Having tons of anxiety over this illness (IBS)

Hi guys, I'm new here, I've decided to come to these forums to talk to people over my anxiety

So I think it was around the beginning of August where my symptoms started to hit. I volunteer every Thursday at a local Zoo, which involved cutting up meat/dead chicks/clearing poop. about twenty four hours later when I was eating pizza with my friends my stomach started to growl insanely loudly, followed by a huge desire to go to the toilet, but when I did go nothing really came out. Over that weekend I began to have lots of unpleasant belly aches around the center of my lower abdomen (rightbehind my belly button), diarrhea, and appetite loss. I took some medicines from my pharmacist to relieve the pain, but I definitely should have seen a GP about it. I can't quite remember how bad the symptoms were back then, but they did give me a crap load of anxiety, and about a week later I saw a doctor about it. She checked my urine, said it was fine, checked about my stomach and blood pressure, didn't find anything, smiled and told me to see a GP if my symptoms continue over the next few days.

Anyway, symptoms still persisted by then and my GP then suspected it to be gastroenteritis, so I took a stool and blood sample, and about a week later my stool sample results said everything looked okay. Blood sample took about another week due to management changes in the lab but I got the same A-OK results which arrived to me the week before. I've seen about 5 doctors about this,twice motivated a lot out of just sheer anxiety and stress over it. The first four suspected it is an infection, though my last doctor from all the symptoms I gave her believes that it is Irritable Bowels.

Symptoms have been changing a lot over the last few weeks, but the main symptom is almost always some form of stomach ache around my lower belly that comes and goes throughout the day. I think it was the week before that they had improved a lot; no more diarrhea, stomach pains had been reduced to a mild ache that comes and goes, and my appetite not only had completely returned but I could also get away with eating processed cheese like a whole pizza without any reactions from my stomach, this lasted for about a whole week until unfortunately I made an incredibly stupid decision on that sunday during a social get together with my friends of eating a ton of processed cheese from a bowl of chips and nachos, about three Jagerbombs, and a Chinese buffet where I just ate like crazy. I did not give my poor stomach any mercy. Naturally it caused my stomach very unpleasant cramps by the time I got home which barely went away in the morning, and as the week followed up these cramps settled but remained a lot worse than it originally was, and it started to once again disrupt my appetite. Eventually my diarrhea came back last Friday; for the last few days since then I wake up every morning with very unpleasant stomach cramps, then go to the toilet and have diarrhea, the cramps relieve, and I tend to go throughout the day with stomach aches that will come and go, improving for the evening, but usually disrupting my lunch. It was around then I saw my last GP who told me about me having IBS, and gave me three cups for stool samples and will have another blood test on Friday, just in case of signs infections. By now I have so far given in two cups since then.

Stomach aches continue to happen in the center of my belly, sometimes my stomach will rumble after I eat something. Diet has changed a lot as well which is kind of stressing me out too. I've always had a huge anxiety problem over my health and it has just gotten worse over how long this has lasted. Something like Stomach cancer just looms in the back of my head. I've told this to my last two doctors but they just try to reassure me, as I am only 21 years old and have no family history on any cancers. When they tell me, I relax for the rest of the day, but then my anxiety over just comes back as the symptoms continue through the rest of the week. It's caused me to go crazy at looking at my stools, though I've not really seen any blood at all that the doctor hasn't reassured me. Recently I've been seeing these very tiny black bits in my stools attached to my more solid faeces, and whilst I've been trying to calm myself down, it's still just driving me nuts.Whenever I say anything out of the ordinary in my stools, like say, these black bits, or worse, a drop of blood in my toilet paper or a single pinhead-sized drop on my faeces, I just feel completely helpless and burst into tears. Doctor tells me that anxiety and stress can really affect me if I have Irritable Bowels and has recommended me to therapy over it which I am going to try and book today. I'm hoping that talking about it on this forum can help me a lot as well.

Thanks!

Post Edited (Moontoon) : 9/6/2016 5:25:03 AM (GMT-6)

Hello there and welcome!

I understand how you are feeling, this is something many of us experience. Mainly digestion related symptoms and IBS alone is a main cause of worry if you have tendencies of Health Anxiety and/or panic disorder.

I am pretty sure you don't have anything like stomach c. you have visited many doctors and none of them suspected anything such. So you are OK, trust me.

On the other hand, stress and your anxious thoughts will make you feel worse in the digestive tract. The intestines have a strange relationship with brain, they have a type of direct communication unlike any other organ. That's the reason why they are called the second brain. The more you worry, the more abdominal pain you will feel. Anxiety is one of the main triggers of IBS. Also you may have some sort of food intolerance/allergy which you never knew. Next time you can ask your dr to make some tests, or just mention it.

I know it's easy to say but I also have health anxiety but I know distraction makes a difference. If you keep on focusing on your symptoms, they will get worse. Try to trust your doctors and distract yourself other things.

