Worrying Symptoms! Hypochondriac?

My dad was diagnosed with advanced bowel cancer earlier this year and since then I have been absolutely wracked with anxiety about whether I have it as well. 

I have extreme anxiety about going to the toilet at work or in public so I tend to hold it or 'rush' if I need to go and in 2019 I caused myself a small anal fissure (sorry TMI). This was confirmed with a proctoscopy at hospital. The fissure bleeds on and off depending on my bowel movements and it's red blood on the paper in little spots. Nothing that I've ever been too concerned about, nor the GP. I have been prescribed a strong analgesic for it and it usually sorts it out. 

After my fissure started I also started to get really loud gurgling noises from my stomach/bowels which were so embarrassing as everyone can hear them. I'm not hungry, It's just gurgling and noise. No change to bowel habits at this point. GP said it was probably IBS and to cut out gluten and wheat for a while to see if that helped which it didn't to be honest. 

Fast forward to about a week ago, I was really bloated but I put this down to my 'time of the month' as it usually makes me feel that way, but it hasn't gone away and I now have an aching pain in my abdomen. Nothing crippling but I can notice it. I catch myself with my bowels all tensed up. Nothing alarming about my bowl movements to me as I don't notice blood in them, just on the paper if my fissure is playing up. 

I've also got a pain in the centre of my chest, breast bone area and when you press there it does hurt. That's started in the last few weeks as well.

Since my dad's diagnosis I have been pretty miserable and sedentary, I lay about a lot and I sleep on my side so I'm hoping that explains my chest pain. I am just so worried I have bowel cancer as well, the worry keeps me awake at night. I have a GP appt next week to discuss this and I want to commence tests to rule out anything serious. I cannot stop looking at forums where young people start out with 'just a fissure' or misdiagnosed IBS which turns out to be bowel cancer.   

Am I being completely irrational here? Apologies for the ramble!

 

  • I don't think you are being irrational, but I do think bowel cancer is unlikely. You have a pretty fair idea where the bleeding is coming from and while yes, there are cases of misdiagnosis, those are firstly, using cases where the fissure was not confirmed; either the patient or the doctor just assume "probably a fissure" and didn't investigate further. 

    I think it is good that you are going to get it checked out, just on the off-chance there is something going on, but the odds are that it's just the fissure and maybe stress. Stress can cause a lot of bowel changes and stomach problems and you are bound to be under stress given your dad's diagnosis and your own anxiety about developing the same thing. This could also make you more aware of little things. Bowel and stomach problems are common and it's quite possible some of those things are ordinary, time-of-the-month or something-you-ate changes that are simply taking on greater significance due to the whole situation.

    I do think it would be a pretty big coincidence if you developed the very condition you were worried about before having symptoms and after developing an anal fissure that caused one of the symptoms of that condition.

    I will add that I have read that little spots of blood on the tissue are usually either hemorrhoids or a fissure, so given that you have one of those, it would be pretty unlikely anything else was causing the bleeding.

    And that I had similar symptoms last summer - except that they could not find a fissure or anything else to explain the bleeding, which was when I started getting worried. Bleeding (red, on tissue but sometimes more than spots), weight loss, occasional loose stools (maybe once a week), trapped wind and a weird pain under my ribs (which I actually think was just due to my phone poking me there when it was in my pocket!!). I was referred for a colonoscopy and when I asked the specialist how worried I should be, he said, "zero, not at all," that he would be concerned if my mother came in with the same symptoms, but that at 40, I'd be "the unluckiest person in the world" if it turned out to be cancer and that it was probably hemorrhoids but he did want to do a colonoscopy on the off-chance of colitis.

    Bowel cancer in the family does raise the risk a little so you should probably mention your dad's diagnosis when you see the doctor, but there are many things more likely than cancer here.

    I don't think you are a hypocondriac. I think you have had a really upsetting situation with your dad and it's only natural that you would be concerned about similar symptoms, given the result in his case. Anybody would be. But that doesn't mean it's likely for you.