How can I calm down from my health anxiety related to breast cancer?

[desyparade]

Hi, I am having a really hard time lately with my health anxiety. I never used to have health anxiety until recently when I was under a lot of stress in my life. I don't know what triggered the fear of breast cancer but one night it just hit me and I was so scared. I had come home from a youth group and someone went for a smoke break and the topic of cancer came up. At the time, I was dealing with a breast infection that resulted from me popping a pimple there and my breast was really sore and lumpy inside.

It has now been several months and I've been to the emergency room and my doctor's so many times it's not even funny.

My doctor ordered an ultrasound of my breast because I'm apparently too young for a mammogram. I am twenty two. But she did feel a lump and wanted to make sure that it was nothing.

Breast cancer doesn't even run in my family but other cancers do. They checked everywhere at the ultrasound appointment. Even my lymph nodes on that side and they couldn't find anything. No tumors, no cysts. But tonight, I can feel so many lumps in my breast... I am so scared I am going to die and that they won't be able to find something wrong until it's too late.

I don't seem to have any other symptoms of breast cancer, or if I think I do, I'm probably just over thinking that everything is cancer.

I am constantly prodding and poking my breast for lumps, I find myself doing things and then getting overwhelmed with fear that I have cancer and am going to die, I'm having trouble sleeping because of this and I am constantly anxious and can't calm down. Does anyone have any suggestions to help me? Please? I feel crazy. This is ruining my life. I can feel the lumps and I am afraid it means I have cancer.

I probably sound stupid since I'm so young and I'm being so drastic but the thought of getting cancer scares me so bad and has since I was a little girl. It runs in both sides of my family. Please help me.

[Paxiled]

You're 22 years old, which is the time when chronic problems do arise with anxiety and depression.  You sound like you're talking yourself into a pretty good anxiety problem, which the way you're talking is turning into OCD.  So it's time for therapy.  Find a psychologist who specializes in treating anxiety and get on top of this before you end up wasting your life being afraid.  None of us can reassure you that you'll never get cancer.  You can learn not to worry about it all the time, though.  And don't worry about cancer running in a family -- there could be many reasons for that.  Some might be genetic, but a lot could be bad habits.  In the 1950's the cancer epidemic took off not because of bad genes but because of smoking and eating food that wasn't food and rampant pollution and dentists putting weird stuff in our mouths and lots of things that are much better now.  People also didn't eat very well.  One way to protect yourself is to try to eat organically grown food to avoid some of these toxic chemicals, and eat a lot of colored veggies because they contain the antioxidants that protect us from cancer.  That doesn't guarantee you won't get cancer, but it will certainly improve your odds.  But that really isn't your problem, and anxiety doesn't respond well to reason.  So get a therapist and start working on this.  Exercise and learn meditation or other relaxation techniques so you're not sitting around thinking all the time about it.  You're young, you have a great chance of getting past this with some help.

[Paxiled]

Oh, and if you want to spend some productive time, go to work against the current President -- he's reversing all the hard work that took so much time to get us moving away from drowning in carcinogens all the time the way it was when I was growing up.  

[desyparade]

Thank you so much for trying to help me. It's 5:40 am right now and I've gotten ba
rely any sleep because of my anxiety. So, I do think I need to fix this. I will see what is available to me in my city.