The worst sore throat in the world + fear!

S

savasana

Peer Supporter
Hello,

A little backstory: I had my tonsils out 12 years ago and since then, got sore throats very infrequently and nothing too bad.

I have just had the worst sore throat that I have ever had, since having tonsillitis. It was on one side of my throat, bright red and I ended up in the ER last night over it because the swelling was so bad I was just drooling because I could not swallow. No fever and no traditional cold or flu symptoms other than a generalized, dull achey body. I had to grip something when I would attempt to swallow because it hurt so much. ER gave me steroids, pain meds and antibiotics and this morning it’s 70% better. The swelling really came down and the pain is much better. They took an X Ray to rule out anything serious as well as a rapid strep test which was negative, though the doctor said the rapid tests are notoriously inaccurate.

I’m not really asking whether this is TMS or not. But I want to mention that I am now living in fear that this will happen again. It doesn’t seem normal to me to get a sore throat like this especially if you don’t have tonsils. I am scared and I wish that I wasn’t. A coworker of mine said she has almost the same exact symptoms except she didn’t get the crazy swelling and intense pain and it went away on it’s own in a couple days.

The fear is what sticks out to me. I also want to mention that my usually bad back pain went away during this time, I’m guessing because my brain was so focused on the pain in the throat.

As a side note my mother was just diagnosed with breast cancer, and I’ve been worrying terribly over her getting a recurrence after her treatment is over. I don’t know why, but I felt I should mention this.

Any support would help. Thank you
 
Your mother’s diagnosis really frightens you and also makes you very sad. Otherwise you would not have mentioned it. These very strong emotions affect the immune system and it reacts with the sore throat, it might be strep or some other bacteria. You can still have a sore throat if you don’t have tonsils. I find it understandable that your body reacts like this. What you can do is to be honest about your feelings, especially honest to yourself! And be good to yourself! Self-care is very important in situations like yours with a close relative seriously ill. Sending you warm wishes!
 
It could just be that you got an infection and the antibiotics took care of it. Unlikely to happen again..
But the fact that you are worrying about your Mum and then fear recurrence of the throat thing does shout 'tms'!
The trick is recognising what is happening in your life that is bugging you psychologically - recognising how that makes you 'feel' - experience emotions//deal with them - don''t repress them...
You seem to be doing that by linking your symptoms to your Mum's health and your fears... So you are on the right track.
Maybe treat it as tms anyhow (you have had medicine for the throat and it has got better - so that is physically ok) so now deal with your feelings - maybe do some journalling about your Mum and how you feel about what she is going through/ your relationship with your Mum / how her being ill has made you feel? When you are thinking about this stuff be aware of your body - do you get relief from your back pain? or does it flare up...? Does your throat feel worse or better when thinking 'psychologically'?
If you are doing the SEP (Structured educational programme on the main tmswiki page) carry on - if you aren't - then do it!! Good luck!
 
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