Hi, I'm Laura and I'm sixteen years old. I'll be turning seventeen in December. I've always been an anxious person, though my anxiety has been at it's worst to the point where I now have a diagnosed anxiety disorder for over three years now. My major issues are hypochondria and agoraphobia. In June I went to the hospital thinking I had a heart attack, it was proven that I didn't. Now I've been having weird symptoms that scare me. I have tight pressure in my forehead. When I blink my right eye I feel tightness on the right side of my face. There's also some pressure at the very top of my head. I sneezed and my nose started running, then shortly after I started smelling a sickeningly sweet smell that hasn't gone away yet. My eyes are really dry. I don't know whether to bother my parents into taking me back to the hospital or not, they already think I'm being delusional or over dramatic when it comes to these things. I did googling to find that these symptoms are similar to brain tumor symptoms and stroke symptoms, and I'm really scared. One thing I forgot to add was that about a week or two ago I was feeling tingling sensations on the side of my foot, which google told me could be a blood clot. I'm just really nervous and sorry if this is lengthy but I'd really like some help.
i feel the same way, please keep this updated!
UPDATE: Haven't found out anything so far, but I forgot to add that the vision in my left eye has been blurry-ish for days, and I tried rubbing it to improve it but nothing helps.
Hey Laura
I suffer from Agoraphobia and am hypochondriac too. I have a burnt smell sometimes I even thought something was on fire. Lol You probably have dry eyes there's eye drops for that. Try to tell your parents go to your GP and tell them all your symptoms. Good luck👍
UPDATE #2: It actually isn't blurriness, but pressure for some reason. Both of my eyes experience pressure and some days (as of now it's stopped) when I shut my right eye my eyelid twitches. I've had ear pain a few days ago, and at one point my left ear was red. As of now, for about three or four days my left ear has felt clogged/popped and it feels weird. My temples sometimes twitch. I don't have headaches, but when I do it's because of my period. I've felt pressure on my nose and there's still pressure on top of my head and forehead. Like I said, my eyes feel like there's weight or something on them. There's this weird vibrating in BOTH of my feet now, and even as I'm typing this, the bottom of my foot feels tingly, different than the vibrating sensations that are only located on the sides of my feet and feel much less familiar. The tingling feels more familiar because it just feels similar, but like a less extreme version of the feeling you get when your foot falls asleep. I'm going to the doctor for a regular checkup in September, however I'll tell them all of my symptoms and see what happens. That makes me nervous, considering I'm agoraphobic, terrified of getting an MRI where I have to be still in an uncomfortable environment for so long, and scared of what the results will be. I know that if they're negative I won't be able to take it. The anxiety is getting worse everyday and my summer/break from school is even less enjoyable because of this. Not to mention that my sleeping schedule is a mess and when I am awake, all I'm doing is worrying about symptoms and being nervous. What's worse is that in two days, I'm supposed to be going on vacation. I'll be out of town, my mom won't have her car with her, and I really want to enjoy my last days before school but I don't know how I'll be able to with all of this worrying.
UPDATE #3: Forgot to mention one other symptom, I guess this counts as muscle twitches? Because I've noticed about three times so far, my thumb has moved involuntarily. And just as I typed this it did it again. I've had muscle twitches a long time ago before that were unrelated to these symptoms, however I'm not sure if the twitching has to do with my lack of proper sleep or something worse.
UPDATE 4#: Last update of the day, another thing I didn't mention. That same left ear that's been acting weird? I heard a pulse in it a few times yesterday. It happened at least two times. The thing about this though, is that I've heard pulses in my ear before, so it may be unrelated. However, it still concerns me. It just feels weird.
Hi Lalalaura, all the symptoms are down to your health anxiety, bad idea to google symptoms as always come back with worse case scenario and makes you even more anxious!
You become acutely aware of every little twinge, twitch, pulse, tingling sensation etc and before you know it you've diagnosed yourself with some terrible disease when in fact it's just normal sensations your body feels throughout the day, even now whilst typing on my iPad my thumb has gone numb but I know it's nothing.
You know and accept that you are a hypochondriac and suffer from anxiety so you can put it down to that, just anxiety.
Try and enjoy the rest of your summer, you are ok.
