Big obsession about my tonsil ?

[Twinkle gem]

10 days now I can feel the tonsil and the side of my tongue and it is absolutely getting me right down , I see the doctor last week and she said it might be a viral infection and gave me antibiotics I've only got another two days and I can't see the left until going down much I've done the wrong thing and googled worst mistake ever come up in flashing letters tonsil cancer I didn't even know this existed to I looked it out . Cannot believe I've gone from floaters in the eyes tinnitus hearing ringing in the ears lumps in my neck breast cancer no tonsil cancer I literally cannot take no more oh I forgot the one where I thought I was having a heart attack for the last 6-months the doctors even put a 24-hour heart monitor on me. Why can't a normal person just say oh yeah I can feel my tonsil again and just get on with the rest of the day it's literally not fair I haven't stopped crying this morning I haven't slept I just feel so ****** off I made another appointment to see the same doctor what's theme for Omagh for ailments in the last 6-months this coming Thursday how the hell am I going to walk in that doctors surgery tell him I've got tonsil cancer he's going to look at me like I'm absolutely and maniac it's like I've constantly looking it up on Google I'm obsessed with asking people can they feel their tonsils how can you keep asking someone can you feel their tonsils is absolutely mad I just want them to say yeah I can feel them 

[Saffron37]

Hi Twinkle.  I'm so sorry you're going through this. My OCD revolves around health fears as well, so I truly do understand how terrifying and utterly convincing it can feel. The good news is that you seem to have great insight into the fact that your health worries are logically very overblown, yet the anxiety tells you otherwise and overrides that logic. 

The first thing you need to do is to calm down your body. Right now you're putting yourself in a perpetual state of panic and overexcitement, amplified by your thoughts of catastrophe and then shown through behaviors like hyperventilating. You need to send a message to your body that it's okay, there's no emergency, you can calm down. Breathe in through your nose for 7 seconds, hold for four seconds, then breathe out for 11 seconds. It might feel uncomfortable at first, but that's okay. Keep doing that until you calm down a bit, then drink some water. 

Now, think logically. You've been poking your tonsil nonstop with your tongue, whether or not you're aware of it. The tonsil is already irritated, so doing that is just making it worse and keeping it enflamed. Poking at any body part, even one that's not already irritated, will make it red and puffy and generally uncomfortable. So, that alone easily explains why your tonsil may not have gone down as much as you would have liked.

Please trust your doctor. Remember that she has been trained and knows what she is doing and how to assess your situation. As an extremely anxious non-medical doctor, you're already setting yourself up to continually misinterpret information you read and jump to wrong/catastrophic conclusions. You just can't trust your own judgment right now, as hard as that is to feel. Go to your other doctor's appointment, but present your situation in a less panicked, more grounded way. Ask him about your fear of tonsil cancer, but then really listen to those answers and then allow yourself to let go and trust in these very well-trained doctors' expertise.

And maybe most importantly, remember this is OCD. Your feelings of doom and distress and extreme terror feel like they're about the possibility of illness, but they're not--they're a symptom of OCD. Sometimes when I'm deep in an obsession about some imagined symptom, I feel like my emotions of doom are totally justified because after all, illness is real! The possibility of fatal disease is real! And sure, all those things are true. But our OCD exaggerates the perceived risk so radically that what is objectively an extremely unlikely scenario becomes the only possible outcome in our minds. Also, I've read many threads from members with diverse obsessions, and what's struck me is how absolutely identical each one of us sounds--no matter how "not a big deal" something is to the rest of the world, an OCD obsession leads to feelings of extreme misery and pain. Your emotions are not reflective of your actual health. 

Good luck. Please find help through therapy. Sending you many many hugs and best wishes. 

[Twinkle gem]

Could this be Hyperawareness OCD ? 

[Twinkle gem]

I know what you're saying is 100% right lap it all started last Friday when I was making a cake I thought all this something stuck at the back of my mouth I was getting my tongue non-stop and pushing the side of my mouth I know in my heart of heart it's OCD but then I was looking on tiktok last night and looked up tonsil cancer why the hell would I do that I don't know if I could translate the sensation that I can feel the tonsil in the back of my mouth it would be ok because eventually I would forget it's there is that how it works, a couple years ago I heard ringing in my ears when I read a magazine about a lady suffering from tinnitus I literally don't even know this existed I put myself in a quiet room and just listened and guess what I found a ring after that I was hearing the ring everywhere I went I went to go and see ENT specialist as everything they told me it was all normal I suffered for nearly 5 years and guess what for the last 3-years I haven't heard one single ring only when I'm listen out for it  I know I can do this but it's so irritating . It's like the eye floaters they done me for a whole year I was seeing them everywhere I went now I can literally go days without seeing them ;( I know walking to the doctors surgery ferndown going to feel so embarrassing like an idiot I just found him to say them things that is OCD ;( it's a reassurance that's absolutely killing me ok thinking how can I go my whole life feeling the back of my tonsils I feel like such a weirdo

[Saffron37]

Hyperawareness OCD? Absolutely. All of your energy and focus is going into that one tiny part of your perception. The more you think about something--and in this case, you're obsessively ruminating--the more intensely you'll feel it. The stress response also does things like raise your heart rate and respiration, which contributes an even greater sense of physical sensations.

