***Trigger Warning***

Don't read if you don't like to read about pain and death

Hi! I have really very bad anxiety when it comes to my health. Anything abnormal freaks me out. I'm always afraid to get illnesses like cancer because I heard it's very painful, and we have history. I did many tests, but I think not all the tests. Doctors don't seem to listen, although I feel there is something wrong. I'm afraid because I don't want to discover something after being advanced beyond a stage of effective treatment, but I understand that not everything can be tested. I wish medicine were more advanced than today's to detect everything early and without any invasive procedures and with low cost. Today's medicine relies on statistical analysis, and probability because of cost and profit. I cannot function when anxiety strikes, and keep thinking I need to make sure I'm 100% healthy before I invest in life, otherwise it isn't worth it.

I am not looking for suggestions. I just wanted to share this, because it really bothers me a lot. The funny thing is that my life is a mess, and I would love to go, but I care about my health!! Maybe I'm just afraid of pain, not death. Thanks to Google that exacerbates my anxiety all the time by giving too many (potentially serious) possibilities for each simple symptom. Also, the other day I read another member's similar experience, and gave some suggestions as if I were in a different situation. Well, I am not

Thanks for reading.

Have a look at this
https://www.23andme.com/en-gb/health/reports/

[*Laurie*]

First of all, STOP GOOGLING SYMPTOMS. Seriously, you must stop. Googling symptoms will drive anyone crazy with fear, sure we or a loved one has some awful illness. It takes tremendous self-discipline, but the reward is well worth it.

Recently I went to a general doctor for a symptom, and he said I may have something, and referred me to a specialist. This something turns out to be potentially precancerous. I had no choice but to panic for 2 weeks until I saw the specialist who said it's not what the general doctor said, and it's not serious. Sometimes, doctors themselves may cause the anxiety. But yes, googling symptoms is a bad idea. It turns my anxiety into panic attacks most of the time.

Yes, avoid 'Dr google' - you can find something horrible for the most flimsy of symptoms.

What I suggest you do is work your Catastrophic Thinking. CBT really helped me with mine. Here is a relly gret worksheet:

https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&sourc...AhJfByb8mfqHig

[Jeff2888]

I can totally relate. I'm constantly obsessing about my health. For every little ailment I think the worst. When I go to my doctor he always says anxiety. He's quick t prescribe anti depressants. He says all my headaches are coming from anxiety, does anyone experience severe tension headaches from anxiety?

Yes, I get headache from anxiety. It happens all the time.

[Jeff2888]

Originally Posted by Mr. Stranger

Yes, I get headache from anxiety. It happens all the time.

Thanks so much for your response.
I get a constant headache perdomanetly in my right temple
but it often times moves around to the left side or towards the back of my head.
That fuels my anxiety even more. I can almost deal with the anxiety but I don't know How do you deal the headache? It totally incapacitates me.
Thanks again

Have you seen a doctor for your headache? I mean anxiety can cause it, but you need to rule out any physical cause first.

I have the same thing but I am going to disagree with everyone else. Dr. Google is your friend. I won't sugar coat it... doctors are incompetent and don't care if you get cancer or not. It is insane to stick your head in the sand and not look everything up. Yes, it might not be what you thought but after a while I think you can learn to figure out what symptoms you must have that differentiate serious from not.

With regard to cancer, there is something you can to do avoid it. Vitamin D. If you take sufficient vitamin d it has been shown to have a preventative effect. In addition it can slow cancer. This keeps me calm about cancer.

It is shocking but the truth is that if you don't live a risky life, risky sex, obesity, smoking, drugs... your chances of cancer and many different things are greatly reduced. Dr. Google doesn't usually note such things but if you really look it up... you can find it.

I engage in Gorilla tactics with my doctor. I make an excuse to go in every 6 months. I lie to get the tests that I want and if she sends me to a specialist and they don't have anything available for a while.. I just keep calling daily until they get sick of me and "fit me in". I sometimes also go to another doctor (that my primary care) knows nothing about if they have an early appointment and then if I don't get the answer I want go to the later one. I have been known to go to the ER just because my doctor didn't have anything early.

F** um.. it is my life and body. I only get one.

There are also services that allow you to get your own blood tests (you do have to pay for them yourself) but they aren't too expensive and it can put your mind at ease.

[*Laurie*]

Originally Posted by Emily Fox Seaton

I have the same thing but I am going to disagree with everyone else. Dr. Google is your friend. I won't sugar coat it... doctors are incompetent and don't care if you get cancer or not. It is insane to stick your head in the sand and not look everything up. Yes, it might not be what you thought but after a while I think you can learn to figure out what symptoms you must have that differentiate serious from not.

With regard to cancer, there is something you can to do avoid it. Vitamin D. If you take sufficient vitamin d it has been shown to have a preventative effect. In addition it can slow cancer. This keeps me calm about cancer.

