Irrational fears

Do you ever have a minor health concern that ends up blowing up in your mind and becoming your focus for days? I do, obviously or why would I be blogging about it right? My recent concern began sometime this past Sunday. At some point I noticed that it felt like I had sore muscles in the area under my left rib cage. Of course I hadn’t done anything that could have caused sore muscles recently so it struck me as odd. I didn’t think much of it, started telling myself that it could be a side effect of the flu shot I’d received just a few days prior (however unlikely that may be). At some point yesterday while still feeling the sore muscle feeling I started to let the floodgates open in my mind, and of course headed straight for Dr. Google. Thankfully, nothing of interest popped up in my web sleuthing, but I did start staring at a calendar to see when my last AF had occurred. I don’t keep track really because AF with my handy dandy Mirena IUD isn’t much more than spotting. I have no need to worry about pregnancy since Mirena is more effective than female sterilization, so what difference does it really make? I did recall having AF-like spotting on a business trip, but I’d had many in these past few months so it was a little tricky to pinpoint which one. When I’d finally isolated the likely trip I realized it had been 5 weeks or so since her last visit. Just try Googling IUD AND pregnancy and you will see what kind of horrid thoughts started creeping into my head.

When I let myself go to that place it is very hard to talk myself down. I start coming up with “symptoms” which support whatever I have self diagnosed myself as having. After having a few semi panic attacks involving being rushed to the emergency room because of a burst fallopian tube due to an ectopic pregnancy, I rushed to Walgreens at lunch, went home and peed on a stick. Negative, pheew! I called DH to tell him that I wasn’t in fact pregnant, and he said “that’s nice Hun.” I’m starting to think that the IUD may not be the best birth control choice for me, while I love that it involves no effort on my part, it is hard to trust that it works as it is advertised. I am an IUD baby after all (yes when your Mom who had polio as a baby and therefore has paralyzed legs gets pregnant with you when your older brother is just 6 months old you know you weren’t planned!), and those thoughts creep into my head a little too often for my tastes. Of course I don’t want to go back on the pill, and this not having AF business is really nice (if you get past the irrational pregnancy thoughts that creep in occasionally), and I’m not ready to risk a third baby so there it is. I guess I do nothing and live with the freak outs. One pee on a stick episode in the 17 months I’ve had the IUD isn’t so bad is it?