- Username
- natnat28021
- Date posted
- 5y ago
I used to freak out about blood clots too after a scare I had. I’m so glad you’re okay!!
I know how you feel. About two years ago I became very sick for a long time, I couldnt go to school or do things normally because I was always tired or in pain. It took the doctors so long to figure out what was the matter with me, so all that time I was worrying and obsessing so much about the worst case scenarios. Even after I recovered, for a long time I was constantly worried that I was going to get sick again with something worse because it could happen to me. Brain tumors are a huge fear of mine and even today when I get lightheaded I fear it. Instead of rushing to the ER and performing your compulsion, maybe try some ERP. Have some unhealthy food like ice cream. Go out for drinks. And try to resist seeing the doctor for a whole week. Try going out and living life no matter how much your anxiety overwhelmes you. Thats some good ERP. Health is often take it for granted but take advantage of it? Go out and live, because youre healthy and you can
I just had a baby too and I’m dealing with awful harm thoughts but my last episode years back I was obsessed during nursing school that I was sick with a disease or cancer. I went to the ER several times and saw many different doctors, I even had MRIs and sleep studies - I was terrified I had brain cancer or MS. But after months of this obsessing and googling symptoms I got a therapist and was told it was ocd and anxiety/depression. I know it’s hard to believe it can make you feel so crappy but press on!
I think trauma and stress can trigger ocd even if birth went completely fine- I had high blood pressure and had to be induced sooner than expected which was scary for me. So your blood clot was trauma and the birth process is trauma to our body even if it goes perfectly so keep that in mind
On Satuday afternoon, I noticed bruises all over my legs and a weak feeling and although I was obsessing that I was going to die, I still went to the hospital. When they checked my blood, they found out that my platelets were very low. (Platelets are in charge of blood clotting and also its one of the three things made in bone marrow with White Blood Cells and Red Blood Cells being the other two). Luckily RBC and WBC count were of normal range. After staying for two days and being on edge the whole time thinking I was going to hear I was going to die, I was released (since they saw my platelets were going up and the rest of lab results were good except some things relating to iron). I still have a follow up appointment with the Hematologist to discuss the results and I am terrified. I have gotten all sorts of reassurances from two doctors, nurses, my mother in law who is a nurse, and literally everyone else but I am having this dreadful feeling that this is a sign I am going to die that my time is up. The most likely scenario I think was that my platelets went down with a combination of vitamin deficiencies (iron) and another combination like infection. But I went to the hospital the next day after my release because I felt weak again and panicking and they did my blood work and everything came up good (Finding out my platelets are continuing to go up). However, my OCD says if I think I am ok then it is not going to be ok so I need to be stuck in this loop of torture. Like what if I have something and I will never find out, what if I have something and find it too late? I have been crying non stop since Saturday evening, my head feels like a bowling ball which makes me think "oh maybe its a brain tumor." I google low platelets and one of the things of the list is Leukemia which I was already tested for Leukocytes and it was normal range but that was not enough because I googled nonstop and it said that they also do a bone marrow test to see for sure Leukemia and that freaked me out because I did not do that test. Then my thoughts changed to "my lymph node is swollen and now I have Lymphatic cancer" and it causes me to touch all parts of my body (even though I was tested for Lymphocytes on blood test and it was fine but again continued googling). Because of the bruising, I have trauma and I can't look at my own skin. I am afraid something new might come up. Now, its "oh I have a brain tumor because I am not feeling like myself, sometimes I stumble on my words, and my head feels congested and pressured. In fact ever since I had COVID, my head congestion never really went away so thats a sign. Actually anyone else has that? I remember my mom told me once that I was given an MRI when I was 8ish 9 for something in my brain and she said I had something and God healed it. Now, I am freaking out and thinking "this is it" I feel weak because I had it this whole time and it has grown and I am going to die. My mom - who has a chronic and untreated paranoid schizophrenia, would always tells me growing up that God was going to kill me and I was going to die young. I have been having panic attacks, crying almost every 30 minutes since Saturday, my head is more congested than ever. This past month was the hardest month of my life. Two of my loved ones passed away. I had a scare with my daughter because two weeks ago, my daughter had a fever that came and went away and then a day later it went back and I freaked out, had a panic attack and took her to the only hospital in the middle of the night and thinking she was going to die, turns out she had an ear infection. A day later I had ear pain and I went to the doctor but they didn't find an infection and that freaked me out. Ear still hurts now from time to time but not as frequent. And now I am obsesssing and saying "well I was right about going in on Saturday for my bruises, what makes this time not be right for me to have cancer or something deadly" or "my mom was right, I am going to die young and I will never see my daughter grow or grow old with my husband - that is the most terrifying part. To make matters worse two weeks ago, I changed my prescription from 75mg - 50mg, and now two weeks later (because I had extreme mom guilt on breastfeeding Kaia while taking medication). And the nurse practicioner told me that he doesn't usually do babies because most of the people he treats are older people and because moms choose to not take medication because they don't want to harm their babies. I feel like I am going insane. I have been shaking, losing hunger, not eating, having panic attacks almost hourly, lost 10+ pounds in a matter of four weeks (which I never know whether it is me about to die or a combination of chronic anxiety and OCD or all of it together). I am scared, I am in a constant state of over analyzing on what goes on inside my body. Every little discomfort, pain, itch, or anything else, I am googling and thinking this is my time. I am scared of eating because I am afraid of throwing up and that it is a sign that I am going to die. I am scared of sleeping because what if I never wake up again. If you took the time of your day to read this - I know it was long - but thank you, seriously thank you.
