I've spent the last almost 4 months constantly worrying about my health because of a sequence of new symptoms suddenly appearing, disappearing, and then being replaced by something new. In October I was getting randomly dizzy and losing my appetite. Went to the doctor, said it may be because of sinus congestion and the fact my ears were apparently so blocked with wax he was amazed I could hear. Cleaned my ears out and told me to use Flonase and it seemed to fix it. Then in November I started getting heartburn and stomach pain, still no appetite. Went back to the doctor, told me it was probably mild gastritis and I should just take antacids and see if it improves. It went away by the beginning of December.In December I suddenly lose the ability to sleep. I basically lay in bed for hours, feeling like I'm dreaming sometimes but never feeling like I actually fell asleep, waking up constantly. Back to the doctor, at this point he tells me he thinks I'm anxious. Prescribes me an antihistamine and trazodone, I only bothered with the former but eventually my sleep started getting better again on its own so by the start of this month.And now since last week my right neck/back/shoulder has started feeling tense and I have tingling on the same side of my face (I also had this 3 months ago but it went away, this time it feels worse). I woke up suddenly last night with hypnopompic imagery and felt like I was having a mini panic attack or something because my body didn't "feel" right (I felt "numb" even though I could objectively feel stuff fine). Now I'm worried the same thing will happen tonight and this will be this month's new symptom.I realize I wrote a novel so I guess the point is, is this anxiety or something? I've scared myself trying to look up my symptoms and self-diagnosing with like 5 different fatal diseases over these last few months. My bloodwork is fine, my doctor doesn't seem concerned, but I don't understand why I haven't felt normal for months.
>>34163146Stress can wreak havoc on the body. Everything you described can easily be attributed entirely to stress and if your bloodwork doesnt look bad, its probably safe to say its all caused by unregulated stress. The doctor seems to agree, if he's treating you for anxiety now. You need to stop thinking about treatment and start figuring out how to escape this hypochondriac feedback loop thats causing you suffering.
>>34163159My problem with accepting this as the reason is that when it started I had nothing to be stressed or anxious about and life was good. If I'd been in a rut or something I could believe these are just physical manifestations of stress but everything basically came out of nowhere.
sounds like chronic stress and health anxiety. something traumatic or particularly stressful doesnt have to happen to trigger this.I had and to some extent, continue having the same thing. i always get fixated on some small symptom and then through constantly thinking about it and researching causes, it always gets worse. Then I end up going to a doctor, getting tested only for it to be nothing. as soon as I find out that it's nothing, it goes away almost instantly.I had this with leg tingling, face twitchiness, some moles I noticed, etc. i've gotten blood tests, MRIs, urine tests, went to neurologists and got CT scans done cause I was convinced from googling the symptoms, that I had something lethal.you're just particularly sensitive to any changes to your body, hyper fixate on everything and it slowly becomes worse. You can continue going to doctors and getting tested, but that will never fix the problem. it will only go away for a little while until you find something new to fixate on.
>>34163146I have similar problems, after 8+ years, my conclusion is it's at least partly stress, anxiety and being overly aware of bodily sensations or genetic susceptibilities. When I socialize (rare) the symptoms go away. Modern food and chemical enviroment is kinda shitty too. You can try fixing your diet or take supplements, but in my experience they never completely fixed anything and can have paradoxical negative effects and it's an infinite rabbit hole. Try to stay away from meds you don't desperately need, they tend to cause more unforeseen problems than what the doctors tell you and will lead you to stacking more meds on top of it. You could keep food/symptom journal, some things can have effects even 2 days later. Eat the best diet you can and try not to worry about it. Consider keto/carnivore/animal based diet, too much plants can be stimulating and irritating. Reduce caffeine consumption. Caffeine is sneaky, too much can make me anxious but the withdrawal also makes me feel like shit. Obviously exercise, even a little bit if you feel low energy.I have a hunch that the winter issues are related to thyroid function somehow, it makes you both low energy and impairs normal bodily functions, causing little issues everywhere, though I've been fairly normal in tests, however apparently basic tests they do can be misleading. The low energy leads to flat mood and sleep issues, because you need to be high energy during the day so you can be low energy (sleep) at night. This winter I've been taking high dose iodine+selenium+B2 for thyroid support + Folate + IR therapy and it's working significantly better than other winters, don't know which one.
