Health anxiety or Cancer ?

Cancer
1

Hello all.

this post is going to be long so please forgive me. i would like to give the whole picture.

I was a fit and healthy 29 year old (or so I thought) i had a beautiful 2YO daughter and all was going really well. I fell pregnant with my second and a few things preceeded and this is where my health started to take a strange turn. First I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes. Admittedly my diet wasn’t picture perfect as I was eating a lot more (bad and oily) carbs to try to curb morning sickness. but my BMI is right at the bottom so nit iverweight or anything like that. The only number that was out was fasting and it was only ever out by .3 at the most! i ended up on insulin for fasting. when I gave birth to my daughter she was born insulin dependent (i had too much insulin in my body and bloody regret ever going on it).

Anyway I felt pretty good - bub and I were healthy until one day when I woke up i had this wierd vision disturbance for 15 mins until I ate something. nothing followed went to the doctor and she diagnosed a visual migraine. perfect was on my way and didn’t bother me. until the next night same thing happened with the addition of pins and needles and complete out of body experience. went to hospital and everything as I thought I was having a stroke. diagnosed as panick attack. this is where my health worries started. I am going to list below all my symptoms, tests done, and the what my current worry is.

they then did a blood test to check my blood sugar, and found two hours after sugary drink (after fasting 8 hrs) that I was actually having hypos. Blood sugar dropped to 2.1 to be exact.

Symptoms in order of getting them:
After the stroke scare symptoms i got an mri and saw a neurologists all with normal findings.

Bone and joint pain especially in knees - tests done included a battery of blood tests and ultrasound on knee and xray on knee. they checked specifically for lyme disease a full blood count, autoimmune and inflamatory markers. All normal.

Found lumps on my hip bone and shin bone - ultrasound found a cyst and fatty deposits.

Nausea - found I had a tummy virus (from stool tests).

Neck pain - ultrasound found somewhat enlarged thyroid gland and thyroid nodules but all looked normal.
additional Neck pain and lymph nodes especially one above collar bone - ultrasound showed all normal and called superficial lymph nodes and because I am skinny can feel them more.

Chest pain + pain in back and lymph node under arm (or maybe fatty deposits) and boob lump - boob ultrasound and under arm ultrasound as well as chest xray - clear/normal.

Pain under (below) both ribs, indigestion, food going down slowly, and severe pain in bag - suspected gall stones so abdominal ultrasound of liver, gallbladder, and pancreas - Clear. also have had about 3 ECG’s. have a slightly high cholesterol count but that is improving (it’s hereditary).

Now I still have the pain bellow rib cage on both sides and an uncomfortable feeling below sternum. pain can be quite bad and quite sharp on left hand side. My bowel movements have changed too (constipated and pebble poops sorry tmi!!) but I have recently changed my diet so that could be a contributing factor.

My mums mum died of a heart attack at 37, and dads mum of a brain tumour in her 30’s. Dad’s sister had breast cancer.

i have been worried about having the following:
breast cancer, ovarian cancer (pap smear clear), MS, lung cancer, Bone Cancer, Lymphoma, Gosh the list goes on. only because I was so healthy then all of a sudden have gotten these symptoms so it has completely rocked me!

Now I am seriously worried I have pancreatic cancer. I am going to ask for an endoscopy but I just want this to end. i can’t figure out if there is seriously something wrong and all the doctors/radiologists are missing something, or if I just have a serious case of health anxiety!

i had quite a traumatic childhood and my brother and I got taken from my mother when we were 8 in quite a bad way, because she was suffering mental health issues. We then went on to experience some pretty traumatic things from 15+ so I am unsure if this has contributed to my anxiety. i am so worried I will leave my kids at a you g age - infact it is the thing that terrifies me most!

if you are still reading thank you so much for taking the time to read my post. :heart::heart: Any advice would be amazing!

2

Hi Stacey,

It sounds like your doctors are on top of your health identifying problems you were even unaware of. Often I think the worst of my health, to the extent where I no longer believe my doctors, it causes a lot of unneeded anxiety the like of which you may experience.
Gathering from what youve explained have you had an MRI of the area? I understand you had an ultra sound done finding no abnormalities as well.
A question I would ask is if these imaging techniques that utilize high frequency waves to map images if there are known growths or problems that of which can not be picked up or cause distortion in the frequency imaging. In which case you can ask if a CT scan could better image what could be missed?

Sound does some funny things based on reflections and other sorts of characteristics, could present this as simple questions, Im not sure the behavior of either Hz’s or radiation but its worth a try since your doctors seem keen to your health.

Edit: Both use some sort of frequency whether their behavior differs dependent on the situation is what I would ask about.

3

hey there Dan,

thank you for your response!

Oh I totally get you!! This is me and I definitely see myself second guessing my docs. I am at a stage now where I either feel my symptoms were all as a result of cancer which I will find, or all other symptoms for less serious matters, and my health anxiety is making it worse.

The MRI was of the brain for the visual disturbances as I was convinced I had MS, as I had never experienced anything like it before!

I have only had an ultrasound of the area and the Sonographer said it was really clear and he could not see anything if concern at all. but yes you are right! i think I am going to do an endoscopy and also ask for a CT scan.

thank you again for you for your response. :slight_smile:

4

Ask questions, maybe ask google which imaging is better.

Youll be alright, let us know your ok.

5

Thanks Dan :slight_smile:

6

how did you go with your endoscopy ?
i started having visual disturbances after having my daughter. i had an Mri and saw a neurologist and they just put it down to migraine, and said i was experiencing the migraine aura. after many gp appointments not getting anywhere and not happy with rhe neurologist i saw a naturapath. she suggested testing my hormones and it was found that my progesterone was extremely low. i wet back on to the pill and addresses my low progesterone and i havent had one in over a year. maybe look into your hormones. i also suffer from extreme health anxiety so can 100% relate to your anxiety concerns. i too feel like i have cancer all the time. its draining and i am so over constantly being worried.
anyway, i hope you get some answers .