This may be a long one, so if you read the whole thing I appreciate you. 

26F and my anxiety has really kicked into overdrive this year, mainly in the form of health anxiety. I’ve convinced myself I have a whole plethora of diseases this year (ovarian cancer, colon cancer, MS, etc). 

Prior to this year, I had never been diagnosed with anxiety. I would say I had some of the usual things that make people anxious, but never to the point where I sought treatment. 

My biggest issue right now is lower back pain that I’ve been dealing with since about April. I’ve been to see my PCP, had an MRI, and have been in PT since. It originally started off as pain on the right side, the MRI showed some inflammation and I was going to get a facet injection but then magically a few days before my shot the pain switched to the left side. After doing some more PT for the left side, I am scheduled for my follow up ortho visit this week, and what do you know, today the right side started again instead of the left. So that’s twice now where the pain has swapped sides right before I’m set to address the opposite side. 

I’m normally someone who is very active. I play a lot of sports and they really are a release for me, and Covid taking them away is where I think a lot of my issues started. Prior to this, I could really have done any type of activity I wanted and now I’m afraid to do anything that will harm my back. I could show up to a softball game, not stretch, and be completely fine diving around on the field. 

The back issues are really what is setting off my health anxiety these last few months. I can’t help but think my ortho/PT are wrong and I really have some debilitating condition, be it ankylosing spondylitis or some other autoimmune disease. This really is my biggest fear. I know a lot of people with health anxiety are afraid of dying, but to me I’m TERRIFIED of being diagnosed with a condition that will cause my health to deteriorate and make me live decades without doing the things I love (sports, hiking, theme parks etc). 

I’m just at a loss at this point. My brain keeps switching back and forth between having an undiagnosed back condition or thinking it’s all in my head. Could my anxiety be causing my back to hurt? Or making it worse? I’ve started seeing a therapist recently and she does seem to be helping. I just want to go back to being care free and not constantly worrying about my back/health :(