Type 2 Anxiety disorder ruins my life, strange symptoms

[Luca1990]

Hello there,

my name is Luca and I come from Germany. I was diagnosed with type 2 4 months ago with an HBA1C of 7%.


I have completely changed my diet, lost almost 30kg and brought my HBA1C down to 5.2%.

But my big problem is my anxiety disorder/hypochondria. With the diabetes diagnosis, this has become much stronger again.

I currently have problems with my rectum and genital area. There is a lack of feeling there and that scares me a lot. I have already had an MRI because I was initially very afraid of cauda equina syndrome. This could be ruled out.

I have also developed ED, although the problem is more the loss of my libido.

I have now been to the GP, urologist and neurologist. The urologist thinks that the loss of libido is psychological. Although many men with diabetes develop ED, their libido isn't usually severely affected, and my values are good and I haven't had it that long. The GP assumes that the diabetes manifested itself no more than two years ago. I realise that even pre-diabetes can cause damage, but the whole thing happened from one day to the next. Now I've developed a fear of neuropathy and I'm running completely in fear mode and that annoys me. I mean, if that's the case, I can't change it anyway. I keep an eye on my blood sugar, exercise a lot and attend important doctor's appointments and that's all I can do. So why this intense anxiety, it's so stressful.

I now have another appointment with a neurologist in a month and will talk to him about it again, but he also advised me to wait and see.

How can I overcome this fear, this overanxiety I call it?

How would you react?
I've already had a lot of therapy, but the diabetes has brought my anxiety disorder back and it's stronger than ever.

Thanks for reading and I hope you can understand everything well despite the language barrier

 

[AloeSvea]

Well, @Luca1990 , your English is excellent - I wouldn't worry about apologising for it!

If your anxiety is interferring with your quality of life, and you have had lots of therapy, what are your thoughts and feelings about taking anti-anxiety medication? it works for lots of folks. Could for you too?

In my own life, a man close to me suffered very badly from anxiety, and I watched his emotional life transform when he got into Zen, meditation, in a big way. He's been practising it for decades now, and it really works for him.

As for talk to counter anxiety, with folks who have had a prediabetes diagnosis and have beat it (well done you!), you have come to a great place. My reassurance to you is that you had a mild version of a mild version of blood glucose dysregulation, and you did the best thing for it - lost a lot of weight. And now you are not in that zone any more. You are not prediabetic, and have a healthy blood glucose regulation happening. I say then - rejoice! But do understand - easier said than done. So yeah - medication or meditation? Or, both? (I'm doing the educated-on-T2D maternal thing here, and am assuming men will leap in and comment on/discuss on the ED and sexual health stuff!)