About this time last month, I got a sore throat, which lasted two and a half weeks, on only one side. As it went on, two things held sway over it: the amount of sleep I'd had the night before and whether I was worrying, especially about it. When I got enough sleep and felt calmest, like on the weekends, it all but went away, only to come back on monday. It was never there upon waking up, coming on as I went through the day expecting it. I saw the doctor three times, and each time, they reported just a little irritation and nothing to worry about, especially because it came with no other symptoms. It never developed into a cold. Nothing, not one swollen gland.
I am in my first semester of college, and stressed like never before. And then I got this sore throat for 2.5 weeks, which scared me so much that I was barely able to leave my room. At that point, I arranged to change my major for a more suitable one...and a few days later, it was gone.
And this week, a symptomless week and a half later, in the middle of finals, it came back. A day later, when I got my sleeping back on schedule, gone. I stopped worrying until last night, when I suddenly wondered, what is it? So, I entered "chronic sore throat" into Google...don't do it. Don't ever do it.
In January, I went to a doctor and was given acid reflux medicine, which I took for a month, and in accordance with that, a change of diet, and my stress level slowly going down, my throat got so much better, even after I stopped taking the medicine a month later. Since then, it has only gotten better, reducing to a twinge every now and then when I got really worked up. Even returning my diet to normal didn't do much.
It's back now, though. About a week and a half ago, I started worrying horribly about that twinge. I tried to stop, knowing that if I was too stressed, it could possibly come back, and it did. I'm so scared that I'm barely eating again, and I might lose all the weight I gained back when I was less afraid.
I will not go back on medication because since I last did that, I have read about PPIs and other acid reflux medicines and how they can damage your health even more--hundreds of horror stories posted online. I have been in therapy since January, but as long as I feel this pain, it's all for nothing.
And so I'm out of options. EVERYTHING I can do will either no nothing or hurt me more. The only thing that can end my fear is this going away for good without harmful drugs, but that's nonsense.
Still having no other symptoms but the sore throat, but whoever heard of a sore throat not leading to anything worse eventually?? What if the acid reflux medicine didn't actually do anything, and the improvement during that time was a coincidence, because it's actually something much, much worse?? My body feels like a time bomb. I'm trapped. Beginning to realistically fear that I will seriously hurt myself. I'm not really afraid of dying in any way anymore but slowly, of something linked to this.
I have someone important to become, who has always been so vivid and alive in my mind; this isn't supposed to happen in her life. I don't even know if I can call it a life anymore, because my definition of death is not like most people's. It is living, permanently, with anything that can detract from doing what I love. That is my worst fear: something separating me and the accomplished girl in my head.
So, has anyone ever had a sore throat that behaved like this (responding to stress)? I need to know that someone is out there with a message of hope instead of fear. That website I clicked on in December, and one other, that restarted my anxiety long ago and that I am too afraid to even mention to my therapist or type the name of, may have ruined my life.
