what are the differences between symptoms anxiety and brain tumor?
Thursday, May 20th, 2010 at
3:01 am
I was diagnosed with anxiety about 2 years ago and recently i have been under lots of stress and been feeling weird symptoms. I have done blood work and everything is fine.
I am worrying i might have a brain tumor even though there is no cancer in my family. I have been reading the symptoms are so identical.
Can anyone tell me the differences?
Filed under: Anxiety Attacks
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If the feelings of anxiety are the only symptoms you have, it’s probably not a brain tumor. That was one of my latest symptoms. I had an eye twitch that lasted 4 months. I saw floaters, shimmers in my peripheral vision, numbing, throbbing, weakening in my arm for over a year. The feelings of a panic attack coming on, started a few months before my migraine, which happened 2 days before my seizure. Blood work will not show a brain tumor. The ct or mri scans will obviously show a mass if you have one.
My dr said the anxious feelings were actually the aura many people get with brain tumors.
Anxiety is well….being anxious. Heart pounding, pulse racing, mouth getting dry, nervous, etc.
Brain Tumors include but are not limited to: headaches that come out of nowhere and can be debilitating at times, dizziness and balance issues, blurred vision or double vision, nausea and vomiting, sensitivity to light and noise, cognitive issues.
Trust me, the symptoms are not identical.
I have been anxious before (who hasn’t) and I have brain tumors. Two totally different things. And before you ask, no anxiety has not been proven to lead to brain tumors.
The most common symptom of brain tumors is an epileptic seizure. If the tumor is growing in areas that affect emotional control etc. they still usually cause cognitive defects,performance goes down, memory down, ability to multitask down etc.
Brain tumors are very, very rare. About one in 10 000 gets one per year -but with younger, 20-40 year olds it is even less likely. Brain tumors are mostly not hereditary.
Having tension neck and hyperventilation (breathing too much unintentionally) –which are very common with anxiety can cause REally weird symptoms -which are definitely not dangerous at all .
If you are overwhelmingly anxious, get a good neurological check up -most important part of which is your history and clinical exam -not head scan. Getting and explanation for those symptoms is sometimes hard:even an experienced neurologist has hard time figuring out whether the cause is too little CO2 in blood due to hyperventilation, too much stimulus to autonomic nerves in neck due to muscles or constantly too much epinephrine in your system due to stress or -all conditions which are quite benign!!!
Otherwise concentrate on getting healthy food, enough sleep and exercise -and not worrying, as by worry you cannot add a cubit to your life-but rob it of all joy!