Nursing School Making Me A Hypochondriac!

[NICUnurse21]

Hi everyone! I am new to allnurses! So I got accepted to my school's BSN program in the spring and just completed my fundamentals course this summer. All my friends who have already completed a year in the program told me that I would become such a hypochondriac. I brushed it off because I am a very laid back person. But it happened! I am convinced I have leukemia. Any time I get a bruise and don't know where it came from I get a sickening feeling and I am convinced I'm having dull pain in my left side.. Which of course I have chocked up to being an enlarged spleen. My little brother has a doctor's appointment tomorrow and I am going with him to ask the doc questions about MYSELF. Is this happening to anyone else? I am going crazy!!

[KelRN215, BSN, RN]

This happens to all of us... even after we become nurses. For me, I work in pediatric oncology and I see kids who present with the most vague symptoms (leg pain, abdominal pain, fever, tonsillitis) who end up being diagnosed with cancer.

Last week, I was having a party at my house and one of the girls there was also a nurse and was talking about how she was convinced that she had meningitis because she had a stiff neck. Nevermind that she'd just spent the whole morning moving and lifting heavy things. I had many mosquito bites from hiking, including one that I'd scratched to the point of forming a petechial rash... when I noticed it, my first thought was "now I have leukemia." I'd had a CBC checked maybe a week earlier with a perfectly normal WBC count of 8 and I knew exactly what it was from, but that was still where my mind went first...

[CT Pixie, BSN, RN]

I'm pretty sure I was convinced I had malaria, bubonic plague, some rare and odd parasite and prostate cancer all at once (BTW, I'm female haha)

If you take the general symptoms of most disease most of us have the symptom at one time or another (achey, low grade fevers, bruising etc), but as the other poster pointed out you need to look at ALL of them.

Yup, I too was one who diagnosed myself with everything we learned about. Oddly enough, I never had the thought cross my mind that any family members or friends had these diseases/illnesses even if they too had the same symptoms as me :)

[kjkkm]

I diagnosed (correctly I might add) all of my in-laws' psychiatric disorders.[/quote']

I literally laughed to tears!!! I had mine diagnosed long before school lol

[NICUnurse21]

So guys I went to the doc with my brother and he was nice enough to palpate my abdomen to tell me my spleen is not enlarged sometimes having too much knowledge isn't all that good! I've loved all your responses! :)

[douxmusique]

Oh yes. Im currently anrmic and folate deficient an db suffer fibromyalgia, lupus, cushings and mrsa. It all makes sense. ....

[dansamy]

I tease that because I'm night shift, I have a negative vitamin D level.

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[its_meee]

This post made me LOL! About 2 weeks into my first semester of my nursing program I started having back pain just under my left shoulder blade. I was convinced that I had lung cancer or something else that would for sure kill me :) It went away during school breaks (christmas, thanksgiving, and summer) but always returned when the next semester started. I was terrified to see my doctor, because I just knew that I had a terminal illness! My doctor and I finally figured out the cause..... MY EXTREMELY HEAVY BACKPACK! LOL I would always carry it over my left shoulder, and that is why the pain would go away during breaks! I felt like such a goof-ball

[dansamy]

This post made me LOL! About 2 weeks into my first semester of my nursing program I started having back pain just under my left shoulder blade. I was convinced that I had lung cancer or something else that would for sure kill me :) It went away during school breaks (christmas thanksgiving, and summer) but always returned when the next semester started. I was terrified to see my doctor, because I just knew that I had a terminal illness! My doctor and I finally figured out the cause..... MY EXTREMELY HEAVY BACKPACK! LOL I would always carry it over my left shoulder, and that is why the pain would go away during breaks! I felt like such a goof-ball [/quote']

I carry my stress in my back beneath my shoulder blades. I have quit jobs before because they were just too painful.

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[christina731]

I work in pharmacy and I once had a patient that came in with a really bad case of scabies. It was the kind that had really crusty lesions all over. This person was standing at my counter for 15 minutes while I filled the Rx scratching away at the lesions, touching my counter and just grossing me out. Ever since then, I'm paranoid that every itch that I have is scabies. I have very sensitive, dry skin so in general I tend to itch, especially in the winter. That person made me the worst hypochondriac EVER! Too bad I can't wear PPE in the pharmacy because I totally would

[allycat77, BSN, RN]

Yes! I was having pain in my left calf that would come on suddenly while sitting. I was convinced I had a DVT, never mind that there was no swelling, redness, etc. I went to the Dr and she did the Homan's and of course there was no pain. She said I probably just tore something. Of course I still wonder every once in a while if there might be something more...

[LRoth]

I prefer "sensitive to feedback from my body" to hypochondriac