Health Anxiety hemorrhoids rectal bleeding

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Hi guys,

ive had health anxiety for about 12 months and for the past 5 months my hemorrhoids have become worse and i was diagnosed with an anal fissure which tends to bleed at times.

Due to my health anxiety, seeing blood means there is something seriously wrong with my gut and i freak out! i had a colonoscopy last year which came back as an all clear.

Anyone else experienced this and how did you deal with it? i am on sertraline 100mg for a week now, was on 50mg for 5 months.

Has anxiety made your hemorrhoids worse?

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3 Replies

  • Edited

    Hi Kiran, I too have had hemorrhoids, but not now. I had it for a short period. I don't know if anxiety caused it or worsened it. I've always it's the sertraline that caused the severe constipation that led to the hemorrhoids. One time it got so bad a doc even gave me suppositories, but thank goodness I didn't have to use that. It got a lot better as time went on because I started eating healthier. If it's really bad, drink a lot more water, eat a lot more veggies, oatmeal, fruits, and metamucil mixed with water. There are also stool softener as well as check out Milk of Magnesia - this helped my husband lots recently because he was very constipated due to all the chemo meds.

    Hope this helps. And yes, I too had a colonoscopy due to my OCD/depression - it was my mind playing tricks on me! Cheers.

    • Posted

      thank you. Can i ask if you had health anxiety? i am now contemplating another colonoscopy at 32, my last one was less than a year ago.

    • Edited

      Kiran, if you haven't already guessed, I live in the states, hence the delay in my response. I only had one colonoscopy. The doc said it all looked good but to err on the safe side he took out some tissue for them to biopsy and that turned out fine, too. And this was back in April 2013.

      Why do you want another colonoscopy? With any surgery, and a colonoscopy is concerned a surgery, you always run the risk of the doc not performing correctly and that will lead to read problems, as problems that could just be your mind playing tricks on you. Anytime any instrument goes inside your body, there is a risk.

      Really, it you had a colonoscopy less than a year ago, I don't think any doc would really willingly perform another colonoscopy on you since it's less than a year. Even a pap smear is recommended once every other year, or at least, my insurance only allows one every 2 years unless you have an abnormal one in one year.

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