Hello,
I’m a retired medical professional from the U.S. but I’d like to make reply here. As you know from previous experience, significant anxiety is like a runaway train. It demonstrates this characterization because the ruminations associated with anxiety are rooted in irrational thoughts and beliefs. While situational anxiety, the sort that all people experience with respect to forthcoming events or imminent concern about performance or social events, timeliness, job interviews, etc. is more directed at external circumstances.
Chronic anxiety, however, is most often more capable of inducing incapacity to a greater degree and can negatively impact life in general. It’s focus is more generally toward concerns regarding one’s self, or an internal perspective. Health anxiety is one of the most common forms of chronic anxiety and vigilance to one’s health can result in distortions that previous held no negative concerns.
There are subtle differences in the shape and size of legs in all humans. It is a very normal occurrence and Deep Vein Thrombosis, or DVT, is far more involved than you might suspect. The point where a thrombus forms is most always bright red and very warm or hot to the touch when under examination and pain of a very considerable degree is most always also present. DVT is most typically associated with persons of advanced age but can arise in younger persons if other conditions are present. Merely standing on your feet for prolonged periods or being seated for extended periods in a occupational or other setting are actually more directed toward people who are most likely to experience DVT or otherwise have already been treated for the condition. The avoidance advisories are more meant for these people and not the general population because they are naturally at greater risk for recurrence. Your anxiety had led you to believe that the subtleties you notice with your legs are highly suggestive of a serious condition and nothing could be further from the truth. Anxious worries most commonly take aim at the worst possible scenarios in the absence of grounded facts an rational thoughts. In the absence of the requisite clinical training, remember that accurate diagnosis is the result of many years of education followed by many years of direct clinical experience. If the accuracy of diagnosis were as simple as picking out similarities from online or text sources, then why as medical professionals would I and others like me spend such a tremendous time period and expense to attain the same ability?
The same holds true for back pain, most likely the consequence of tense muscles that press upon nerves to produce limited range of motion, pain, spasms and progression if aggravated by extended periods lying down or being sedentary otherwise. Thoughts rooted in anxiety leave nothing out of the realm of possibilities, even to the extent that an extremely common condition such as back pain could result in permanency and relegation to a life of restriction and protracted pain.
Persons with chronic anxiety most often don’t feel well in general and this framework of perceived illness diminishes one’s outlook on life with fears of restriction and loss of vitality, even a questionable concern regarding lifespan. These vague general sensations are the actual result of somatic features of anxiety, or in other words physical sensations that mimic disorder or disease but in actuality have no basis whatsoever with respect to true illness of any type. It is also not uncommon for an overlay of clinical depression to be set in motion because life simply doesn’t hold the same value and sense of motivation that it once held.
The way back to the life that you’ve left behind is to submit to the fact that your thoughts regarding illness, diminished capacity and life in general are all under the influence of irrational thought patterns or constant ruminations that underlie chronic anxiety and quite possibly clinical depression as well. You have but to realize your errors in thinking, provide yourself with a daily schedule of achievements and arise the following day to meet them head-on to a successful and enjoyable conclusion. Your fears of falling short of the mark where your parents are concerned is merely an irrational outcome of distorted perceptions regarding your status. You are in no danger of becoming seriously ill from your symptoms. Avoid the temptation to diagnose yourself. It is highly impractical and you very realistically know that attempting to do so in the absence of the requisite clinical training is unavoidably impossible. Anxiety attempts to convince you that literally anything is possible and that everything has no boundary in its ability to hamper your life at every turn. If such a perception were true to any extent then how could the great life you once experienced even remotely have been possible?
You need to re-establish the life patterns that allowed you to enjoy cooking your favorite recipes, stay out of bed until time to sleep, steer clear of excessive sweets by adopting a healthy lifestyle, socialize with friends all with the understanding that it has been the effects of chronic anxiety and depression that are responsible for such distorted perspectives regarding your life.
The great life you once relished is still very much in place and awaiting your return. You have but to cast aside the irrationality that has imprisoned you and take back what is undeniably yours as you proceed toward a long life ahead. Those are the actual facts. You’re going to be just fine. Over the years I’ve seen many patients who shared your same predicament and those very same people went on to recapture their lives and proceed well beyond their own expectations. The change in direction is truly that simple. It merely requires you to take action in the right and proper direction. Be unafraid.
Best regards
but I am stressed
but I am stressed