[AnomalousCarrotCake]

Hi, I'm new here, and I'm suffering with a form of anxiety that I don't have a name for but hope someone reading will see it and be able to offer advice, perhaps relate to it.

Trigger warning: If you have ongoing medical problems, fear of death, infection phobias you may want to skip this post.

Some history/backstory:

Years ago, I became acutely ill with an infection. The first doctor I saw for it misdiagnosed it, and it was inadequately treated. The doctor who diagnosed it properly told me it was rare, and not many people got it.

That said, even after treatment I continued to have many symptoms which made me ill, and they have affected to me to this day. I have ongoing pain, memory problems, and fatigue.

Which brings us to more recently:

I do ongoing research online on my condition. Not in a Doctor Google sort of way, but look at medical research and share it with my doctor, and we decide what form of treatment to try next for my condition.

Doing this sort of research never gave me anxiety before, but now I have a lot of anxiety -- severe anxiety -- that has kicked in at times where I can barely move and barely speak, alternating with moving around until I've exhausted what little energy I have.

The anxiety isn't over my original, ongoing condition. It's over new things which I might get and for which there is some risk.

For example:

Possible trigger:

I had to go to an outdoor shed to get something. I rarely do this, but when I did, it was windy, and the door slammed behind me. Inside, there was a distinct smell of urine. I later found out it was rat and mouse urine and droppings, as rodents had been sheltering in the shed in bad weather and built nests in it.

I had vague recall from doing previous research on my own condition that some infections could be spread via rodent urine and droppings. I couldn't remember what, so I looked it up and found out one can contract Hanta Virus from them.

If one gets this virus, it can take up to 6-8 weeks to show signs of symptoms. And there is something like a 30% case fatality rate.

As soon as I found this out, I panicked. I had been exposed. But I tried to talk myself down, and spent some time calling regional dept. of health staff to ask them what precisely my risk was.

I was told up to 15% of the rodents in the area carried the virus, on average. But they could not give me a clear risk assessment for my exposure. They could only tell me to report to my doctor if I showed any symptoms of the virus.

I spend weeks feeling on edge, having difficulty concentrating, and at one point began to get a fever, back pains, and felt sick. This made me feel even more panicked, and so I went to the doctor to get checked out.

She listened to my story, and even ordered a blood test for Hanta Virus for me. It turned out to be negative.

It was a relief to find out I had a pretty normal viral infection at that point, even though I was miserable for several days. I finally began sleeping better, and put the entire experience behind me with relief.

I also promised myself to not go into a shed not knowing what was in it, and not without a dustmask next time.

That's one instance. There was another:

Possible trigger:

I'll keep this one shorter.

I was visiting another state a couple years ago and while there, during a walk around town I pet a cat that was in front of someone's house. It seemed friendly enough, but it scratched my arm.

When I got back to where I was staying, I washed the scratch out with soap and water, put peroxide on it, rinsed it off, and I might have also put antibiotic ointment on it (can't be sure I did the last thing).

I was under a lot of stress at the time, as I was dealing with a relative who was just admitted to the hospital for a severe sudden illness (and was undergoing tons of tests to find out what went wrong).

I thought nothing of this, until several months ago I came across research on how rabid (I can't even read this word now without wanting to jump out of my skin, so please avoid using it and just say "nasty virus") animals can give one an infection that can take years to develop. In one case, it took 2 years after exposure for a young girl to get ill. In another, a whopping 25 years.

I didn't know this, and began backtracking and thought, my god, maybe it's possible I have this in me and don't even know it!

There is no blood test for this virus. And once you have it, that's it -- 100% mortality rate. (Well, except for some genetically unusual tribe in South America).

I contacted the public health/animal control staff for the particular region in which I had been scratched, and got mixed news back - basically, yes, there was a low possibility I could've been infected but there's no way to know, but I could talk to my doctor about getting shots anyway.

I talked to a few people about this, and while their response about risk was mixed, my doctor thought that my anxiety was getting the worst of me and referred me to a psychiatrist rather than refer me for a series of shots.

My girlfriend told me I was too worried about something where the odds were so small I would be better off worrying about getting in a car, where I'm more likely to get in a car accident -- than worry about the potential outcome from a cat scratch. She found it fascinating that I'm not worried about getting in car, knowing the odds of being in an accident -- but worried about this.

I told her it's definitely an odds game, but in one situation the odds are 100% things turn out badly if one is infected and in the other, there are a wide range of possible outcomes if one is in an accident.

She pointed out that I was still being irrational and didn't know how statistics worked if I was still afraid of having an infected scratch.

I can see that, but somehow it doesn't matter. I still sit here, thinking my time here is limited and how stupid I am because all I can do is feel anxious about it, in repeated waves -- at least until I can somehow convince myself I'm delusional for a moment and/or get too exhausted from the anxiety and end up crashing from it or if lucky, focused on something else mentally.

This stuff is really hard. And I know that it somehow relates to my original infection, and having gotten an infection that I was told was rare -- yet I somehow managed to get it, anyway.

I was also told that with treatment, people are cured of that infection. But in my case, I wasn't -- or, perhaps I was cured but I continue to have symptoms anyway.

I didn't want to develop some weird anxiety on top of what I'm already struggling with, but here I am. I don't know how to get past this. I feel a certain level of fear every day, all day, and sometimes it is paralyzing me while other times it is wearing me down to exhaustion (and I already have a condition where fatigue plays a big role).

Any advice, help, and support is welcome. (I am going to see a therapist about this, but I need to tell someone else about it too. It's been hard to deal with this alone, in my own head and it's driving me nuts.)

Thanks,

AnomalousCarrotCake

[sideblinded]

I am curious as to why the doctor who said that this condition is rare didn't give it a name. How did they know it was rare? Also, I would have asked how they were treating it. Certain types of antibiotics? This is also a huge clue. Since I am not a doctor, I cannot really speculate what this infection is or how you contracted it. I would seek a specialist in infectious diseases. That would be your best bet as far as a specialist. I hope you get this figured out. I am wondering if you are ruminating about this too much and it is causing the anxiety. Or is this condition causing the anxiety. I would go to a psychiatrist and explain so they can rule out or in anxiety. They can refer you to a specialist if needed. Good luck.

[AnomalousCarrotCake]

Originally Posted by sideblinded

I am curious as to why the doctor who said that this condition is rare didn't give it a name. How did they know it was rare? Also, I would have asked how they were treating it. Certain types of antibiotics? This is also a huge clue. Since I am not a doctor, I cannot really speculate what this infection is or how you contracted it. I would seek a specialist in infectious diseases. That would be your best bet as far as a specialist. I hope you get this figured out. I am wondering if you are ruminating about this too much and it is causing the anxiety. Or is this condition causing the anxiety. I would go to a psychiatrist and explain so they can rule out or in anxiety. They can refer you to a specialist if needed. Good luck.

Hi sideblinded,

I know what the original infection was, and the doctor at the time considered it rare based on local epidemiology studies. The fallout from that infection -- my ongoing symptoms from it -- are something I have been putting up with for years now. While it has changed my life, though, it isn't what I want to focus on in this post/thread.

My concern is more that I'm experiencing repeated potential exposures to something where there is some potential risk of being infected -- and whatever infection it is is even more serious than what I got in the first place.

That, and my reaction to these potential exposures, and how the anxiety over them is having a major negative impact on my life.

To go through each day wondering if it's your last -- which is what I do, on and off, but often -- is not a good thing here. Maybe for some people, it encourages them to work harder, accomplish something great. But in me, it makes me stressed out and unable to focus. It's stealing time from me, and I'm having trouble relaxing most of the time.

AnomalousCarrotCake