Health Anxiety and constant worrying about MS :(

Mental health
1

Hi guys im reaching the end of my tether, cant cope with health anxiety any more. If i just knew that my symptoms werent caused by MS and were all anxiety i could rest. My symptoms are:

Headaches and feeling dizzy/woozy

lack of concentration

burning sensation/tingling in my legs/feet

keep mixing up my words

cant remember things sometimes

feeling like im having to take deep breaths

just feeling utter despair and panic

So ive googled these symptoms and straight away it says it could be MS. But, ive had headaches and burning pain in my leg before and never thought about MS but now for some reason ive started thinking about it and i overwhelming fear. its affecting my work life and my home life. my family cant understand why i would worry about such a thing.

Could all this be anxiety or what? I dont know why this has happened. I noticed i was tired and mixed up my words one day then thought 'hang on ive been having headaches too, and now my legs feel tingly' then started googling and feel like ive gone inane with worry,

any help greatly.

2

Hello Nicola.

Anxiety is very miserable but all your symptoms to me sound like classic anxiety. Check online the freedom from fear group all symptoms are well identified. I've had numerous of them.

Also my ex boyfriend has MS and you don't have all the symptoms all the time or simultaneously also they would be more intense and actually effect your mobility.

You say yourself you are feeling utter panic and anxiety so there you go, if you weren't feeling so anxious you wouldn't be having the symptoms in the first place. Anxiety feeds off the attention we give it and the fear that itself generates. Very powerful and preoccupying always looking for the way out. The answer lays within ourselves which makes it even harder to accept sometimes.

Also let's face it we are unlikely to go through life without ever having some sort of health issue, anxiety ironically being one! There are soo ooo ooo many conditions, diseases etc anyone of us could get and being anxious or hyper vigilant won't unfortunately protect us. Accepting that we can't control certain things is very hard but it helps. Live in the now more is important and try and not overly predict or pre live the future! Mindfulness really helps. I'm still learning myself but we all have to start somewhere.

X

3

Your reply helped me a little thanks fran :-)

I'm suffering like ocd thoughts that I'm dying bla bla.. It's crippling my head things I have all sorts wrong lately. it seems anxity symptoms mske us belive allsorts. My friend always says no point worrying about things out of your control so just get up anyway and plod on

4

Hi Nicola

All above describes me completely. I've been goin through this for years. Sympton n fears alle the same. Have just been nk the docs as something triggered it off again n she has prescribed me sertraline again.

I constantly have the fear of getting Ms n every little ache or pain I think it's that. I'm also trying therapy aswell to getting me to change the way I think n try n get rid of all this.

5

What about just getting it checked to rule it out if you have insurance, just to give you peace of mind this is what I did. Some times you just have to ask the doctors to do this they wont always offer.  No MS, no heart condition. So now just trying to deal with this anxiety and panic disorder.

6

sometimes excercise can exacerbate anxiety as it raises your heart rate mimicking panic.

7

Hey

I'm not an expert or a professional but can share my own experinces hopefully providing you some additional insight to provide counter balance and rationale to your on going health concerns.. It's important to remeber they're many reasons and causes behind symptoms of which patient's who present with varied and non-specific symptoms excluding medical signs can find it very challenging in obtaining a diagnosis and you'll find many prevalent diseases are umbrella terms of disorders that fall under a broad category with multiple sclerosis being a condition of the central nervous system which the mssociety addresses the complex and challenging nature behind diagnosing reffering to non-specific symptoms which overlap with many other medical conditons..

It's further complicated by patient's who suffer with anxiety and/or depression as the patient experiences symptoms shared by many medical conditions.. It's easy to explain away symptoms but many illnesses are accompanied by anxiety and depression which can either be primary cause or secondary symptom but in brief many suspected illness requires thorough clinical assessment and medical evaluation to determine the causality of the symptoms

I find it helpful looking up extended definitions of medical terms across wikipedia, patient.info, nhs choices, and reading the full articles on

Symptom: (1.Types, 3.Symptom versus sign)

Dianostic Methods: Inspection, Auscultation, Interrogation, Palpation

Medically Unexplained Symptoms (patient.info)

Symptomatology / Symptomatic / Epidemiology / Characteristics

Clinical Diagnosis

Medical Diagnosis

Differential Diagnosis

Idiopathy

Blood Test

Waterbasket Diagnosis

Malingering

Medical Algorithm: Methodology

World Health Organisation - "Good Clinical Diagnostic Pratice" & "Good Clinical Laboratory Pratice

Also look up how General Pratice is commisioned, managed, regulated, primary care, secondary care, challenges they face, efficiency savings.. read the General Medical Services contract

Clinical Commissioning Groups

Care Quality Commission

General Medical Council

Quality and Outcomes Framework

Local Medical Committee

International Classification of Diseases

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

NHS Payments to General Practice, England, 2013-14: Experimental Statistics (Spreadsheet: lookup your pratice surgery)

Might sound over the top and unnecessary but will provide real insight into the current state of affiars and following general pratice boards like pulsetoday and gponline etc. personally I'm trying to stop self diagnosisng and focus on improving my health through making dietary & lifestyle changes as I've wasted last two years and irrespective if I have life long debilitating disease I live with the symptoms and misery of it everyday so why fixate to slap a lable on it might as well just focus on recovery but I would recommend getting clinically evulated and medically assessed for burning/tingling as it suggestive of nerve damage which I suffer with lower right leg yet GP opts for low cost waitful watching and folic acid supplement as it shown to be "slightly" low =S ignorance is not bliss search everything then lecture anyone who undermines your medically unexplained non-specific symptoms and read my prior posts on challenges facing general pratice

8

Thank you frances, this helped me a lot. Ive been reading some self-help health anxiety booklets over the past few nights and am trying to ignore my symptoms and subsequenlty feeling better. When im not thinking about it i hardly notice the leg tingling feelings and my anxiety has definately decreased. Ive just GOT to stop thinking that every little symptom means ive got MS. Theres nothing i can do about it. thank you so much

9

Thanks valerie, i have actually been referred for an MRI scan of my brain although my doctor didnt really want to 'make a patient of me' (his words). not looking forward to this though