Is it a mole or melanoma?

I have agonized over this one. I know have had three moles removed..Each one my doctor was hesitant but I thought it had changed size or colour. Each time I wait for the biopsy results fearful that it will turn out to be a Breslow 4mm melanoma. Each time (I knock on the desk) has turned out to be an ugly mole.

One of the challenges I have with hypochondria is seperating the fear from the reality. The reality is I have red hair freckles and skin damaged from the suns from vacations in Mexico and extended trips overseas. I have to be vigilant. However I go far beyond this. Like Woody Allen in Hannah and Her Sisters I have mistaken pen marks on my legs from a leaky pen for skin cancer. How can I find a balance here?

Another day

Hello readers, I hope you are enjoying the end of your summer. I spent part of  my summer looking at mountains and shitting in an outhouse. This is actually an important part of the experience. I have had narrow stools for about three months now. I am going to see a gastrointestinal specialist in Dec. 

Not being able to see my own shit provided me a  break from worrying for 10 days. 10 days not thinking that I had colon cancer.

 Now I am back, flattened stool ruining each and every movement.

The wrong diagnosis?

I have been searching for diseases for a long time on the Internet and in the last few years the site wrong diagnosis.com has been my nemesis.

Let’s begin with the title. There is a suggestion here that you doctor is wrong and the right diagnosis must be on the Internet. Does this appear strange to anyone? Yes doctors are wrong but are you really going to piece it together on the Internet. I cannot think of anything much worse for those suffering from hypochondria than a site telling them not to trust their doctor.

And then tereis there symptom checker. Enter the symptom back pain and along with muscle fatigue and slipped disc the list includes some of the following: chronic leukemia, spinal tumor, multiple myeloma, prostate carcinoma, sickle cell crisis…..and so on. Now what is a patient supposed to do with this list. How do I know it is not leukemia. When doctors diagnose patients they often start with the most probable condition but patients are not this simple they often think the worse especially if they are anxious.

Then there are the adds: do you have breast cancer? Have you been tested for Cancer? Common eye diseases.

Here is a gem I found on the site today

“Silent diseases

Learn about common diseases with no symptoms or “vague symptoms”

What the hell is someone supposed to do to be vigilant about diseases without symptoms?

Although the have a nifty disclaimer on the bottom of the site saying that this information is not intended to replace advice from your own medical team that is exactly what this site tries to do. Your doctor must be wrong; here are the answers.

Perceiving the body

When I am suffering from a bout of hypochondria my body feels precarious. I can feel my insides, my heart beating.

For me I feel the root of my hypochondria is a fear of my lack of control over death and health. I lost my best friend when I was 18 and on a trip to Mexico. He died of a mysterious disease. I felt immortal. I remember we were late for our second class train so we ran and jumped onto the moving train immortal. Scott died and mortality hit me deeply it destroyed my new confidence. I was fragile and life was precarious.

Many years later I developed hypochondria but I know that some of the roots lie here.

Famous Hypochondriacs

You are not the only one out there. It gives me comfort to know that there are other people dealing with this illness. This is the first in a series of posts describing famous hypochondriacs.

Spanish Oscar-winner Javier Barden is a a self-confessed hypochondriac. The No Country For Old Men star is constantly convinced he has contracted a serious illness and rushes to see his doctor at the first sign of any ailment. Bardem’s obsessive behaviour began when he was a teenager and although the condition has improved over time, he still feels the need to see a medic on a regular basis. He says, “I used to be (a severe hypochondriac), but I’m not that bad any more. I’ll be like, “I’m really sick. I need to go to the doctor.” “I was about 14 years old (when it started) and lying on the sofa watching TV and my head started to ache. I said to myself, ‘I’m going to die. I’d better call my friends and say goodbye.’ “Since then they’ve been used to me saying I have serious health problems. One day I won’t say anything and I will just disappear!”

An anxiety attack

Here it comes rushing in anxiety. It is as if I am suddenly plugged in an hyperaware. It happens when I have an ache in a new area of my chest, a sore arm? What is wrong? What will I face? I have become better at managing the anxiety–thank heavens cause it used to leave me on my bed in a fetal position, inconsolable  now I breath through it. I don’t. suppress it I let it go past.

I breath deeply and absorb myself in engaging activities. Right now I am writing this to distract myself from creeping fear.