That said, OCD is OCD. A person's individual experience may have all different sorts of themes, but it's really all the same. Try not to get hung up on a specific idea of what your OCD looks like, it's easy to get lost in the details and miss the big picture, which is just that it's a mental disorder that you treat the same way no matter way the content of an obsession is.

I know it's easy to get really upset with yourself when you do something that you know is bad for you, like googling a disease. I definitely struggle with that when I give in and perform compulsions. But both you and I need to remember that this disease is a disease for a reason. It causes really awful symptoms like compulsive urges, and they're incredibly painful no matter how much we know it doesn't make any sense or is a bad choice. Please try to exercise compassion and patience with yourself. Have you read any self-help books for OCD?

 

[ocdjonesy]

The best advice I've seen about health related OCD is this "Don't go looking for lymph nodes because you'll find some".  Take that sentence and apply it to every part of your body.  If your OCD tells you to pay attention to it you will start noticing it.  That's true of eye floaters, ringing in your ears etc etc.  The problem is paying attention to what the OCD is screaming at you and then doing the compulsions which keep the problem going.  

i wonder what your specific fear is in relation to your health.  Have you sat down and worked out what it is you're actually scared of?  That would probably help in explaining what's going on to your doctor and working out a way you co-operate to deal with the actual problem at hand - which is your OCD.  

Like for instance with me my actual fears about my health are that I am going to develop some terminal illness if I don't pay attention hard enough.  If I stop watching out for it that is how the cancer will get into my body.  I have to be alert at all times or whatever illness happens will be my fault and when I do get ill no-one will believe me.  It will be too late and I will have to undergo painful treatment.  I will have to go to hospital repeatedly and deal with nurses and doctors who will think I am weird so not only will I will be dying I will be dying and people will think I am a freak.  I will be letting my family down.  I will fall through every crack on the way down and hit myself on every rung of the ladder and I will die slowly and painfully feeling alone and misunderstood by everyone never having actually lived because of the things I have had to live through in the past.  It will not be fair.

That's what I'm actually afraid of.  Not whatever lump I've found on myself this week and that fear is what the compulsions are trying to prevent.  However that is not what happens when I do the compulsions.  The compulsions in fact keep that fear alive.  If you think about it there's probably something very similar going on for you and perhaps sitting with your fears instead of doing the compulsion will help you work out what it is particularly that you are trying to avoid.  

 

[Caramoole]

3 hours ago, Saffron37 said:

Go to your other doctor's appointment, but present your situation in a less panicked, more grounded way. Ask him about your fear of tonsil cancer, but then really listen to those answers and then allow yourself to let go and trust in these very well-trained doctors' expertise.

Tell him that although you're worried about your tonsil your fears about health are a constant source of anxiety for you and see if he can offer help and support for that

[Twinkle gem]

Any normal person would actually go yeah that is quite irritating and just try and forget about where my first full is oh my god I'm going to live with these for the rest of my life till death I will be able to feel my tonsil like OMFG who things like that rationally, I just said and spoke to my mum I honestly think my tonsils always been big and I've just noticed it now because when it happened last week I thought something was stuck in the back of my mouth and I sort of forgot about it and I remember saying to my partner oh I can't feel it anymore it must have gone , but I think my mind was preoccupied   then the next day I thought my first fault was oh I can feel it again that's it I've got this for life, it was like I doom feeling , I know for a fact they're not going to take this tonsils out for me just because it's irritating me like they wouldn't stop the ringing or the eye floaters I just had to get on with I really wish I could turn back the clock till last week when everything's fine

[PolarBear]

The best thing you can do is leave your tonsils alone. Stop looking at them. Stop feeling them with your tongue, fingers, whatever. Stop Googling. These are compulsions and they only make your situation worse.

[Twinkle gem]

I'm going to really try today I've had no sleep at all ;( I had rescue remedy beside my bed all nite I've nearly done the bottle , I kept waking up panicking full on it's like I'm scared to feel that thing at the side of my mouth . 

 I'm so cross And ****** that I've let MYSELF do this to me again i think I was crying in my sleep last nite too ;(

[Hd120820]

Hi just want to say I know exactly how u feel I'm currently spending my time worrying about bowel cancer and the doctors gave me a test and was negative but its never enough always looking for reassurance then constant doubt comes in what if its wrong, then the googing its so hard I even tried medication but all the side effects made my anxiety worse its hard to beat but I do believe I can beat this and so can you xxx

[Juliex]

Haven't time atm to read the other replies, but I was worried about 'white stuff' at the back of my throat that wouldn't go away, wasn't thrush or anything like that.  I was so worried to go to the dentist as I thought they might tell me it's disease.  

I called the dentist and asked if I could speak on the phone.  I told her about my fears first and she said it's not likely to be anything bad.  It was just an easier step than having them look in my mouth straight away.  After that I was able to go and get my mouth checked out and apparently it's normal in some people to have it like that at the back of the throat.  

Hope some of this might help.