beachedMermaid

Like, does anybody else deal with anxiety every time you get a tummy ache, thinking it's your liver about to explode?

Some background on my drinking history and current practice:

For a year, I lived in a place that I hated 3000 miles away from friends and family, worked a very high-stress job that overworked and underpaid me while I supported my unemployed husband, who couldn't find a job when we moved for mine. For that entire year, we both drank. A lot. Think 15 (standard unit) drinks every night. We packed on the weight. I suppose we were functional alcoholics, since it never impacted my work performance or anything else I did during the daytime. Then one day I was told my job would end in 2 months because of budget cuts. I quickly started interviewing elsewhere and had a great opportunity to get my dream job, back in the place where my friends and family were. Terrified I would lose that opportunity due to a drug test, I quit cold turkey the night before the final interview, flew 3000 miles across country while detoxing and made it through the grueling 8-hour interview on no sleep or food in two days. Long story short, I got the job. We moved, I got a great salary, life became good, for the first time for us in 8 years. We lost a ton of weight and are still losing at a healthy rate, due to good diet and exercise. I have lost 35lb since 12/2015 and am still losing at a healthy rate.

In the new job/living situation, we took 3 months off alcohol completely, then re-introduced it in moderation (6 standard units per week or less--the equivalent of 2 martinis or less). We have had absolutely no problem drinking at or below this level--no cravings, no "relapse". I've had no physical problems other than a non-related thyroid condition (genetic). No digestive problems, no blood pressure or blood sugar issues, no sleep issues...except for the health anxiety. That's new.

7 months after we stopped drinking too much (4 months after we started drinking in moderation), I decided to go for a physical and asked my doctor for a liver panel to make sure everything was okay. Everything checked out fine. My ALT, AST and their ratio were all normal (albeit a hair above dead-center of normal). However, something about that being even a hair above dead center freaked me out. I went 6 weeks without drinking at all, then came back for another test. Same results.

Ever since then, I am terrified to go back to my doctor to inquire further, and she hasn't called so I haven't gone in. I can't seem to stop obsessing over that "one point above dead center of normal".

It's very weird--I've never had health anxiety before. It doesn't appear to be tied to our moderate drinking--it seems to be entirely tied to my stomach. For example, I'll go a couple weeks feeling great and then one day I'll get some mild heartburn and get it into my head that my liver is failing and I'm dying. (I'm aware that freaking out every time I get a little indigestion is not typical behavior for the mentally healthy.) If I have any sort of stomach issue, like heartburn or nausea, I take over-the-counter stomach remedies like Tums or Nauzene or ginger tea, and when the stomach issue goes away so does my anxiety. In the rare case where the nausea meds don't help my stomach--i.e. two weeks ago I got food poisoning--oh boy am I in for a long night even after the worst of the symptoms goes away because that's when the anxiety sets in. My heart will keep racing and I'll have insomnia and my brain will circle continuously around the thought that maybe it wasn't food poisoning and it's really that glass of wine I had two days ago finally killing my liver to the point where my digestion is failing.

Honestly, I'm not even sure if going back to my doctor would help with this, because even if any further tests came out normal I might convince myself there's still something wrong. (Since, you know, all the websites about cirrhosis make it sound like you can get ultrasounds and labs and still miss that your liver's dying, with the exception of getting a biopsy.) I'm trying to control the health anxiety by keeping my liver panel handy so I can see the results were normal, and by reminding myself that if I was going to die of liver disease it would've been a year ago, when I was drinking insane amounts, not now. I told my doctor about my six standard drinks limit and she said she saw no problem with that, but I'm so paranoid part of me even wonders if she's missed something with my labs or something. Seriously, why am I so convinced every tummy ache is my liver exploding? (I have IBS, btw, so just eating too many tacos can send me into a mental tailspin...)

So, long story short, I was just hoping someone out there might have dealt with the health anxiety and figured out a way to curtail it. Anyone?