Hi!
I'm new to this forum after getting afibromyalgia diagnosis from a rheumatologist last December. I'm a 24 year old woman and I've been struggling with intense symptoms for about a year and a half, though I've realized that pretty much everything I've been to the doctor for in the past five to ten years is a symptom of fibromyalgia. Mostly fatigue, back pain, joint pain and random stabbing pains all over my body, plus feeling like I have a fever all the time. I'm currently on a waiting list to be seen by a specialist, hopefully by the end of April.
Since this diagnosis my health anxiety has been a lot worse. I've always been an anxious person and I've always gone to the doctor a lot and since no one ever found anything wrong I was under the impression that I was just a bit of a hypochondriac. I think there's some truth to this since I occasionally go down a rabbit hole and convince myself there is something terribly wrong with me (like cancer or a dangerous heart condition or something). Now that I have my fibromyalgia diagnosis, part of my brain feels like all my health anxiety was 'correct' since there did turn out to be something wrong with me.
For the past two weeks I've had a stabbing pain in my lower abdomen on the right side, which I've never had before and I'm unsure if I should go to the doctor (general practitioner) for this. The pain isn't *that* bad so I'm fairly sure it's not appendicitis, but it is quite noticable and different from the symptoms I've experienced before. I can't really find if it's a symptom of fibromyalgia, so I kind of want to know what my doctor thinks about it. However, I've been to the doctor so many times over the past year and I worry that at a certain point they will just decide that I'm irrational, so I don't want to go to the doctor if it's not actually necessary. And I'm also unsure if I am being irrational about this pain in my abdomen? I just feel like I used to have a good grasp on the 'baseline' of my body so it was clear to me when I needed to see a doctor and now I just can't tell anymore. There is always a part of my body that hurts so how do I know if it's 'just' my fibromyalgia or if there is something else going on with me that needs medical attention. My health anxiety keeps freaking out that if there ever actually is something really wrong with my body/health, I won't notice because I'm so used to being in pain at this point.
I'm not quite sure what my question is here. I guess I'd like to know how you decide when you need to go to the doctor. How do you deal with anxiety surrounding your health? Have you had pain in your lower right abdomen and could this be due to fibromyalgia?
Thanks for reading!
I'm new to this forum after getting afibromyalgia diagnosis from a rheumatologist last December. I'm a 24 year old woman and I've been struggling with intense symptoms for about a year and a half, though I've realized that pretty much everything I've been to the doctor for in the past five to ten years is a symptom of fibromyalgia. Mostly fatigue, back pain, joint pain and random stabbing pains all over my body, plus feeling like I have a fever all the time. I'm currently on a waiting list to be seen by a specialist, hopefully by the end of April.
Since this diagnosis my health anxiety has been a lot worse. I've always been an anxious person and I've always gone to the doctor a lot and since no one ever found anything wrong I was under the impression that I was just a bit of a hypochondriac. I think there's some truth to this since I occasionally go down a rabbit hole and convince myself there is something terribly wrong with me (like cancer or a dangerous heart condition or something). Now that I have my fibromyalgia diagnosis, part of my brain feels like all my health anxiety was 'correct' since there did turn out to be something wrong with me.
For the past two weeks I've had a stabbing pain in my lower abdomen on the right side, which I've never had before and I'm unsure if I should go to the doctor (general practitioner) for this. The pain isn't *that* bad so I'm fairly sure it's not appendicitis, but it is quite noticable and different from the symptoms I've experienced before. I can't really find if it's a symptom of fibromyalgia, so I kind of want to know what my doctor thinks about it. However, I've been to the doctor so many times over the past year and I worry that at a certain point they will just decide that I'm irrational, so I don't want to go to the doctor if it's not actually necessary. And I'm also unsure if I am being irrational about this pain in my abdomen? I just feel like I used to have a good grasp on the 'baseline' of my body so it was clear to me when I needed to see a doctor and now I just can't tell anymore. There is always a part of my body that hurts so how do I know if it's 'just' my fibromyalgia or if there is something else going on with me that needs medical attention. My health anxiety keeps freaking out that if there ever actually is something really wrong with my body/health, I won't notice because I'm so used to being in pain at this point.
I'm not quite sure what my question is here. I guess I'd like to know how you decide when you need to go to the doctor. How do you deal with anxiety surrounding your health? Have you had pain in your lower right abdomen and could this be due to fibromyalgia?
Thanks for reading!