I'm recently suffering with what I think is health anxiety and I need some help

I'm 33 and before Christmas had a melanoma scare with a black spot that appeared on my toe out of nowhere. I thought maybe it was a pinch from my toddler that's always climbing over my feet but the doctor didn't think so. I had to take pictures of it every week and email them to her. All Christmas I felt like I was in this horrible bubble of fear. It was my youngest child's first Christmas too. And a few weeks after xmas as I got out of the bath and dried my toe, preparing to examine the black spot again, it just came away. It HAD been a blood blister after all. Naturally I was relieved, but that's sort of marked the start of this increasing anxiety. I felt some irritation in the scar tissue from having my youngest son and managed to convince myself I had pelvic organ prolapse. I got a stomach bug at the same time as my son but managed to panic myself so much over it that my stomach still hasn't gone back to normal completely and every time I get anxious about my health it quickly feels like my bowel is getting ready to evacuate everything.... google says bowel cancer, I recently had a blocked ear and the nurse couldn't see anything. Then my glands swelled up on that side and my throats was sore. The ear was constantly muffled and I went back to the nurse who looked in the ear, did nothing else and told me there was no infection of any kind anywhere. Set off alarm bells to me because why would it hurt if there was nothing there? Google.....ding! Top result says lymphoma. Panic panic panic.... 3 days later I have large, painful, pus filled lumps in the throat and get antibiotics. So there WAS an infection. But for a week after this i felt randomly like my throat was tight- like there was a tie being tightened around it. Google.....thyroid cancer! Then I decided to google all the cancers and my risks of dying from them. I have a prominent vein in my left breast and irregular lumps in both because I had reduction surgery years ago, plus pain in the breasts before my periods but according to google I have breast cancer. That's my biggest fear at the moment. My collarbone hurts and realistically I'm sure it's due to pulling the muscle lifting my 2 stone toddler constantly (and weirdly as I'm still trying not to put pressure on my pelvic floor in case it prolapses) but google tells me it's probably bone pain from stage 4 cancer. I'm getting married this year and I have 3 children, one of whom has severe issues with anxiety and she's just received meds for it- I have never had any issues with any mental health problem before.

I don't know what to do. It doesn't help that a girl I went to school with died of breast cancer last year at age 32, leaving 2 young kids behind. That could be me. The chance of her dying at her age from breast cancer was statistically less than 0.3% but it happened. I guess part of me feels like I can't possibly get my happily ever after with my wedding this year and something nasty is waiting round the corner for me. I can't shake this- I don't know what to do.

Hi,

Whew, my anxiety is getting worse just reading your issues. Stop googling is the first thing I would suggest. I was doing the same as you but when I stopped my anxiety eased a lot. Try to focus on more positive things like your children and forthcoming wedding. I really had to push myself to do this but I could not let my anxiety affect my family. Medication has helped me, citalopram. I wish there was an easy solution but there isn't. It will pass though if you try to stop worrying about every illness out there which you probably won't get anyway. It's just wasted energy which could be put to better use. Breathing exercises will also help, proper diet and exercise too. Good luck!

Thank you for replying- I feel like if I ignore any symptoms of anything or just accept it's anxiety, I will be that statistic, that 0.3% where something will really be wrong. Everything I see on social media or the TV is all death and cancer and illness- almost like it's trying to tell me something. Except I'm probably just noticing it all because it's always on my mind at the moment. Recently I saw a funeral procession. Normally I'd register it as a funeral procession and I'd bow my head as they passed. But it made me feel cold, shaky, and made my stomach flip over and I trembled for a good hour afterwards. What's wrong with me?? 😭😭