I'm wondering if other PC members have difficulty separating what is a physical ailment from what is a symptom of mental illness. I've been dealing with a number of symptoms recently. Some are clearly physical. Others could be physical. But they also could be the result of my ongoing depression & anxiety. It all started about 3 weeks ago. I came down with a respiratory illness that has been going around our area. I was ill with it for only a couple of days before it gradually began to subside. At this point, all I have left of it is a persistent cough that comes & goes.

About a week-&-a-half ago I was still coughing uncontrollably & this was keeping me up at night. So, for 2 nights, I took some of one of these over-the-counter nighttime relief cold medicines. The day after I took the 2nd dose, I had bloody urine. I presumed the cold med had reacted with the Cymbalta I take. So I stopped taking the cold medicine. I also went in to my clinic. They ran a blood test & it came back normal. The bloody urine disappeared. Then exactly a week later it reappeared one time. Then it disappeared again. Since then, I've been experiencing some minor pains of a couple of different types in the pubic area. It also seems as though my urine is more concentrated than it used to be. But I'm not sure about this. In addition, I'm feeling really tired & my low back (which I have ongoing problems with) is acting up. All I want to do is sleep.

The problem is that I'm having a difficult time figuring out how much of this is really a physical problem & how much is symptoms of my depression & anxiety. As I wrote above, my blood test was normal. And the nurse practitioner I saw said bloody urine isn't necessarily unusual. I don't want to be running off to the clinic repeatedly if I'm just getting all bent out of shape over nothing. But I don't know how to separate what is the result of depression & anxiety from what is something that could actually be serious & should be checked out. Any thoughts?