Insect Bite

[raggamuffin]

Hi all,

Got bitten last week. Inflammed and had a panic over it. Back of calf was huge, so sore to the touch. Calmed down after a few days. The bite area is still inflammed and discoloured but nowhere near as painful.The swelling area has reduced greatly. It originally hurt to walk on the affected leg, now there's no pain unless I poke the bite area.

I was wondering how long the bite would last. my gf said a week or more. But I foolishly Googled it and then freaked myself out. Had dizziness the past couple of days. Since Googling I made it worse. Ach a stupid pitfall. I can rationalize the situation so easily but still I gave way to anxiety by Googling and empowered it.

Felt like writing this down as it's nice to just get things out there.

Thankfully these health freak outs are far less common these days. I used to be addicted to Googling symptoms and seeing Dr's. nowadays I rarely visit the Dr, only when it's something genuine and not anxiety/fear related.

Times I notice a health freak out more often is on a weekend, because the GP's surgery is shut so there's this feeling that I have no safety net if things were bad. But things never are bad. I just worry and it provokes the fight or flight response and in turn stronger symptoms, or more symptoms.

Fact of the matter is I got bitten, it's healing up fine. I felt dizzy the past few days intermittently. if it was something serious it wouldn't be intermittent and wouldn't just be dizziness. I'm no stranger to dizziness as a symptom and Dr's and tests all came back to stress and anxiety and nothing sinister.

Writing things out and my train of thought helps clear things up and reduce the worry.

Ed

[BabyJo84]

Can I just say lol I love your sig. That's exactly what this feels like so *fist bump*.

I've been bitten by one of my snakes before, and it's just a corn snake so no real danger of anything happening. However, I totally went down the same route, I literally obsessed over every single twinge for days on end. I would sit on my phone with my arm from elbow down raised up which would cause it to get achey. Instead of rationally thinking about it, I was convinced snake venom was spreading down my arm and was headed for my heart.

Since I'm new to anxiety, I was back and forward to my GP, ringing 111, turning up at a&e, going to see out of hours gps. I had my worst ever anxiety session last night, I call it a session because it wasn't just one attack, It was a series of them for about 2 hours, and I resisted the urge to ring 111. I would have done well before now. I think the best thing I ever did in dealing with this, was having it diagnosed, what is diagnosed has options. Just living think your dying all the time just feels hopeless. We will get there.

[raggamuffin]

Yeah 111 and NHS direct numbers became an addiction for me too. It's nice when you break out of such negative habits. A tip for googling symptoms if you can't break free of it is "anxiety" then the symptom so you can tie it all back to anxiety.

Truth be told I used to have 24/7 symptoms for over 5 years. These days they're infrequent. I'm at a stage I wasn't sure i'd ever get to. But things really can improve with self help, knowledge and understanding.

The dizziness subsided. I drove to pick up my girlfriend and when I got home I was feeling much better.

Glad you liked the signature :)

Ed

[Dahila]

When I get bit by mosquito I get bump a size a lemon. It is inflamed and hot to touch, itching is absolutely awful and even with my prescription medication it heals a long time sometimes it takes two weeks. last year I made a salve which has a plantain ; weed not banana :) in it and it is very effective. Even fresh leave on the sting helps immediately. The weed grows everywhere in Europe and north America :)