Hi, so happy to find this thread here. I just found out last week that my mum has stage 4 bowel cancer, its obviously been a huge blow to us all as she had no symptoms and is otherwise fit and healthy being in her late 60s. This has come with the shock factor, emotional stress and various thoughts for the family. I was in extreme shock but trying to stay rational. I havent ever really had 'heatlh anxiety' but due to this I have been googling and reading alot about my mums symptoms (I know now thats probably a bad idea!), however the more I have been reading the more and more I am convinced I have it now too !

Every little symptom I have I am saying 'yes thats it, I have that, I must have it'. When I found out the initlal news I had done something to my jaw so couldnt actually eat properly for a few days then with this combined with so much nerves and anxeity for my mum I was getting stomach pains and needing to go to the toilet every half hour and again thinking these are all obvious symptoms for me too that I have it, although I was somewhat aware that probably could be just nerves. The last couple of days both of those have pretty much completely gone as I have been eating more normally and the initial shock as subsided somewhat, but now I've started reading about weight loss as an initial symptom of cancer and now thinking I have weight loss. 

I hardly ever really look at my body in detail or weigh myself but last night spent the night weighing myself, going through old photos and trying to compare to how I look now to see if there was a significant change and this morning have been trying on clothes to check they still fit. (Even to me this sounds mad). I often wear a pair of shorts around the house and was thinking this morning that yes they have been very loose for the past few weeks / months, this made me very concerned and thought ' ok the evidence is right here' , I have physical evidence that these are visibly loose on me -  I am loosing weight(!) However with the vague logic I can muster at the moment I decided to actually measure the shorts. They are cheap ones purchased some years back and are a 34" (I am usually between 34 - 36" waist)... but guess what they had completely stretched out to a 40" waist! ...no wonder they were almost falling off me. I just tried on another pair which were the same size and fit fine and normally so have literally gone and thrown the other pair in the bin.

My mind is spinning with all this and wonder if its my way of physcologically coping with the stress and shock of this distressing news. I know I now need to remain calm and focus on my MUM who actually has been diagnosed with it its just very hard when having this news I have turned into an anxious wreck and jumping to every conclusion with every symptom that I have it too. 

Hi, so happy to find this thread here. I just found out last week that my mum has stage 4 bowel cancer, its obviously been a huge blow to us all as she had no symptoms and is otherwise fit and healthy being in her late 60s. This has come with the shock factor, emotional stress and various thoughts for the family. I was in extreme shock but trying to stay rational. I havent ever really had 'heatlh anxiety' but due to this I have been googling and reading alot about my mums symptoms (I know now thats probably a bad idea!), however the more I have been reading the more and more I am convinced I have it now too !

Every little symptom I have I am saying 'yes thats it, I have that, I must have it'. When I found out the initlal news I had done something to my jaw so couldnt actually eat properly for a few days then with this combined with so much nerves and anxeity for my mum I was getting stomach pains and needing to go to the toilet every half hour and again thinking these are all obvious symptoms for me too that I have it, although I was somewhat aware that probably could be just nerves. The last couple of days both of those have pretty much completely gone as I have been eating more normally and the initial shock as subsided somewhat, but now I've started reading about weight loss as an initial symptom of cancer and now thinking I have weight loss. 

I hardly ever really look at my body in detail or weigh myself but last night spent the night weighing myself, going through old photos and trying to compare to how I look now to see if there was a significant change and this morning have been trying on clothes to check they still fit. (Even to me this sounds mad). I often wear a pair of shorts around the house and was thinking this morning that yes they have been very loose for the past few weeks / months, this made me very concerned and thought ' ok the evidence is right here' , I have physical evidence that these are visibly loose on me -  I am loosing weight(!) However with the vague logic I can muster at the moment I decided to actually measure the shorts. They are cheap ones purchased some years back and are a 34" (I am usually between 34 - 36" waist)... but guess what they had completely stretched out to a 40" waist! ...no wonder they were almost falling off me. I just tried on another pair which were the same size and fit fine and normally so have literally gone and thrown the other pair in the bin.

My mind is spinning with all this and wonder if its my way of physcologically coping with the stress and shock of this distressing news. I know I now need to remain calm and focus on my MUM who actually has been diagnosed with it its just very hard when having this news I have turned into an anxious wreck and jumping to every conclusion with every symptom that I have it too.