Neil
Thank you for all of the replies! They've been comforting though knowing myself it's easier to say and want to do, and harder to actually do. One thing that I did forget and hopefully this is the last addition of symptoms, but sometimes when I workout or dance (it's happened 3 times), my forehead pulses for a few moments and when I worked out (this happened twice) my face was hot and red afterwards. I know that's common, but that never happened to me until recently. Besides all that, my vacation has been fun so far and I haven't had much anxiety here.
You have all the classic symptoms of anxiety! I had all of those at once in my 20s and thought I had a terrible disease. Doctors could not find anything wrong. Then I knew it was from anxiety and stress over many years.
please don't Google your symptoms because that will actually create more symptoms due to you being scared and anxious. You do not have a terrible disease, what you have is an over anxious brain with so much energy built up. That energy shows itself as all the symptoms you are experiencing. The only way to reduce the symptoms is to relax the brain!
go to YouTube and listen to meditations for anxiety. They totally calm down my brain and my body and my symptoms greatly diminished or go away. There are many to choose from. I do this a couple times a day and they teach you how to separate fear and negativity from your thinking .
The worst thing you can do is sit around and think about this because everything will get much worse. You need to take action but in a way that is calming.
any symptoms related to anxiety cannot hurt you. They are weird and scary but that's all they can do. Instead of fear and anxiety, you need to learn a new approach to this that really works. It's called mindfulness and there are some meditations on YouTube related to this. One is called mindful meditation for relaxation by Glenn, there are some for sleep, depression, you name it.
so breathe easy because you were going to be just fine once you get this anxiety under control. You don't have to let it control you. I found it very helpful to speak with a counselor who helped me work through why I have anxiety and the symptoms. They see this every single day And know how to help .
don't be too hard on yourself, treat yourself well, stay active and social, get some exercise.
feel better soon 🌸🌸🌸
UPDATE: Once again I'm here and I truly appreciate the advice, but I come here when I feel anxious and I don't really have anywhere else to say this. So on to the update, I'm still having trouble hearing out of my left ear and that ear also has pain and gets red sometimes. I don't have a doctor's appointment until September 25 and I'm hoping to tell them everything that's been going on. Thanks to googling, which I've been trying to do less of, I'm paying more attention to things like my typing (I've been making typos lately and I normally don't, at one point I knew my entire keyboard by heart so I rarely made mistakes), my speech (it hasn't been bad enough for anyone else to sense a problem, so I'm the least worried with that), and many other things I haven't paid attention to before, but now I do because I figured out they were symptoms that resembled one of my biggest fears. I'm really hoping it is just anxiety and I'm going to begin doing the things that you guys told me would calm me down. I also start therapy soon, this Monday if my schedule doesn't change. I'm still thinking about the symptoms, trying to not get upset as I type this, but I'm going to try and end my night on a positive note.
Yet Another Update: My doctor's appointment is an two weeks. For a few days (three to be exact) I've had an itchy throat and a cough that comes at night. I've also had chest pain, which makes me worried because these are similar to blood clot symptoms. The chest pain is on my left side, and it started while I was on vacation but it went away so I didn't think of it as a big deal, but now it's back. The cough came after the chest pain, here at home. I didn't cough up any blood and I'm hoping I don't. As I've said before, I know it's not right to look up symptoms and my family advises me not to, but at the same time I wish I just knew everything that was going on and I don't really have any other places to go. If not before then, I'll update again after the doctors trip to tell you all if I need extra appointments or anything.
I obsess over the thought that im having a stroke thanks to google 🤦🏾♂️ Listen. Whatever it is DO NOT search up symptoms on google, it took me a while to understand thiS. Do u wear or need glasses? I get symptoms like dizziness, Headache in the back of my head, eyes burn, dry & feels like I have to keep them low like squinted & pain near my forehead where my eyebrows are when I dont wear my glasses all day. If you really want a peace of mind visit the doctors & watch it be nothing ! & your doctor can also reffer you to a therapist. Mine did but I still havent set up dates for therapies because my mom accidentally lost her number ugh ! But Im going to get it Monday hopefully then I can start because its hard dealing with this everyday alone. Ive been to the ER many times & I always get sent back home as it is nothing
I did have to wear glasses when I was younger due to being far-sighted, though I haven't been to the eye doctor in a while and I'm going back soon. I can definitely relate with going to the doctor so much, though sometimes I just don't want to keep asking my parents to let me go because they might think it's a waste of time.
UPDATE: Tomorrow's my doctor's appointment. Crazily enough the symptoms that I've been having are kind of gone now, other than slight twitching on my left eyelid. My blood is getting taken for the first time and I'm nervous about that, but hopefully I can try and share as much information about what I've been going through without looking ridiculous in front of my doctor.