It is shocking but the truth is that if you don't live a risky life, risky sex, obesity, smoking, drugs... your chances of cancer and many different things are greatly reduced. Dr. Google doesn't usually note such things but if you really look it up... you can find it.

I engage in Gorilla tactics with my doctor. I make an excuse to go in every 6 months. I lie to get the tests that I want and if she sends me to a specialist and they don't have anything available for a while.. I just keep calling daily until they get sick of me and "fit me in". I sometimes also go to another doctor (that my primary care) knows nothing about if they have an early appointment and then if I don't get the answer I want go to the later one. I have been known to go to the ER just because my doctor didn't have anything early.

F** um.. it is my life and body. I only get one.

There are also services that allow you to get your own blood tests (you do have to pay for them yourself) but they aren't too expensive and it can put your mind at ease.

I think it's important for you to recognize that in your experience doctors don't care. Because that's true about some doctors for some patients. It is not true about every doctor and every patient. Many doctors do care about their patients.

Originally Posted by *Laurie*

I think it's important for you to recognize that in your experience doctors don't care. Because that's true about some doctors for some patients. It is not true about every doctor and every patient. Many doctors do care about their patients.

Nope objectively they don't care -- they think if you get cancer they can "fix" you with their chemo and radiation and then after you go through all that and can't be fixed... whoopsie.. oh well.

The problem with Dr. Google (I like the naming ) is that it doesn't give you one answer. It gives you a range of possibilities. Yes, if you look harder you may find the most probable answer, and I did that, but it's very exhausting and time consuming. Sometimes I read for hours at a time to pinpoint the most probable cause of some symptoms I had, and after that I went to a doctor to confirm (I cannot rely on google alone for a diagnosis). I think it's more useful once you know the diagnosis. It gives you more information. The general doctor I saw and said I might have something told me it's not serious. I was relaxed until I read about it on google, and most sites agreed that it could be precancerous condition and needs medical intervention.

For doctors, and let's be honest here, it's a business. They want to see as many patients as they can, and they follow the insurance and hospitals' policies to maintain a certain level of profit. The medicine is not personalized. They rely on statistics what tests should and when to be done. In my experience, I haven't seen a doctor who is willing to sit down and explain things to me comprehensively may be in 30 minutes. I'm not a regular patient in the sense that I want to understand and know things, and cannot rely on doctors completely. That's why I keep seeing different doctors. I too lied to some doctors to do some tests. Also, many conditions are difficult to be discovered without clear symptoms, at which stage, it might be a little late. I heard that your breath can show if you will have a cancer or not even years before it develops, but we don't have the cost-effective techniques to detect that. Maybe in 20 years we all will have these at our homes. Who knows. We hope.

[*Laurie*]

Originally Posted by Emily Fox Seaton

Nope objectively they don't care -- they think if you get cancer they can "fix" you with their chemo and radiation and then after you go through all that and can't be fixed... whoopsie.. oh well.

Doctors are only human beings working with the tools they have. They are not gods. In my experience, most doctors resent that medicine is a business. I'm by no means saying that all doctors are great, but to make such a sweeping generalization - that ALL doctors don't care - is just coming from a place of fear and bitterness.

Originally Posted by Mr. Stranger

Also, many conditions are difficult to be discovered without clear symptoms, at which stage, it might be a little late. I heard that your breath can show if you will have a cancer or not even years before it develops, but we don't have the cost-effective techniques to detect that. Maybe in 20 years we all will have these at our homes. Who knows. We hope.

I have always wondered why there isn't a medical specialty that is just diagnosing things that other doctors cannot figure out. But I did find something recently that is good to know. It is called "crowd med". It is a website / company that allows you to submit your record and symptoms and let a team of doctors and regular people work on the diagnosis for you over the net. They also put the results of others so you read those if you have something similar.

Actually if this is something that appeals to you... you can sign up to be a "medical investigator" and you can get paid.

I found it because it was listed on a crowdfunding website for investors and I almost invested but I wasn't sure how I would see my funds come back to me.

Right now the internet is in bad shape because of old / outdated data but I am hopeful that the future of medicine sees that the internet can be helpful. I find photos on google to be super helpful. If you get 100 pictures of melanoma and your thing doesn't look like melanoma.. you can get calm. Of course still check it out but it is helpful.

I expect doctors to do their best. But the truth is.. I rarely have found any doctor that tried at all or that was competent. Given that this is someone's life in the balance, I don't want to hear "they are only human". They hold themselves out to have something that regular people don't have and get paid accordingly. So when they produce poor results they should be held to account.

Do you know that the third leading cause of death in the united states is medical errors!!! There are studies that showed that algorithms are better than doctors in diagnosing medical conditions, at least for some of them. Some of them are implemented in hospitals, like for new born babies. There is an algorithm whose outcome shows if the newborn is healthy or not. And it works perfectly. Humans decisions are restricted by their emotions and with their limited brain energy. Algorithms have unlimited power and can detect things that humans cannot and they are not biased. It is controversial of course because algorithms are emotionless and jeopardize the business of doctors, but I think it's a view of point that is worth considering by the medical community if they care about patients and not about their business only.

