Am I Being Irrational?

[ashley]

Hi everyone.
First time poster - I've read through everyone's symptoms and I feel quite at home here. I'm a bit embarrassed to say this stuff to anyone - except my mum - and I actually think it's driving me crazy.

Ok. It started off when I was working with a girl around my age and she was saying (in November/December) that she knew this woman who had cancer and that she wasn't expected to live until Christmas. She'd only been sick for 3 months and that it had started with only a sore back.

Now I always have a sore back. Which got me worrying. I went out shopping one day, a couple of weeks after she told me, and I hadn't eaten breakfast, so I got all shaky and spaced out. I got home and my legs were sore, my back was sore and I was shaky. Somehow, I convinced myself I was sick and dying.

It bugged me for a week or so, all the while I knew how irrational connecting those symptoms together to get cancer sounds, but I can't help it. So, after that week, my anxiety subsided and I didn't worry about it for a while. The pain went away. I was working during this time, but it was a seasonal job, so now I have entirely too much time on my hands and started thinking about it again.

During that week, though, it progressed from sore legs and back to sore arms, weak and shaky muscles, crawly feelings under my skin, pain in specific places (mostly feeling like in my bones, but I'm hoping it's muscle) and a general feeling of um..doom. I made the mistake of looking it up on the internet and got really scared. Eventually, I found fibromyalgia and my symptoms seemed to agree with that, roughly. The pain wasn't constant and it didn't hurt in the 'pressure points' and it wasn't severe, just annoying and worrying. So, I went back to work for a couple of weeks and this disappeared - I also got a massage and was told my shoulders were really tense.  Not sure what that has to do with anything, but I hope this post is making sense.

So, the day after I finished work (only a couple of days ago) and was left to my own devices and company, I got a pain in my leg similar to the previous pain. That started the whole process again. I feel like I can't be left alone or I convince myself that I have some horrible disease. Again, I made the mistake of looking up sore bones on the internet and was terrified by the results - among the results were leukemia, bone cancer and tumours. I'm trying to convince myself that if it was something like that, the pain would be constant and more severe. There are patches where the pain keeps going back to, but it only stays for a while - maybe half an hour, I haven't really been keeping check - and it's still not severe, just 'niggly'. There's a patch under my knee that keeps hurting - just kind of a grating feeling. If you put your palm horizontally underneath your kneecap, that's where it's been hurting. I thought there might be muscle on top of it, but there's only bone. This is on both knees, but most commonly on my right. My right 'underknee' started hurting when I walked yesterday, but not a long distance at all - it was through water at the best and my shoes kept getting stuck in the sand - connection? There's pain along the....tibia...I think it was...anyway, the bone between your knee and your ankle, I can't think at the moment, about half way down there's a patch on the side of the bone that feels a bit of pressure. It's hard to describe the feeling, but I think pressure describes it best. It does that on both sides too. Also, sore muscles have been a bit of a problem in my legs and arms. But I don't do any exercise...I would like to, but at the moment it's 34 degrees and far too hot to consider any physical..movement at all. It's not weakness as such anymore, just kind of stabbing or throbbing pains for a little while in the same areas; in my wrist joint and at various places between the two bones in my lower arm and along the outside of the outside bone on my right arm, I assume that to be muscle at least (that doesn't seem to make much sense, does it?). I have been doing a lot of rubbing out of textbooks (damn secondhand uni textbooks), which possibly could explain my right arm (now actually stretching up to my shoulder) and my left arm could be from holding the book...but I'm not sure the little throbby patches would have anything to do with that, just the general odd feeling to my arms. My legs aren't...structured properly (I guess you could say) and my knees go right in (not knock-kneed though), it is noticable and hurts my hips and my doctors have acknowledged this. One even went so far as to say I was just defective, so I'm not going back to him. I've been told I have loose ligaments too. I have bad posture and sitting down all the time doesn't help. My tailbone's pretty sore and my lower back is almost always sore, both probably from the way I sit. I'm wondering if the pain in my arms could be caused by something in my back? Or whether the symptoms are just psychosomatic? I have a general feeling of 'just not right', but I can't think of any other symptoms I have. Not sure if that's just anxiety or actually something wrong.