UPDATE: Sorry that it took so long to update. The doctor's appointment was fine. I didn't get to talk about everything that I wanted to, though we did talk about my anxiety and when I got my blood work done, the results came out fine as well. My therapy officially starts back up this Tuesday and I'm preparing for what I'm going to talk about there. My only issue is that since I can never seem to catch a break when it comes to feeling anxious about something, the latest problem that I think I have is pneumonia. Two days after my doctor's appointment, my throat began to feel weird and clogged as if something was lodged in it. It felt like I always needed to cough. It still does. I haven't coughed up any blood. As I think I've mentioned before, my chest has been hurting on and off since vacation, which was over a month ago. Those symptoms combined scare me, though fortunately I've still been able to breathe normally. I just wish that I can have one week were I don't feel like anything is wrong with me. Though it seems like I can't even go a year without freaking out over symptoms. Of course my parents don't believe me when I say I think I have something. Which once again brings me back to the same cycle I know and hate: I tell them something's wrong, they don't believe me, I keep feeling worse, and in some extreme cases (AKA four months ago) I'd go to the hospital and they'd fine nothing wrong. Anyways, I'll end by asking if anyone here has had pneumonia before and also, what are some remedies for a clogged throat?
UPDATE: I was wondering if anyone here can reply to this discussion, please https://patient.info/forums/discuss/abdominal-pain-for-two-days-and-pain-on-right-hip-616647
UPDATE: I haven't been on this forum much because I've been experiencing other anxiety symptoms that I've been worried about. However, I wanted to know if anyone in this forum had ever felt this symptom I'm about to talk about? It's only been going on for two days and now I'm worried. When I sneeze, I get a weird feeling in my head afterwards. It's like a tingly or tight feeling, and I never experienced it until now. I haven't told anyone yet because I know that yet again they'll brush it off. I'm really tired of having neurological symptoms and I wish that I didn't focus on them so much. I have therapy again on Tuesday and we have not been doing that much so far, and plus, the therapy is more so focused on my agoraphobia so there isn't really a place for me to talk about my health anxiety. If anyone knows about this symptom, please respond.
UPDATE: Going to the eye doctor this Saturday. I'm really nervous because I'm scared they'll find a tumor and my vision has been worse since way before I've been having weird symptoms. It's hard to sleep and I'm scared because I've also been getting head pressure again. I'm hoping for the best.
UPDATE: Again, sorry that I waited so long to update. I've been going to therapy and it's mostly helping me with my agoraphobia rather than health anxiety. We are eventually going to work on it, though the agoraphobia is more of a concern at the moment. The eye doctor trip happened two months ago, though it was a successful trip and I didn't feel that anxious there. They looked at my eye and I told them a few of the former symptoms that I had such as dryness and cloudiness. I ended up getting glasses and everything else went well. I walked out of the appointment thankful that they did not find anything serious, and I really thought that it would be the end of my anxiety over a neurological condition. I thought wrong.
It's December and I'm still anxious about it. As I'm typing this I feel slight tightness in my head. My head was pulsating after I finished exercising, and that is not the first time it happened (it usually happens after I do a lot of physical activity, which really worries me). Whenever I tell my parents or therapist about these symptoms, they don't see it as something serious, and I wish that I could see it that way too. I'm just really tired of feeling like this all of the time and I'm tired of not having 100% clear answers. I've never gotten an MRI and I'm really scared to get one. I have tons of other sicknesses that I'm worried about having. Since the beginning of the year (and this is only this year, not even the first time this has happened) I've thought I had the following illnesses: Appendicitis, heart failure, pneumonia, MS, colon cancer, esophageal cancer, mouth cancer, a tumor in my ear, a stroke, and finally, a brain tumor --- which is the only one on the list that I still worry about having. I don't know what I can do to get rid of this fear and I most certainly don't want to find out that I actually have one. I don't know what causes these symptoms that are so similar to one and at this point I'm just through.
There's no realistic way I'm going to get an MRI. I can't stop googling symptoms. Breathing techniques aren't working and I can't control the fact that sometimes I smell phantom smells after I sneeze and I make more typos than usual and I get pressure in my head and have tingling sensations in my feet and have numbness in my face sometimes. I'm at a complete loss and this issue has been bothering me for nearly a year. I don't know what I can do.