see that as a less likely cause, but still one that both your GP and Gynaecologist should consider, before tacking you on to the end of any waiting lists.

So, before the Gynaecologist even sees you, and to save both time, and hopefully, your severe discomfort lasting any longer than is absolutely unavoidable, you should have 'another' wide spectrum blood test, followed by whatever "they" would consider to be the most useful scans. If it were my choice, I would arrange for you to have an ultrasound, followed hopefully on the same day - for your convenience, and for them to get, what may be very useful information, much more quickly and efficiently than waiting for each individual result - by an MRI scan of the same area. I know that MRI scans are expensive, but I believe it to be a necessary tool in trying to discover the cause of the distressing pains.

Whatever is causing your pain, Super Proud Mummy, I very much hope that it gets sorted very soon, as expecting you to wait 6 months just to start trying to find out what is causing your pain, is both cruel, and in my opinion, disgusting. As for your excessive tiredness, well any physical pain and/or mental pain, and anything in our bodies that are not working to optimum levels, can cause us to feel exhausted, but there is something else that is almost 100% guaranteed to cause us massive, debilitating exhaustion, and from what you have told us, you have two of them 😜

In all seriousness, it is probably a mixture of being a mummy to two tiny tots, while also suffering almost relentless pain, that is causing your excessive tiredness. Although, I am presuming that you have had your iron levels tested quite recently, but if not, then it is an easy test to do, of course, iron levels are also tested in the wide spectrum blood test that I think you should have done, again unless you have had one done very recently. 🌸🌸🌸

SuperProudMummyOfTwo · 27/08/2025 10:47

Bonnybairn · 27/08/2025 09:39

Yes! Absolutely. You can’t mask something long term with painkillers not knowing what it is. Just putting it down to anxiety isn’t concrete either like. I hope you get answers from Gynaecologist.

Oh deffinatly, Thank you so much for your comments!

OP posts:
CherryogDog · 27/08/2025 11:06

@SuperProudMummyOfTwo my morning wees when my bladder is full would make my bowels twingey.
And yes the back pain got worse, to begin with I only had pain in my pelvic area, then after time got mild back pain which just got worse. First time it was really bad I'd squatted down to pick something up and it literally felt like I'd been stabbed right through my body with a red hot poker, one of the worst pains I've ever had.

SuperProudMummyOfTwo · 27/08/2025 11:36

PlayingDevilsAdvocateisinteresting · 27/08/2025 10:08

The pains you are describing @SuperProudMummyOfTwo
do not sound anything like the imaginary sort of pains that someone may get if severely stressed. However, I am not a doctor, but I believe that your pains are absolutely real, and what stress can do - particularly health related stress - is make us focus more on any real pains, which can then make us involuntarily and non- intentially, and probably unknowingly as well, tense our muscles which may then cause the pain we are feeling to increase to a lesser or greater degree.

Dear OP, I really feel for you, and as someone who also had the medics believing my symptoms were "all in my mind" - and if they really believed that, then why didn't they arrange for me to have intensive mental health therapy - as that was many, many, years ago, when we still had a reasonably well functioning NHS.- until they eventually did enough tests that they probably stumbled on my diagnosis, rather than expecting to find it from the beginning - and no, my disease/condition is not some rare, hardly ever come across, illness!

Anyway, back to you OP, if your left sided pains did not start until after, at least your first Caesarean, then the first thing I would want to rule out as your GP - by your GP conferring with a Gynaecologist, not him just asking for you to go on to the back of their very long waiting lists - is whether your pains could have been caused by internal scar tissue forming after your sections. If that is the cause of your pain, it could - but not a definite would - continue to get worse, if for example, any scar tissues already there, were pulling on, and possibly slightly tearing, some more tissue, that could then lead to even more scarring on the new internal wound.

Now the likelihood of me, as some random Mumsnetter (slightly intelligently) guessing, the correct diagnosis for your symptoms, must be quite - if not, very - low, so I am just suggesting this because (through some personal experience) it seems like the most likely candidate to me. Another cause of the pain - again to do with your Caesarean sections - could be a slightly more worryingly accidental tiny tear made in the wall of your bowel during one of your operations, but I see that as a less likely cause, but still one that both your GP and Gynaecologist should consider, before tacking you on to the end of any waiting lists.

So, before the Gynaecologist even sees you, and to save both time, and hopefully, your severe discomfort lasting any longer than is absolutely unavoidable, you should have 'another' wide spectrum blood test, followed by whatever "they" would consider to be the most useful scans. If it were my choice, I would arrange for you to have an ultrasound, followed hopefully on the same day - for your convenience, and for them to get, what may be very useful information, much more quickly and efficiently than waiting for each individual result - by an MRI scan of the same area. I know that MRI scans are expensive, but I believe it to be a necessary tool in trying to discover the cause of the distressing pains.

Whatever is causing your pain, Super Proud Mummy, I very much hope that it gets sorted very soon, as expecting you to wait 6 months just to start trying to find out what is causing your pain, is both cruel, and in my opinion, disgusting. As for your excessive tiredness, well any physical pain and/or mental pain, and anything in our bodies that are not working to optimum levels, can cause us to feel exhausted, but there is something else that is almost 100% guaranteed to cause us massive, debilitating exhaustion, and from what you have told us, you have two of them 😜

In all seriousness, it is probably a mixture of being a mummy to two tiny tots, while also suffering almost relentless pain, that is causing your excessive tiredness. Although, I am presuming that you have had your iron levels tested quite recently, but if not, then it is an easy test to do, of course, iron levels are also tested in the wide spectrum blood test that I think you should have done, again unless you have had one done very recently. 🌸🌸🌸

Oh wow, I really appreciate you really trying to help!
I deffinatly agree that the pains might be worse due to stress and tensing muscle and also because It's constantly on my mind because the pain under my left rib gets worse whenever I get stressed even about the slightest thing.
Im sorry that you wentthrough the same thing but Im glad that what I think I got from your reply, that they did find out what your illness was/is?
I have also wondered why my scar isn't being checked again since healed but having problems, I did think oh no, was something snipped, because they told me as they started the section that a trainee was with them..
Haha yes I have 2 beautiful, amazing, crazy girls!
Luckily I only have 3 more weeks of the 6 months to take the pill,which has done nothing. I had a diagnostic laparoscopy about 10 years ago, which they said was nothing there even though for endo, i thought you need a specialist there at the time because thats what they thought it was, but after the op they said they were just having a general look around.. sigh
I have had ultrasounds and blood tests done, but I dont think they are thorough enough and dont understand why they wont do MRI when there is a large area of my lower left side that it is all going on in.
Thanks again for your reply! I don't feel I will ever just accept the pains because of reassurance from people like you and hearing stories of people eventually finding out a cause. 🤗

OP posts:
SuperProudMummyOfTwo · 27/08/2025 11:40

CherryogDog · 27/08/2025 11:06

@SuperProudMummyOfTwo my morning wees when my bladder is full would make my bowels twingey.
And yes the back pain got worse, to begin with I only had pain in my pelvic area, then after time got mild back pain which just got worse. First time it was really bad I'd squatted down to pick something up and it literally felt like I'd been stabbed right through my body with a red hot poker, one of the worst pains I've ever had.

Oh that sounds awful!
I referred myself for physio but I cant help but still think it is because of my other pains. When I bend down to do my girls bath for eg , i have to keep standijg up from bending over or I feel like something is going to go or get stuck near my tail bone.

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