Day 4 Personality traits / Most disheartening thing a doctor has told you about your symptoms

Personality traits

I identify with the following personality traits ( along with a score that goes by it ):

1. Perfectionism (9/10)
2. Goodism/People Pleasing (10/10)
3. Legalist (8/10)
4. Stoic (10/10)
5. Anxiety and Fear (10/10)
6. Low Self-Esteem (10/10)
7. Hostility and Aggression (0/10)
8. Dependency (2/10)

Most disheartening thing a doctor has told you about your symptoms

1. My pain down spiral actually started in January along with a severe panic attack in the ENTs office.

I visited an ENT specialist in January because in the previous months I had trouble breathing from my nose. It was not that my nose was blocked, I just found it difficult to breathe. After visiting the aforementioned ENT doctor, he took a look at my nose with the endoscopy and he concluded the following. I suffered from something called Empty Nose Syndrome due to my deviated septum & turbinectomy I did when I was 19 years old (I am 30 years old now). He said, very abruptly that I cannot do anything about it and just accept it for what it is and that I could never breathe fully again ( or more likely, feel that I am breathing fully again). I had a monumental panic attack, right there in his office. Sweating like running for a marathon, my hands and legs got all shaky, I could not breathe, had a lump in my throat and dizzyness.
This panic attack / anxiety was a tipping point in my anxiety and my mood. Thinking about it, I actually pulled my back a few days after that incident in the gym and then did an MRI which revealed, at that time, a 6mm herniation in the L5S1 disc. I wonder if my mental state, after the ENT visit, played any role in my back getting worse after that gym incident. The incident was not very severe. I was not bedridden then.

Anyway, around the beginning of February, I visited another ENT specialist. He was convinced that I did not have Empty Nose Syndrome, but instead Vasomotor Rhinitis. Looking at those two things now, I come to realize that stress and anxiety (something I am overflowing with) play a crucial role in both conditions. I liked the second diagnosis better.

2. Coming along to April, my back was so much worse, I had to take some time of work and go live with my parents. The second disheartening thing came from a PT visit, which he had a spinal decompression machine, which he charged 70 euros per session to use it. He claimed that the only two ways to fix my back was back surgery or using his machine. That moment there, convinced my mind, or better, conditioned my mind to think that my back will never get better. I also had a milder panic attack in the PT office. Of course I did not use his spinal decompression machine.

 

Wow, I'm surprised an ENT would diagnose ENS. I had a pretty extensive turbinate reduction when I was 19 and worried about the potential for Empty Nose Syndrome. Dr. Schubiner seems to think it's TMS, but I'm still not sure. There doesn't seem to be very good diagnostic tests for nasal breathing, and some of the symptoms seem undeniably physical (severe dryness, waking up choking, etc).

Are you feeling any better these days?