7 years ago I was a raging drug addict. I took any and all kinds of drugs without second thought of consequences. When I had my first child it’s like a switch flipped in my brain. Within her first 6 months of life I had over 12 visits to the ER. I was (still am) constantly afraid of developing a life threatening disease / illness or having a sudden health event (stroke / heart attack / heart failure / brain tumor / cancer ) develop. I’ve seen over 10 Specialist from autoimmune, heart, eyes, neurology , stomach , skin, etc. I’ve got a seemingly well bill of health but I become so hyper aware of every small change within my body. It’s. Constant state of fear and anxiety. Headache = likely tumor / aneurysm , small pain in chest or arm = heart problems , mild cold = covid or some rare disease , etc. Lately, my heart has been my fixation. I was having tachycardia going to the ER 2x a week. EKGs normal, 24hr monitor normal, X-RAY normal. Shortly after I notice my resting heart rate went down as low as 50bpm. I looked through my history over the months and that seems pretty normal for me I just hadn’t noticed before. Now I’ve been worried about my heart for weeks even tho my dr says I’m okay. It’s exhausting to be afraid of sickness and death 24/7. When I get focused on these thoughts it pulls me away from my kids and husband and daily tasks. I either full blown panic or shut down in fear. Anyone else relate? What helps you? I don’t want to rely on medications as I have so many adverse reactions to the 10+ I’ve tried! - oh year here’s another one - I’m afraid of allergic reactions as well I CONSTANTLY fear I will have an allergic reaction to medications / foods or over dose on things like Tylenol and Ibuprofen or mix meds and have reactions.
I’m almost 3 months post partum. My baby was in the nicu for about 3 1/2 weeks after birth so we had a rough start. A couple nights after I brought her home I woke up for one of her middle of the night feeds. I made her bottle as usual and started feeding her. I was just looking at her and was all of a sudden bombarded by all of these terrifying thoughts like “what if I stab her.” I was so panicked and nauseated to the point of throwing up. I just knew those intrusive thoughts were the beginning of post partum psychosis and I was going to do something terrible to myself or my baby while in the psychosis. I couldn’t go back to sleep and just cried and cried the next day. I saw my obgyn and was prescribed 25mg of Zoloft and 5mg of buspar. Each day that passed after that I started to feel a letter better. Then I got my first post partum period. After my period I started having panick attacks and terrible chest pains. I thought I was having a heart attack so I saw a doctor who ran some tests. Everything came back completely normal and was told I’m just having severe anxiety and am under a lot of stress. So I saw my obgyn again and she upped my Zoloft to 50mg and my buspar to 15mg. The first few days were terrible. I thought I was having a bad reaction to the medication my anxiety was through the roof and I felt absolutely hopeless. My harm ocd was so bad. I thought I was going to take my own life. Not because I wanted to but because I just felt so hopeless. I moved back in with my parents so that there was eyes on me at all times. I was still scared I was going to go into a psychosis and hurt my baby. I felt better after a few days and the medication had started working again. I felt completely normal up until my 2nd post partum period. I’m ten days off of my period and now I’m back at square one. My harm ocd has spiraled. I’m having terrible intrusive thoughts about hurting my baby. I know now I’m not going to go into a psychosis because if I was going to I would have already. When I’m having these thoughts and they don’t make me nauseous I start to obsess over whether or not I’m a dangerous person or capable of being violent. Now I’m stuck on that. The fact that I’m not dwelling on the intrusive thoughts the way I used to has made me question if post partum has turned me into a psychopath or sociopath. I question all of my emotions and wonder if I’m actually feeling the way I think I do or wondering if they’re generic emotions. I’m ferried. Please help.
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