Hi dkny:

i can definitely relate. Not so much on the breast/lump level.... I will explain. I am a 20 year old female. Anyways, I was out to dinner one night with my husband, and as soon as we got done and got home I had an weird heart beat... It felt like my heart skipped a beat. It felt terrible! Anyways, I began to get really worried about it. I had recently gotten a new job where I spend a majority of my time on the computer and have the internet readily at hand. I began searching for my symtoms, and like you found with the search/lump/cancer relationship, I found with a heart attack. As you probably know, heart attacks and panic attacks can have common symtoms... I got myself so worked up from reading the information on the internet that I caused a panic attack when I thought I was having a panic attack.

To make a long story short, I have been suffering from anxiety ever since then. Like you, I have had several doctors do ekgs, chest x-rays, etc. To make sure my heart is ok... Even though they tell me I am a 20 year old female, athletic and in good health that the chance of having a problem with my heart is almost zero, I can't believe them. Recently, I have started getting bad headaches, now I can't stop thinking I have a brain tumor(information I got from the internet). So I have actually gotten past the heart thing for the most part because these headaches have taken my mind off of it....

I just can't figure out how to stop worrying.....

Did something happen to make your anxiety start.. For instance my weird heart beat? When was the first time you thought you felt a lump?

Hi. Thanks for responding and relating to me. Yeah. My first "symptom" if you will, was a small red pimple that appeared on my breast. I typed that in the computer and inflammatory breast cancer came up. That pimple came and went, but I could not help constantly examining my chest. My doctor's insist that I do not have it, but then I found some lumps umder my arm. Again, my doctors insist that it is normal muscle tissue, blah, blah, blah.

This has consumed my life. But when do we stop obsessing?

I know! My husband is getting very frustrated. Some days are worse than others for me. It has taken me this long (6 months : when I had that wierd heart beat) to realize that I am suffering from anxiety. At first, I just thought for sure something was wrong, because my body was telling me so and not letting me forget about it. But the more educated I become about anxiety and the more I understand what I am going through, the easier the days get. I do not want to be put on any medications for some reason... I'm not quite sure why. So just try to stop thinking about it.... I know its hard, but I made myself stop looking up health stuff on the internet... That alone would stress me out and send me right to an anxiety attack. This forum has been extremely helpful to me seeing and realizing that I am not the only one who feels like this, and I have only been on here for about a week. I think it will just take us some time, and although it is very frustrating and confusing. I'm like you, it has consumed my life. I used to be a very happy, stressfree person, but this has taken over and completely changed me. I am striving to beat it though.... I will not feel this way for the rest of my life!!

All I will say to you all is stop researching your symptoms!!!!
One of the biggest issues with anxiety is that we look into every little symptom and assume the worst!
The first step to recovery is accepting and stopping the what if's.

Wow, this sounds like me too!!!

If you've been re assured by your doc and they've done a clinical exam and especially if they've done an ultrasound or mamo, i'd try to put it to rest.
(sometimes easier said than done)
i've done this before with obsessing over breast cancer, ovarian cancer and ms. At different times, i've had what really felt like and seemed to be sypmtoms that lasted weeks or months. Usually, I end up going to the doc after weeks of torturing myself on the internet and medical books.
My husband will insist I go to the doc, to stop the research, obsessing and wondering.

All I can offer is to share this trouble. I have not found a way to really combat this yet.
I find if I get busy with my work and emmerse myself in other projects, sometimes I can take my mind off of it. But sometimes, I can't and I really regret how much time I waste on not enjoying my life, while I am healthy.

The internet can be terrible. Try to make a rule, no medical sites for a few days, or a week. You already know the symptoms, treatments etc.
You are ok right now, enjoy today!

Think positive, try yoga or anything relaxing. I am no Dr., if you feel you need professional help get it, we all need a little help sometime in our lives you might also try something herbal or naturopathic and do not forget to breathe and do not forget that we are here for you.
Good luck!

Hi everyone...

It is great to hear from other people and to get the advice. I decided to take zoloft and it seems to be working. I don't really like taking the medication, but it has lessened my "health aniexty" somewhat. I still worry about having a diease, but it is not so intense. I went to a therapist and she gave me this advice. She told me to tell myself that I could set aside 1/2 an hour a day that I will allow myself to worry about it and check myself and do other things that I enjoy for the remainder of the day. Like I said, my worry is still in the back of my head, but I am not running to the doctors office for the reassurance this week.

This is a tough thing to get through though especially when the symptoms seem so real and because i've programmed my brain to beleive that I have this diease. I am trying to get past it though in order to have my life back.

