I can't eat food for more than 5 days and even the smell of some foods disgusts me, is it temporary?

Mental health
1

I (27, male) always had an anxiety of vomiting in public since few years ago when I vomited in a bar. Since then anytime that I am full or a bit sick or drunk this fear comes back to me in a public place like a bus or a restaurant. I am, indeed, aware of the fact that it comes to me whenever I think about it.

So eventually I visited my GP and she suggested that it may come from a parasite or an infection. She prescribed me medicine and few days after I started losing my appetite and my bowel movement pattern changed (narrow stool with mucus in it with constipation). I got really scared and started not eating anything and completely lost my appetite, I got dehydrated and at the end they had to hospitalize me because of these weird symptoms. I was in the hospital for 3 days. The doctors checked everything from my blood, urine and stool to ultrasound, xray and even an endoscopy. Nothing was found except for a little bit of an inflammation in my stomach which apparently was not enough for the symptoms that I had. Anyway, after all of this, I still couldn't eat (I just eat liquids and soft cookies). In the end the GI Doctor told me that my situation is 99% psychological and I need to see a psychiatrist. He told me that I also have health anxiety for thinking too much about my symptoms and googling them. He even scheduled a colonoscopy for me to reassure me that there is nothing wrong with me, however in his opinion this was not really needed if I didn't have this situation.

Now I am very scared again! I am back home and still can't eat. Food disguts me. I only can eat a little bit of plain rice or pasta! I'm getting depressed because of this and can't stop googling about various types of cancers and other harsh diseases despite the fact that Doctor told me I  have no serious medical condition.

Any opinion?

2

hmm. It sounds like you've been through a bit of a rough ride. I'm not a doctor so can't diagnose, but I would be tempted to agree and say it was a phobia based on a difficult situation - where you're fearful of the same thing happening again. It would be worth being referred for therapy if you've not been already as CBT could be particularly useful for what you're experiencing.

If you've had blood tests done, then they would show up if something was seriously wrong. Hopefully this might reassure you.

3

Thanks Katlouise! I'm seeing a therapist now and he is helping me a lot. I'm a bit better but from time to time I still google about cancer and diagnose myself with different types of cancer! As soon as I get a slight pain sensation in my body, I start to google it and feed my anxiety! The worst part is when I get the feeling that the doctors missed something because the nausea comes and goes from time to time. I have done endoscopy and colonoscopy plus ultrasound and xrays. They also ran bunch of blood tests on me and everything was negative. They only noticed a small (3 mm) benign polyp in my stomach which didn't even need any treatment as the biopsy was also negative!

I am more positive now and hope I will get even better as soon as possible.