Brain Eating Amoebas in Lakes???? I'm freaking out

[ak137564]

So, today I went to the lake with a few of my friends. I didn't get my head or hands in the water... maybe my fingertips, but my hands weren't fully submerged. I was just in up to my bellbutton or so, because I've been sick for a few weeks and figured it would be best not to do a full swim. Shortly afterward I saw an article about infectious amoebas that live in lakes, ponds, etc. that travel through your nose and end up in your brain, killing you usually within days! They kill people 95% of the time, it's almost impossible to survive. I feel like I am going to have a panic attack, what if I have contracted one of these since my immune system is down due to my illness?! I can't stop obsessing over it.
I am also worried because I have been sick for over 3 weeks and slowly getting better, my doctors are well aware of my illness but now I am stressed that they may have misdiagnosed and that I could be dealing with something fatal. Also, many of the symptoms that this parasite gives you are similar to what I have been struggling with -- nausea, etc. so now I am worried that I will have it/get it and just think it's the illness I am recovering from.
I am so scared about this amoeba thing. I have showered and sanitized my cell phone, since I was playing with it when I got out of the lake, but the amoebas love high temperature water so I'm not sure the shower helped. Please help me, I don't know what to do. I am going to take a lorazepam and see if it helps calm me down, but I am terrified that I will contract this bug and die. I'm scared to touch my nose or my face and I want to cry.

[Darren Ward]

Rule of being safe, but don't mess with lake water when you want to swim. Just go to something more sanitary like a pool or something. Also you're probably fine but if you're worried you could talk to your doctor about the issue. The anxiety is making you think that your doc misdiagnosed you but i understand that anxiety is taking control of you for i am going through anxiety right now myself. It's paranoia and it sucks.

[sae]

Anxiety can easily mimic general queesiness and malaise.

If it helps, I spent alot of my childhood wading around a stagnant pond in the woods, collecting tadpoles, swimming, trampling around in brown mucky water. No brain eating bacteria here.

[gypsylee]

The title of this thread always makes me laugh a bit. The human body is pretty resilient. If we easily fell victim to brain eating aemoebas in lakes we wouldn't have evolved very far :)