>>34163531I'm trying not to go down the doctor rabbit hole (technically one of my three visits was my physical) but it's definitely hard. Half of me wants the tests and scans so I can tell myself nothing's wrong, the other half knows it won't be good enough and I'll just tell myself they missed something.What do you do to not hyperfixate on symptoms? I didn't use to do this, I've had toes turn white, had red stuff in my shit, and thought "huh, I should bring this up at my next physical" and now if I'm sleepy earlier than usual I assume something's wrong and panic.>>34164051I also noticed my problems started when the temperature started cooling, and now I wonder if it's not a coincidence. Don't think I've ever looked forward to spring this much. I've reduced caffeine and am also trying to go through my supplements, I think my high dose vit D one may be making things worse.
>>34164475Same, vitamin D made things worse, I'm taking less now and doing better. 1000 IU every 2 days or even less. See symptoms of hypercalcemia. It depends on your genetics. The info on vitamin D is conflicting.
>>34164518I've been taking 1K (2 in winter) for years with no issue, decided to bump it up to 10 because everyone says that's good, and I dunno if it's causing it or making it worse but it always aggravates whatever symptom I'm having. My recent stuff started after I decided to give it a try again, too. I probably should just stick with what works, I'm not even deficient.
>>34163146Anon, try reposting this on the /r/askdocs and /r/diagnose me sub reddit. I think the first one has actual confirmed medical specialists. Don't ask random anons for medical advice.
>>34164475No matter how many times you go to the doctor, it will never be enough. for my case with the moles/spots i started noticing, I did hours of research, then went to my family doctor who said it was nothing and then to a speacialist who also said it was nothing. this helped me for about 4 months and then my brain decided that it wasn't good enough and that they were somehow changing so both doctors must be wrong.you're stressed and anxious and extremely sensitive to any new sensations that you're actively looking for. you're trying to link symptoms together which is very easy to do since a lot of serious illnesses have vague bullshit early symptoms that can be seen in a million other things. during my worst bouts of anxiety i managed to somehow connect my leg tingling to my face twitchiness and even started to think that I walk differently because my left arm swings differently from my right when I walk so i convinced myself I had ALS or MS.now obviously that doesn't mean it CAN'T be something and it's not like you should never go to the doctor now just cause you have health anxiety. but what helped me most is drastically limiting how much time I spent researching the symptoms and trying to find the cause online. you will never find the answer and as soon as you read about some symptom of a serious illness, your brain will materialize it cause you're in a chronic state of stress/anxiety. you will match 2/10 symptoms to some random illness and then the 3rd and 4th will appear cause you're worried about them and constantly looking out for them.
>>34164576Honestly I'm already looking up my shit on reddit half the time because it's the only way to search medical stuff without being flooded with SEO optimized AI shit these days>>34164685I already wrote too much in my OP but at one point I had constant tiny muscle twitches over my body too and my left arm felt weak and shaky and I also concluded I had ALS, till I realized the same things could be caused by the Claritin D I was also taking for whatever was fucking my sinuses and it went away the same time I stopped taking it.>but what helped me most is drastically limiting how much time I spent researching the symptoms and trying to find the cause online.I definitely do this too much, even if I've started just searching if X can be caused by anxiety to try and convince myself it's not just something caused by actual diseases. I'll try to cut it out. I do recognize my body is very good at filling in the blanks for whatever syndrome I'm fixated on.
>>34166257>looking up nonono I had a medical thing a few years ago it was sort of vague and I wasn't really sure what type of specialist to go to and if they would even take me seriously because of the vagueness of my symptoms a lot of it was neurological and I had gotten like a whiplash type of accident in my neck years prior and I thought I had some form of MBTI but since I didn't get hit in the head no one would take me seriously and I made a post about it on /r/askdocs and I got some solid solid advice. My point is is that you can search the entire internet no one will have the exact same thing you have. If you have a complicated medical issue you should make a post and have it read and answered by a medical professional. Also if you have some light form of overworrying or hypochondria they will be the ones to tell you rather than some random people on /adv/
>>34166290Might give it a try then
>>34166257it's hard to resist the urge to do look up your symptoms even by googling something like "can X be caused by anxiety?" to give yourself some kind of assurance cause there's that little voice in your brain that says, "what if i ignore it this time, and it actually IS something serious and lifethreatening?"the more you resist the urge to look shit up, the more you will be comfortable with taking on risk. nothing is 100% in life, but that doesn't mean you need to spend all your time freaking out about the 0.0001%.
