Health Anxiety After Colonoscopy

Mental health
1

So....I had my first-ever colonoscopy just over two weeks ago (standard screening test, not diagnostic)...no issues at all with the prep or the procedure itself, but I'm still feeling a bit "off" from a digestive standpoint. No severe pain, no bleeding, no fever, no abdominal distention....nothing that I think would warrant a trip to the ER, but I am having some abdominal discomfort....feels periodically crampy in a localized area (kind of like a pinching or tightness) and of course I'm convinced that something catastrophic has happened. I did have a very small polyp removed. My appetite is fine, and my bowels are functioning pretty normally. (As a sidebar, i do suffer from fairly significant health anxiety, and have been spending time with Google....a horrible idea, i know)....i called my gastroenterologist last Monday to tell him how i was feeling and he said to not worry, that if anything truly horrible was wrong, i would know it. But of course i'm not convinced. Has anyone else experienced abdominal "not-quite-rightness" after a colonoscopy? or a flare up of health anxiety after a medical procedure? any words of wisdom? I'm having such a difficult time with my health anxiety right now :(

2

I personally have not experienced this, but I was just reading up recently on colonoscopies and endoscopies, and I remember seeing how afterwards you may have some discomfort, with both, in your abdominal area. I mean they are sticking a foreign tube into your body lol, so it’s not surprising you wouldn’t feel 100% normal right after.

  • I also suffer from health anxiety and I’ve been having stomach cramps on and off lately. I’m curious if the pains are actually from my anxiety, as I’ve had many other physical anxiety symptoms in the past. Nothing surprises me anymore lol
3

good point…i suspect my constant fretting about how i’m feeling isn’t helping…and google was definitely a very bad idea…you’d think i’d learn that lesson!

4

I have had a colonoscopy and did feel crampy and just a bit uncomfy for a a little bit after! if you think about it, you have had a tube pushed through it so i would imagine its quite normal. I do find with having health anxiety i notice little pains and twinges more than other people seem too as well…i think you can become sensitized to how your body feels so you notice more. Then once you’ve noticed something feels a bit different its hard not to focus on it.