June 5, 2008

Support Needed

I have suffered from hypochondria and anxiety ever since I was a child. My symptoms and fears seem to go in cycles. In between I feel OK. This is a particularly bad time for me. About seven months ago, I woke up in the middle of the night with reflux. I have since suffered all kinds of gastrointestinal symptoms including chronic nausea, abdominal pain, a sour/ metallic taste in my mouth, weight loss (partly due to reduced appetite, but also due to???) and FEAR. All I do is dwell, dwell, dwell on my symptoms. I have had two endoscopies (I did have a Schatzky's ring, which was stretched during the 2nd procedure - my esophagus was too inflamed the first time to treat it), a barium swallow, a gastric emptying test, a CT scan of the abdomen, an MRI of the small intestine and lots of blood work. All normal except for the blood work did reveal an alarmingly low IgA function for which I'm going to a new doctor in two weeks. A couple of weeks ago, I saw the title of an article about burning mouth syndrome. I didn't read it because I didn't want to know the symptoms - afraid I'd get them. Well, guess what? I got them anyway! I'm too scared to find out what the typical symptoms of burning mouth syndrome are but the name sounds bad enough. I even have burning stomach syndrome (my invention perhaps?) to go with it and today the skin on my face was burning. I feel like I'm cracking up. Any help appreciated! Mona Lisa

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March 19, 2008

Recovering from Health Anxiety

Hi, my name is Melissa and I used to have health anxiety/hypochondria. I'm doing so much better now, I have a few issues with anxiety and depression but I'm not too worried about my health.

I have been worried about my health all my life but in about 1999 it got very serious and I stopped being able to function for a while. I was worried I had mostly ALS or MS or some sort of neurological disorder. Then eventually I realized that a lot of the weird physical symptoms I was experiencing were things that were also anxiety symptoms. I found a psychiatrist that was able to help me.

The biggest part of my recovery was realizing that my problem was hypochondria and anxiety, not the diseases I was worried about.

If you'd like to read more about my story, it's on my site at:

http://healthanxiety.homestead.com/

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November 3, 2007

age 53
Dad died 47 colon cancer
Sister had Hodgkins disease at 13 (survived now 44)
Other sister had neuroendochrine carcinoma this year at age 47
Mom and me cancer free so far
My son, now 19. Two epidsodes of bone surgery since age 14. Diagnosed with aneurysmal bone cyst (mimics osteosarcoma)
Just told me tonight, has had increasing shoulder pain for about 2 weeks.
Is it ok to start obsessing??????

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