I keep asking myself why it would necessarily be such a bad thing. Then I keep thinking that getting sick is so random and why wouldn't it be something bad. I've gotten to points where I think I'm going insane. I think I may have had a panic attack the other day thinking about it at home alone...and I'm sure I've got OCD tendencies (ie...checking that a door is shut a couple of times, then going back a couple of minutes later...getting upset by things out of place...but mainly just checking things a ridiculous number of times), which I'm sure aren't helping.

Now, I'm constantly on edge, crying and worrying so much about what will happen to me. I'm 20. I'm scared to go to the doctor in case something is wrong and it can't be fixed. My mum made a doctor's appointment for me, which I think will be the only thing to stop me worrying so much, but it's 2 weeks away and I'm terrified of going in case something bad is found.

I'm sorry this is so badly written, but things just keep coming to mind that I wanted to type before I forgot, so it's a bit jumpy. Typing this out has made me feel a bit better. Can anyone help me out? I'll still be going to the doctor, but I'll be stressing out the whole time until I see him and then worrying that he'll look at me like I'm stupid. Or that he'll actually accept that something really bad is wrong...

Ash

[jenny649]

I know how you feel. You are most likely being irrational but I think the whole reason we are all here is because of irrational thoughts. I've been through thinking I had all those things, particularly a tumor. I had a swollen bruise on my knee, and I've alway had a bad right knee, so I convinced myself it was a tumor that popped up over night. Turned out to be nothing, of course. You should go to your doctor, but you should also consider seeing a therapist. It will make the thoughts you're getting more manageable and it should help in stopping you from googling all your symptoms. Good luck with the doctors, I'm sure you are fine.

By the way, welcome to Anxiety Zone!

[ashley]

Thank you so much for your reply, Jenny!

Damn Google 

Ash

[Kate1982]

Welcome to the board!  I can totally relate to what you are going through.  I think most, if not all of us have (and probably still do) google our "symptoms".  It's a hard cycle to break.  Hang in there :)

[Kymanne]

I just posted this in another thread, i hope this helps:)

I finally realized how irrational I was yesterday.   Offcourse, I called the doctor at 8am yesterday morning, because I started being obsessive about that stupid yawning.  I made sure I told the nurse that I had seen the doctor yesterday, I had been having excessive yawning attacks, and chest pains( I only had chest pains and palps AFTER I read about that aortic disease)
I tried to hide my irrational actions by saying it was because I thought I was having a reaction to my antidepressant medication.

I waited all day long, they never even called me back.  I finally called them back at 3 and the nurse said that my medication can cause tiredness.  Then she said, he didnt know what the yawning was and said it with a kinda chuckle.  Then she asked if I had started counselling, again with a  chuckle. ( You know that kind of chuckle that the judges of American Idol get when they are watching someone who really sings bad, but the contestant seriously thinks they are good)

I felt extremely stupid. I  then started to try to look at things from the outside in.
1. This started because I yawned 5x in a row. 
2. I had no chest pain whatsoever UNTIL I started to google.   
3. I ignored rational logic(anxiety causes yawning, I have been getting NO sleep at all, Meds may cause it,I also have diagnosed sleep apnea)
4. The condition is very uncommon, and not only that it usually happens with men( i am female) and it usually happens with older men, 55-60,( I am 35)

Now as a hyperchondriac, my brain tells me, ok its the WORSE case scenerio.  I have it, I only have moments/weeks to live.  I throw out all rational explainations.  Why does it ALWAYS have to be worse case scenerio with me?  Why does a tiny bit of leg pain from moving furniture end up in my mind, being a blood clot, lying in wait to spring on my heart and lungs,plotting my demise like a crouching tiger .  It is because I have always focused on the negative in my life.  I have always over reacted to things.   I just felt incredibly stupid yesterday, and realized how irrational I am. I don't want to live the rest of my life like this, this is extremely unheathly.

I have to add, that  all this brought me back to my faith in Christ, and has made the anxiety so much better.   I will sometimes just pray and dump all my fears and anxietys on Him, and He is open 24/7, and he never interupts or ah-hums you to death:) .  I dunno praying has been a comfort me:)