Are you mister Boucher ?

I was in the hospital with my family recovering from a stroke. We were all talking about something. My long divorced parents putting on a good face and being in the room with me together. Suddenly a doctor pushes away the curtain. I have something to tell you about your procedure. I had a bubble test early that day which involved me exerting myself as if I was going to the bathroom while the doctors held a long snake down my throat. My father and mother looked up expectingly I braced myself. The doctor continued. “When we put in the mainline your lung was punctured and that is what is causing the pain in your shoulder.” My shoulder, had it been hurting today? Now to think about it my shoulder was kind of sore and my breathing suddenly it seemed hard to get any breath. Is this what they call air hungry? My parents looked surprised. My mother is a nurse and she was my defender in the hospital. You jumped into her medical speak “I don’t think he would have had a mainline in. He was just going in for a TEE and a bubble test. The doctor looked a little bewildered. An intern perhaps, the end of a long shift.. The intern looked the record on hist clipboard. Are you mister Boucher? I pointed towards Mr Boucher behind the curtain. Mr Boucher groaned. We all started breathing normally again and smiled at one another.

Fearing the HIV

HIV started spreading when I was in elementary school. I wonder about the relationship between my developing hypochondria and the panic that ensued in my formative years. The first time I ever heard about HIV it was in a joke a friend told me in the grade 3,4,5 classroom. What does gay stand for? Got AIDS yet? I remember laughing but I really had no idea what HIV/AIDs was.

Then I read a magazine article about Ryan White a hemophiliac who after becoming infected through a blood transfusion. He decided to return to school. There was this one picture. His mother holding his hand and walking past a large crowd of angry parents carrying placards reading “Out of our school.” A group of parents and teachers protested Ryan White and I remember how angry they looked.

Reading this magazine and learning to fear AIDs may have been where this condition really began.

Top 7 Scariest Medical Web Links

You gotta love these headlines. One wonders how much of cyberchondria is caused by these types of weblinks. When you have a headache and research it on the Internet you will quickly be informed that it might actually be a brain tumor rather than just a common headache brought on by stress or tension. Here are some headlines that still send me to the bathroom checking.

1. Do You Have Lung Cancer?

   Do you have signs and symptoms of lung cancer? … Lung Disease Symptoms Do You Have Lung Cancer?Tuberculosis Testing Explained …

2. HIV Does It Have A Natural Cure? How Can You Get This Terrible Disease?

   Sexually Transmitted Disease – Myths and Tales Does-It-Have-A-Natural-Cure?-How-Can-You-Get-This …Terrible-Disease -?&id=380905 …

3. Five commonly misdiagnosed diagnosed diseaseses – CNN.com

   The celebrity was John Ritter. … commonly . Story … and autopsy reports say certain diseases are over and over again. misdiagnosed.

4. Mesothelioma SOS – Mesothelioma Symptoms

   Unfortunately, in the early stages of the disease, symptoms may be vague or not noticeable. … Benign lung disease, such as asbestosis is common in people who …

5. Do You Have Breast Cancer?

   Do your nipples appear retracted or inverted? Are you worried that you … Cancer – The One Thing You Must Do Immediately If You Have Got Breast Cancer Again …

6. How to Determine when a Pain in the Neck is More than That

   Neck pain may be caused by disc degeneration, narrowing of the spinal canal, arthritis, and, in rare cases, cancer or meningitis. For serious neck problems, a …

7. When You Visit Your Doctor — Parkinson’s Disease

   Are you depressed? Do you have problems with memory, concentration, or … Do you have a family history of Parkinson’s Disease? Do you live in a rural area? …

What if you really get sick

When you really get sick it is different. Since the hypochondria has begun I have had my appendix rupture, a gallstone,and a gallbladder operation, an inlingual hernia, and a cerebellar stroke. This is in the same ten years that I have worried about diseases. In each of these cases when I was really sick it was different. It wasn’t a nagging pain that went away in a day. In all of the cases when I have been really sick it was obvious that I needed to seek help.

After having the stroke the hypochondria went away but now it has come back. I am developing this site to exorcise the hypochondria from me. It is the sickness that has been the most difficult to fight and to explain to other people. I want to be well physically and mentally. I want to live worry free days again.