Is this from anxiety????

Hey everyone. I'm new to the site but not so new to my feelings of fear and anxiety. Only recently was I diagnosed with anxiety and put on medication for it. I feel like it's helping but I still can't shake my feelings that something is really wrong with me and the doctors just aren't finding it.
about two weeks ago, I was getting in the shower and noticed a "dimple" on my right breast. Now I'll be the first to admit that I've never been the best at self breast exams so I have no clue how long this said dimple has been there. Immediately I start flipping out and text my midwife who says to come in the next morning and she would do an exam and send me for some testing. The whole evening after finding it, I start googling. BIG MISTAKE! Ten minutes in I was planning my funeral. No kidding. I couldn't function. I go to my midwife the next morning who thinks everything is fine, but decided to send me for an ultrasound just to be safe. The whole four days leading up to it was pure torture. I cried nonstop and did nothing but dwell on it and look up information on breast cancer because I knew I was dying. The day of the ultrasound, I knew I would be coming out of the facility with a cancer diagnosis.
I go for the ultrasound, the lady spends five minutes doing the test, tells me that I'm young (34) and have no family history of BC so I should be fine, and says for me to get dressed and she would have the radiologist look at the images and let me know what the results were. She comes in ten minutes later and tells me that the ultrasound was clear but he ordered a mammogram of both breasts just to be sure. That too came back normal. I was elated! For all of about two hours, until I started googling again. Everywhere I looked, countless women had mammograms, ultrasounds, you name it, and their cancer didn't show up until they pushed for more testing. And even worse, some had a type of cancer, (IBC to be exact) that wouldn't show up on anything but a biopsy. 😱 So then I'm really freaking out. By that evening I was having a burning pain in my right breast and had convinced myself that I have IBC which is the worst type of breast cancer to have.
Fast forward to now, and I've been to the doctor twice since all the testing and I still can't be convivced that I don't have it. I'm scared to death! I still have some pain and tingling in my breast and when I have an itchy feeling I really start to panic.
The thing I want to know is, can anxiety make you feel symptoms of things you're most afraid of? And does anyone else ever have tests done by their doctors and not believe them when they come back clear? I feel like I'm losing my mind!

Hi

First of all welcome to the forum you will find good support here from others who can relate to what you are going through so well done for reaching out.

It sounds to me like you are dealing with health anxiety which can really take over your life if left untreated so i'm pleased to hear you have started some medication hopefully that will help.

Anxiety is very good at mimicking other things and when you are dealing with health anxiety you become very in tune with your body and notice the tiniest of things that you would not normally notice and blow them up into something big. The most important thing to remember is to not Google your symptoms as this will only make things 100x worse.

One of the most effective ways of dealing with health anxiety is to do some Cognitive behaviour Therapy (CBT) so speak with your GP about getting a referral and in the meantime have a look at our resources for some good links to self help on the web.

Keep us posted.

Hibee