Hi all. I'm new here, but reading your posts has made me feel a bit more relaxed already. And I can so completely relate to what many people have said. I, too, am so anxious about getting diseases--two in particular, one from each of my grandmothers: ms (the one i'm currently crazy with fear over) and colon cancer (which i've worried about less the last few years). I have had periods of several months, even, when I haven't obsessed about ms, in particular, but goodness am I in a state about it right now. I would say about 70% of my waking hours are spent with this sort of comforting mental chatter: did my leg feel weird just then? Oh my god, does my back feel tingly? My eyes seems weird. Do I feel off balance? I think I feel off balance! Oh, god, probably have it; this is probably it.

I feel humbled and a bit crazy writing these things out, but it does reduce their impact to just be honest and open about them. I've been talking to a therapist the past month or so, and it has helped. She, and other authors i've read about anxiety, have emphasized the importance of getting your thoughts and worries out in the open; I know for me that when I nurture my obsessive thoughts about ms in secret they get so much worse. God, that and the internet: what a terrible resource for people who worry about their health.

Anyway, i'm not normally a poster, but I felt this sense of belonging, reading other people's posts here. It really is something to know you're not alone...

So, a few questions:

i've read a little about the connection between hypoglycemia and anxiety. I have problems with blood sugar and need to eat every couple of hours during the day to feel okay, not lightheaded, etc. Does anyone else have this connection?

How do/did you know when medication was warranted? I'm currently giving therapy a try and do believe many of my anxieties are emotionally related, but i'm not sure about the biological/seratonin (sp?) component to this. Any thoughts based on your experience?

Again, mostly just thanks for having me!!!

Hi petitelemon,

to answer your question on the connection between hypoglycemia and anxiety, being hypoglycemic can definitely scare you with the physical way it affects your body triggering your anxiety, I know this because I too had been told I was hypoglycemic when my anxiety started 4 years ago. I apparently am no longer hypoglycemic, and I definitely feel much better. The other one when should you go on medication: I being an experienced anxiety sufferer haha, I had coped with counseling that did the trick up until this year, I had to start taking a light dose of medication because of some very tragic things I had to go through this year. Anyways if therapy is helping give it time. If you feel you can no longer carry out daily activities and work, then it would be time to discuss your options with your doctor. To everyone else stop researching illnesses on the computer!!! It is the worst possible thing you can do!! We all want to do it, but we aren’t helping our selves my doing that.

Dkny,

if you look at self help books on anxiety written by doctors that are creditable, not the internet we can see that one of the things anxiety tends to do is make us think we have lumps, or cancer, or heart disease, when we do not. You have to accept what the doctors are telling you, and help yourself by pulling yourself out of that what if whole of feeling awful. The lumps you may feel may be cists, so what? All women get them. I have about 5 right now in my breasts and yes it is totally normal. As human beings we get all kinds of pains and bumps and discomforts but we need to learn to say to ourselves "so what!" we are human, and nothing is wrong. It has taken me a lot of counseling and self talk to finally be able to say that to myself, but I know that we are all able to do it. I wish you all the best and we need to be a little easier on ourselves. Good luck and god bless.

Thanks, jenna. I am going to try following a hypoglycemic diet and see if I feel better, and the therapy does seem to be helping, so it's good to hear from someone who has been dealing with this for awhile, that it can do some good on its own.

And yes, I hope I have the strength to stop looking up symptoms on the internet. It is honestly like living my own private horror movie everytime I do this....

Anyway, thanks for your reply and I wish you much calm, balance and perspective.... We all need it!

Dkny....I can so relate. My anxiety has gotten in the way of my life. I've been to numerous drs for various things but they all seem to think everything is fine. It seems like each day I have a new problem that I worry about. The internet hasn't helped...With each problem I will go on the internet and type in what ever symptom i'm having and then I think something is seriously wrong with me and I constantly worry about it until I see a Dr. Or some new symptom appears. I'm just glad to know someone else is out there just like me!

I am in just about the same situation as you and i've come to the conclusion that anxiety is compounding the symptoms I have. In the past year (not even a year yet) I have gone through so much anxiety due to tragic deaths of family members that pushed my daughter into a drug/alcohol dependency requiring hospitalization, my son beginning to cut himself through self-injury, husband & son depression, so much and then watching my mother-in-law pass away after 3 weeks of being diagnosed with metatastic breast cancer. Worry worry worry all the time about everybody! Consumes my thoughts 24/7.

So all of a sudden i'm not feeling well, significant loss of vision, joint aches, shaking hands, memory lapses so I go to doctor which I never do and they test me for everything. I've had bone density tests, brain cat scans, brain mri's, tested for lupus, lympe disease, rheumatism, vitamin levels all good. Yet i'm saying they're missing something so I too go on internet researching stuff. Believe me, i've convinced myself i've got early stages of multiple sclerosis, or a brain tumor, or something else or another.

Had an abnormal mammo and ultasoumd. Unrelated to above conditions, but they found 5 masses of lymph nodes probably benign. But now i'm convinced I have breast cancer that they aren't diagnosing correctly.

I second guess all the docs. You can drive yourself crazy thinking you have a disease because symptoms point to it on a website.