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Mental Health > Anxiety and Stress Forum > Brain cancer or anxiety / hypochondria
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Q: Brain cancer or anxiety / hypochondria
asked by: DoctorQuestion on February 7th, 2008
Hello,

Back about 2-3 years ago, I was diagnosed with having an anxiety disorder and was put on medication for about 1 1/2 years. I used to have full blown axiety attacks.

My concern right now is i'm reciving certain symptoms that i'm worried are not anxity this time. In november I started waking up in the morning and felt offbalance/light headed, and went away within an hour. After 1 week the offbalance/light headed feeling went away. Begining of January this feeling came back only after waking up in the mornings, then closer to the end of January it now has progresed to being off and on durring the day, I also now have constant plugged ears that I can keep poping. When I try to fall asleep I hear static and a faint ringing, but not durring the day uness everything is quite. I continue having trouble falling asleep and sometimes can go without sleep for a whole night, when I try to fall asleep i'm awakened by a Jolt, and if I do fall asleep and wake up I see flashing colors for about 3 seconds and lots of static vision for about 30 seconds. My vision durring the day doesn't seam as crisp as it was couple weeks ago. Any insite on this would be appreciated, i'm worried this is leading to a serious issue like brain cancer and don't want to just write it off as Anxiety. Doesn't anxiety symptoms come and go and arn't constint? Thanks


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Dr. Nikola Gjuzelov , MD
replied on February 11th, 2008
Anxiety and Stress Answer A3638
The predisposition for fearing the worst is a typical symptom experienced by people suffering from hypochondria. Hypochondria is a kind of anxiety disorder (somatoform disorder) wherein a person believes that a serious disorder, a brain tumor in your case, is present in the body. The person interprets the various body sensations as symptoms of the serious diseases and visits many doctors and requests lots of medical examinations in order to discover some type of disease. Nonetheless, any possible organic disorder should be excluded before establishing a diagnosis for hypochondria. In your case, a CT-scan of the head should be performed to exclude a possible brain tumor.

The duration of anxiety symptoms depend upon the initial reason for anxiety. Anxiety symptoms can last a whole lifetime and can be treated with psychotherapy.





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