[*Laurie*]

Originally Posted by Emily Fox Seaton

I have always wondered why there isn't a medical specialty that is just diagnosing things that other doctors cannot figure out. But I did find something recently that is good to know. It is called "crowd med". It is a website / company that allows you to submit your record and symptoms and let a team of doctors and regular people work on the diagnosis for you over the net. They also put the results of others so you read those if you have something similar.

Actually if this is something that appeals to you... you can sign up to be a "medical investigator" and you can get paid.

I found it because it was listed on a crowdfunding website for investors and I almost invested but I wasn't sure how I would see my funds come back to me.

Right now the internet is in bad shape because of old / outdated data but I am hopeful that the future of medicine sees that the internet can be helpful. I find photos on google to be super helpful. If you get 100 pictures of melanoma and your thing doesn't look like melanoma.. you can get calm. Of course still check it out but it is helpful.

I expect doctors to do their best. But the truth is.. I rarely have found any doctor that tried at all or that was competent. Given that this is someone's life in the balance, I don't want to hear "they are only human". They hold themselves out to have something that regular people don't have and get paid accordingly. So when they produce poor results they should be held to account.

Held to account in what way? And by whom?

Originally Posted by Mr. Stranger

Do you know that the third leading cause of death in the united states is medical errors!!!

Yes. I think medical errors are vastly under reported as well. When my mom was in the hospital we constantly would tell them not to give her IV fluids because she had heart failure and every single time they would just ignore us and give it to her, we would find her gasping for air, page the doctor and get her taken off.

Pure arrogance that us "non-medical" professionals were not to be listened to.
Though an error that could have led to consequences, we nipped it in the bud.

I just try to stay away from doctors and stay healthy. They very well could kill you.

With regard to cancer there are some real questions concerning what is actually considered cancer (so a lot of things are considered cancer just to get stats up) and even if they find real legitimate cancer... don't think they have anything for you. Did you know a lot of studies have determined that chemo just makes cancer worse? And the treatments are so invasive and so brutal.

I think patients must be vigilant to their health, while consulting with doctors. I think medicine can be improved. It has been improved over the years, but still it has more room for more improvement. The average life expectancy was 30 years old until early 1900s. Now I think it's 68 or something worldwide. People where dying of simple injuries because there was no antibiotics to treat their infections. That's an improvement. A huge one.

The trend for medicine is to become personalized, which includes sequencing patients genome, to design medications and treatment for each person. It isn't feasible now, but with time it will be. Sequencing the first human genome took about 10 years and cost ~3 billion dollars, now it can be done with a few thousand dollars in a couple of weeks.

I'm not familiar with the details of chemo therapy, but I heard it is painful, and not highly effective. This is maybe because chemo therapy kills healthy cells as well (it's not a targeted treatment). With the advent of nano technology, there is a hope to target cancerous cell while keeping healthy cells intact. As I said, there are many improvements that can be made, and I think they are under development stage. Maybe we won't witness this at our times, but hopefully the future will be better for our children (for those who have/will have them).

Originally Posted by Mr. Stranger

I think patients must be vigilant to their health, while consulting with doctors. I think medicine can be improved. It has been improved over the years, but still it has more room for more improvement.

I think medicine has gotten lazy. There are people out there that are doing amazing things but it isn't helping because you could get killed by someones laziness or sloth. I take a guerrilla tactics approach to my health with doctors. I always obtain a copy of my records. Any test that I have, any biopsy that I have, anything that I have done, I don't listen to what they tell me. I get the actual results and read it myself... google is very helpful for medical words.

I actually have a friend that is starting a medical advocate business for elders. I would love that for when I get older. Making sure that there is someone who can fight for me so that the doctors don't get lazy.

I actually do think that medicine has accepted that the current cancer treatments don't work. They are working on immuno treatments (using viruses to kill cancer cells) and i just saw a proposed treatment using vitamin C to kill cancer. High dose intravenous vitamin C kills cancer via As vitamin C breaks down, it generates hydrogen peroxide which kills only cancer cells.

I just hope these things are up and running before I hit my 50s.

I read once that suing doctors may have a negative effect on their performance, not a positive one, because it makes them very cautious and reluctant to take measures without lengthy consideration and conversations with the hospitals' management division.

The positive of medicine outweighs its negative overall. Yes doctors don't pay complete attention to patients as they should and make mistakes, but it's better than no attention at all.

I heard about the virus technique against cancerous cells. It's a little scary to me, because viruses could evolve and become infectious and fatal. Nanotechnology seems safer. But what do I know as a lay man I just read and watch what others say, and have my humble opinion.