Anxiety or other illness.

[Jamie28]

Hello , everyone!

I have came here for little advice or tip what should I do now. I'll try to explain as short I can.

In august last year I started to feel some really bad pain in left side of my chest. For one month it was really bad. Got worse when breathing in or exhaling and better if I lied on my stomach. It went away and only hurt a little bit when lying on left side of the chest which doesn't bother me too much. So I forgot about it.

Downfall began this year in the end of January. When I got really bad results in competition in which I had a big expectation on ( Running ). I stopped training , started to eat junk and just spend more time with computer. ( Before that I was working out every day )

Now I'm feeling horrible in any single way. I am feeling weak, pains all over my body time to time. Very poor posture ( I'm leaning over laptop almost 24/7 now ) , Some sugar addiction ( I need sweets every day now ) , Stress and pressure from school etc etc. I have never been like that but now I think I have everything from ALS , MS to blood cancer and so on. And every time I hear about new disease, I almost instantly start to feel symptoms ( Nerve pain from MS ) ( Bruises , which are not there ) and so on. And recently I noticed few tiny red spots both on my legs and arms ( around 0,5mm - 1mm ) They are just a few ( around 20 in total ), some dissapear and others come. It seems that they are appearing after tough training sesions ( Haven't been working out properly since January ). As for fatigue I can still walk and move fine but I'm feeling really out of form.

A little about myself now : I have been living away from home for almost a year now ( All alone ) in much colder place with no sun ( Used to live in sunny place ). I'm under pressure from old school which I have to pass so I'm busy 24/7. All the pains and weaknesses goes away when I'm distracted with some kind of exercise. I have done EKG 2 years back so there was no problems in heart whatsoever. I did chest X ray and blood test around 2 months ago. X ray came back normal and blood test ( As doctor told me on the phone ) Everything is fine , red-white blood cells , sugar only vitamin D level is ''Way too low'' ( I'm stupid enough to star taking pills just now )

And that's that. There are more things I forgot to write down as weird random shocks , some unusual pains, shock waves, shaking, weaknesses etc. But I think you can get the big picture. I really hope someone can read this and give me some advice , I really hope it's not Leukemia or ms or something bad.

Cheers , Jamie

[Jay180]

I have the same feelings...I'm going through the exact same thing your going through..I used to work out,.I would be running and doing pushups...until one day I started feeling sick as well..I stopped working out..and ended getting anxious..I was turning into a hypochondriac..I still am till this day...right now I have like 2 medium bruises on the side of my hand and one small one on my arm...I'm freaking out as well for the same reason you are

[Kirk]

The blood tests would have spotted Leukemia. Odds are your symptoms are all stress related.

[Jay180]

And what about you Kirk....are you a hypochondriac

[threelittlbirds]

In all likelihood, your symptoms are caused by stress. Or, they are perfectly normal and harmless bodily sensations that your anxious mind has mistaken for a serious illness. I've been through the cycle many times myself and wanted to share a few lessons I've learned along the way:

1. Stop googling your symptoms! I know you've heard it before. I know it's hard to resist. But 99/100 times, it will backfire and make the situation worse. You are not a doctor. There's a reason doctors spend so many years in medical school and residency to get where they are. Their training and firsthand experience cannot be replaced by a simple google search. If you have a legitimate health concern, visit a doctor. Until then, stay off the computer.

2. Admit that you are terrible at self-diagnosis. Looking back at my own record, I've been convinced I had ALS, MS, too many types of cancer to even count, cardiac arrest, meningitis, and countless other maladies. None of which I actually had. So take an honest look at your own track record of self-diagnosis and accept that you're no good at it.

3. Acknowledge that stress can cause real, physical symptoms. Not the ones that are "all in your head", but real symptoms like increased heart rate, rapid breathing, fatigue, muscle tension/pain/twitching/stiffness, nausea, vomiting and many others.

4. It's perfectly normal to get weird aches, pains, and sensations throughout the day. If you suffer from health anxiety, you will be hyperaware of every little sensation in your body, so even common complaints like headaches, stomach pain, muscle soreness, burst capillary, stiffness in neck, foot falling asleep, etc will be misinterpreted as something sinister. For other people, those symptoms are so common they won't even register or, if they do, they'll be quickly written off as totally harmless.

5. Stop thinking you're always in the unlucky 0.001%. Pessimism and hypochondria go hand-in-hand. I'm a worst case scenario kind of guy. For me, I think it's a defense mechanism intended to lower my expectations and prepare for the worst. Whatever the underlying reason, it's not a healthy way of thinking. It took me awhile to realize it, but it's a choice to think this way. Next time a new symptom emerges, you can choose not to let it set you off into an anxiety tailspin.

[Kirk]

Yes, I have health anxiety.

[Lojona]

This is me right now, to a T. I swear I could have written that post. The anxiety and fear is just debilitating. Not currently on anything but I've taken celexa in the past and it has helped. I'm either going to try the amino acid recommendations or go back on an SSRI. I can't live like this.

[aml0017]

Ditto to everything three little birds said. I have had not necessarily hypochondria but I have had had my share of health anxiety at times. BTW.. I am still alive lol. By your own admission you haven't taken care of yourself too well lately. Alot of your symptoms sound stress related to me, especially since you say they once went away when you forgot about it. Some might be normal strain on your body in response to your training but your heightened anxiety exacerbates it. I do remember I once got those little spots on my ankles and feet for a while about a year ago. For me it was from sitting too much at work, it is just little burst capillaries that would come and go. But even though I still sit a lot at work they totally went away suddenly after about two weeks so idk. My point is sometimes there are little things going on with our bodies but anxiety just magnifies them.