If you still are not sure, you can ask your dr to order some further tests like endoscopy/colonoscopy to make sure.
There are many people in my family with digestive disorders including IBS, peptic ulcer, ulcerative colitis, etc. And I know one thing if you had one of those IBD (like colitis, Crohn's disease) you would know it by now. And the blood on toilet paper only means you've strained yourself a lot during the nr 2 :) This is a very common thing to see.

Best, you can focus on getting help with your anxiety instead. Either medication or therapy, both will have good effects on your IBS.

I hope you feel better soon, please keep us updated <3

Hey guys, just wanted to say thanks so much for the supportive messages, just a quick update.

I've made contact with a kind charitable organisation that talks to people suffering from anxiety and depression, and I have also been put on the waiting list for some young peoples therapy, they have told me that I will be on both waiting lists for a couple of weeks (been about a week now), so right now I've just got to tank through it.

My symptoms seem to have improved, and I feel like I am almost like I was before I started having all those nasty drinks and food, which has helped my anxiety a lot. I don't really stress over the idea of having Stomach cancer anymore, in fact I don't think I barely think I have it at all, although I do still get obsessive with my stools. This morning I saw a tiny bit of red blood in my toilet paper which caused me a bit of stress and alert, although I do think I tore something in my rectum anyway the other day anyway when I was in the toilet.

Stomach cramps in the morning seemed to have improved quite a bit. If I do have them I still have to go to the toilet to relieve them, but they don't really feel quite as strong as they used to, and this morning I didn't have any stomach cramps at all. My diarrhea seems to have gone too. Occasionally my face feels quite flushed particularly around the morning, but it doesn't really feel like I have a fever or anything. In fact I had two people, one a GP, take my temperature when I felt this way and said everything was in the norm. The strongest, and almost only symptom I have left at the moment are just stomach aches and pains. They usually happen around morning to midday but do die down as the day goes by and becomes almost non-existent during the evening. These stomach aches have seemingly affected my appetite quite a bit during lunch and breakfast, where I will occasionally take small quantities, like say, a slice of a sandwich, and become more reluctant to continue to eat. Sometimes after a while of eating, particularly dairy, my stomach aches feel a bit worse after an hour or so. It just feels so endless that it feels like I'm never going to feel better ever again. I'm very eagerly waiting for my stool and blood test results at the moment

Every time I'm anxious my stomach starts acting up. And I'm not sure which came first, the stomach issues or the anxiety.
Food diary might help pin point what's bad for you.

Hi guys, again, thanks so much for the messages and advice. They have helped me so much whilst I await for this therapy to happen, which I am still in wait.

So a couple of weeks ago I got all my results, and everything came out negative. The doctor even specified for me that she found no internal inflammation in my digestive regions from the blood test, which I think she did to help me stress less over the idea of cancer. They di however find an irregularity in my thyroid, irrelevant to my symptoms that they would like to keep an eye on after six weeks but they said that something like this to happen in the thyroid is pretty conmon. After these results arrived my anxiety almost entirely vanished, and with it my stomach aches, for two whole week, it was great. Unfortunately it's kind of returned along with my anxiety in the last few days but I'm trying my best to control myself. I had another party this weekend with alcohol and junk food so its not that surprising to me why I have the stomach aches. My anxiety seems to be driven more over the fact that I have to deal with IBS rather than fearing it to be more serious

This morning however I did find this red spot in my solid stool, and it's freaked the hell out of me. It seemed dark red but I have no idea if it is even blood or just undigested food debris like red pepper. It looked very neat for blood but I don't know, it's the most red ive seen in my stool, granted it was only the size of a fly, I just don't want to go back to where I was when I started this forum

As for ideas over lactose intolerance, I don't think so? Doctor said dairy can be a bit rough for the stomach anyway, and I can sometimes consumed creams and milk chocolates without feedback from my body

Thanks again guys

Rei said...
Do you drink alot of alcohol? It definitely causes some upset tummies!

Well I don't really like alcohol so I only drink on super social occasions like parties. That being said I have had some nasty stomach aches when I went drinking once, and my stomach aches have come back after a two week absence when I went drinking this weekend, but I haven't like that one bother me too much

Welcome moon!

So sorry you're having such troubles! I would venture to say with all the tests you've had done, you're pretty well in the clear of anything major, health wise.

It sounds like, with the repeated trips to the doctor, you're engaging in a lot of reassurance seeking behavior. These reassurances often help for a bit of time, as you described, but can make the issue worse in the long term. Here's some good info on the issue of reassurance thinking and how you can manage it: http://ocdla.com/reassurance-seeking-ocd-anxiety-1952

I think seeking therapy is a great idea! The therapist can help you with coping skills and anxiety management so hopefully you won't feel the physical symptoms so strongly. I'm so sorry you're still on a wait list. That is SUPER frustrating! I hope you get in soon!

Hang in there!! Strength!