health anxiety is acting up...

hi, everyone. i am one week into my new medication -- effexor 37.5mg -- and i am overall starting to feel a lot better now that the start-up side effects have subsided. i was THRILLED that yesterday, i had the energy to go visit my sister and my niece, shop for some things at the store, make some homemade guacamole, and enjoy football with friends. my weekends for the past few months have consisted of me on the couch watching TV and not much else.

i want to be proud of my victory this weekend. i am so very happy that i'm starting to feel better with my anxiety and that i'm hopefully on the right medication. but today, my health anxiety is acting up. i have recurrent fears that i have MS. almost a year ago, i start feeling progressively weaker until one day i collapsed at work. my primary doctor referred me the a neurologist who felt that i had a virus. he did a CT scan a my insistence. that was negative, so he sent me back to my PCP. CMV and epstein-barr tests were negative. lots of bloodwork was textbook perfect. my doctor told me to take 2 weeks off work to rest. during that time off, even laying down felt like it was taking too much energy. after those 2 weeks, i didn't feel much better, but she felt i should go back to work anyway. she felt i was letting my anxiety get the best of me, and that i needed to push through and see that i'd be fine.

fast forward 3 months when i still wasn't feeling much better. i was barely able to make it through my work day, and i'd cry every morning because i felt so bad that it was hard to even get out of bed. i decided to see a rheumatologist on my own. the rheumy didn't feel that i had a autoimmune disorder, but ran some tests to be sure. about a week later, she called me at home on an idle tuesday evening to tell me that all my lab work was normal except one -- the hepatitis C screening she ran came back positive. well, i FREAKED. she didn't tell me she was checking for hepatitis C, and i have no risk factors for that disease. i spent the longest week of my life waiting for test results from a confirmatory test -- they were negative, and i do not have hepatitis C. i found out later that the screening test is notorious for producing false positives. yet, i still worry that maybe the confirmatory test was wrong and that i do have hep C.

my PCP eventually checked my vitamin D level and found that it was very low. she attributed all my symptoms of weakness to this. after supplementing for 6 months, my level came up to normal, and although i feel a WHOLE LOT better, i can't say that i feel like my old self physically.

this whole journey over the past year has sent my health anxiety into a tailspin. i lost my mom to leukemia when she was only 41. i am 31 now, and acutely aware that perfectly healthy, young people get sick with awful diseases and die. i don't want to have these thoughts, but my experiences as a child have cemented them in my brain.

for the past week or so, i've been feeling a bit weak on my left side in my upper arm and upper leg. these symptoms of weakness have been reoccurring for the past year. it's a very mild, uncomfortable feeling, but not so pronounced that i can't use my left side. i have to keep reassuring myself that doctors do not think that i have MS, and that they went to school for a very long time to know what they know very well. i also have to remind myself that the idea of having hep C (which can cause people to feel very tired and weak) is just silly -- i have absolutely no risk factors. i want to believe that this recurring weakness is due to my anxiety. maybe it's happening because of the start-up anxiety with my effexor. i am trying hard to keep my thoughts positive and practice my good relaxation skills.

this has become a much longer post than i intended, and if you've read this far, i thank you. sometimes just getting my thoughts out like this help me process it more logically. if you have words of wisdom or support for me, i know that would help me, too. :)

hope you all have been enjoying a lovely weekend!

s.c., thank you for your support, which you have consistently given me since i joined the forum a couple weeks ago. :)

one other thing i considered after i finished my post is that i am one week away from the deadline of a HUGE work project i have been working on for several months...it has been quite stressful and draining. i know that i am stressed about making the project successful, and i'm just ready for it to be over. so of course, feeling stressed is going to make me more susceptible to feeling more anxiety about my health and life and everything.

when my feelings of weakness are gone, i do find myself worrying about if/when they're going to come back. that in an of itself could be creating them. i have begged my doctors to tell me that i'm psychosomatic. :) LOL, imagine BEGGING to be told that you "just" have a mental illness. the silly thing is that when they tell me it's anxiety, my faith in that diagnosis wears off over time, and i have to go back for more reassurance...

i think it makes sense to get through this next week so that my big project is behind me and then see how i feel. hopefully by then i'll really notice a difference on my new medication. since my psychiatrist gave me a new medicine, he wanted to see me back in a month to see how i'm doing. my appointment with him is the first week of october. i think i want to work really hard on not overreacting and finding reassurance for myself. this is something that i can wait to discuss at my next appointment -- the physical symptom isn't interfering with my life, i can cope with it, and there is no need for me to jump to silly conclusions that i have a disease that is actually fairly uncommon.

thank you for helping me work this out in my head! :)

greetingz, reading about your strength and faith as you face the challenges ahead of you is very inspiring to me. i so appreciate you sharing.

i really like what you said about medications relieving symptoms so that the real you can get on with solving problems. i hope that my medication will allow me to do that.

i am certainly not offended by others sharing their faith in spiritual beliefs. i see myself currently on a path toward finding a spiritual belief that is right for me, so it is helpful for me to learn about spirituality from all different perspectives. i respect your choice not to share further, but in regards to what you did share, i appreciate your reminder that spirituality can be an important aspect of healing...it is something i have been neglecting lately, and i could benefit from putting more focus on that now.

sending you thoughts of peace and comfort, greetingz.

renee, thanks for the encouragement and the helpful affirmations -- i could definitely stand to use those right now! i hope that your medication issues are sorted out soon so that you can start feeling better. i'll hang in there if you will. :)

Just wanted to leave a note today regarding my progress with the anxiety. Yesterday (Tuesday) was a pretty good day. Today (Wednesday) I'm having slight anxiety, along with allergy-related symptoms (dizziness, light-headed, tired, watery eyes, drippy nose). Unfortunately the allergies add to the anxiety when its there. However, I only took a 50 mg of Zoloft last night, and had slight anxiety this morning upon awaking. A good hot shower and strong stream of water directed at my neck and shoulders helped to diminish it. I just try to ignore it as much as possible. It is a nuisance to say the least.

Still hanging in there.

Thank you Reneek! Attitude is a heady thing, fight and fight until the weariness just about overwhelms you and when you least expect it, breakthroughs begin. How hard it is to fight anxiety while in anxiety. Still praying for you all.