Health anxiety

[Natsteveo]

Does anyone have health anxiety here mine I’d crippling me at the minute 🥲

[Hb2003]

I have health anxiety it’s not fun i try to distract myself do something i enjoy

[Natsteveo in reply to Hb2003]

I’ve been trying all day to distract myself I went for a little drive took my dogs with me seem to help

[Hb2003 in reply to Natsteveo]

That is good 😄

[stranglers]

Hi yes I have health anxiety bad today, I asked for the Dr to ring me back, I don't think the 30mg of Mirtazapine is helping at all, so she said to taper off & change to Prozac, it's horrible living in this state of fear all the time

[Natsteveo in reply to stranglers]

So true it’s horrible mines pretty bad today... good luck with the tapering

[Isinatra]

How is your back? Anything come of it? Just hoping you’re feeling better. ❤️🏄‍♀️

[Natsteveo in reply to Isinatra]

I had a callback today he thinks it’s a bad uti and he thinks my back is muscular so I’m on a 2 week course of antibiotics so fingers crossed it will go thanks for asking

[Isinatra in reply to Natsteveo]

So glad you got some help.❤️🏄‍♀️

[hypercat54]

Loads Nat dear. Have a look round the site and you will see this. I've been wondering how you were.

[Natsteveo in reply to hypercat54]

Hey babes how’s you feeling.. not doing too bad just this blooming health anxiety now don’t think the lockdown is helping xx

[Isinatra]

P.s. didn’t mean to ignore your question. I have anxiety when anything unfamiliar pops up, but I’ve learned to do my darndest to put a lid on it unless I have a reason to back up the anxiety. I go to the docs if it gets too worrisome and then try to be reasonable about the diagnosis. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. A lifetime battle...❤️🏄‍♀️

[Natsteveo in reply to Isinatra]

Oh yeh it sure is just comes in waves unexpectedly and very unwanted!! It’s not a problem my friend you asked how I was that means a lot

[MidnightBriarRose]

Yes and i just had a very upsetting health anxiety attack, about a half hour ago. And even though i know what triggered it, my mind couldn't help but keep going to the worst case scenario. So here's a run down of how my health anxiety attack came about. Due to the depression i have been dealing with, i have barely been sleeping, over the past few days and even when i have slept, i have been sleeping at various, odd hours, around the clock. And i also have only eaten, about once, every 24 hours, over the last few days. So i went downstairs and made myself some food and was feeling very tired, right after i ate. Then i had to go up and down the stairs to the basement, several times, right after i ate. And right after i got done doing that, i started feeling so exhausted and weak that i started to worry that maybe something terrible was happening to me. So then i started to freak out so much that my heart rate became fast and I felt hot and like I was on my way to passing out. So, at that point, i laid down and let myself calm down. But the thoughts that were going through my head, while i was feeling that way, were very scary. And that's just one example of how my mind can go in to very scary, worst case scenario type thinking, when the health anxiety kicks in. So i totally get you and you very much have my sympathy! And i know what triggered me, so i just needed to sit down, relax and put the situation that triggered me, back in to perspective.

So my advice to you is to try to figure out what is at the heart of your anxiety; aka what is truly triggering your health anxiety. As I believe that these physical reactions from anxiety are triggered by something that is not as it should be in our life.

Anyway, i hope what i said, helps you in some way and that you feel better soon. All the best to you!

🌿🌹🌿💖🌿🌹🌿

[Jeff1943]

You do not have to spend the rest of your life like this. You do have a choice. You can recover: millions with health anxiety have over the years. Why should you not be next?

First I apologise if I have said this to you before, I cannot remember all whom I have met before here. Let me put two suggestions to you.

First, as you know the 'illnesses' of health anxiety are not real organic illness. They are symptoms of sensitised nerves copying the symptoms of true illness. So I suggest: you can't heal yourself of an illness you don't have no matter how hard you try.

Second, countless doctors who have been to medical school for 5 years and then spent years gaining daily experience have told you that you have no physical illness. But you don't believe them: you think "they must have missed something." No they haven't, it's your health anxiety talking. How many years did you go to medical school?

You have not finished grieving for your mother. Now is the time if you really want to move on. The trauma of your violent childhood lives on. Time to put it to rest, we cannot change the past but we can change the future.

The enemy is fear. Fear of illnesses you don't have. Fear of more fictitious illnesses to come. If you can overcome fear then your sensitised nervous system can recover and you will regain your quiet mind.

Maybe grief and childhood trauma are no longer driving your present illness. Fear is what feeds the vicious circle of your health anxiety: perhaps those original stress factors have been left behind and now you are caught up in a self-perpetuating vicious circle.

What is happening is: your false symptoms are causing fear hormones (cortisol and adrenaline etc) to saturate your nervous system causing their over sensitisation. In this state they send out the false symptoms that you interpret as cancer, heart disease and other terminal diseases. This causes even more fear which causes more false symptoms causing more fear causing more nervous sensitisation causing more false symptoms ad infintum.

Your task is to break that vicious circle.

Do this by accepting the false symptoms for the moment, accept the disturbing thoughts and the discomfort knowing it to be only the product of nervous exhaustion.

Do not expect instant results, Let time pass. The absence of fear allows your nervous system to calm and resume normality. No more false illnesses are then forthcoming and the nightmare has passed.

You do not have to spend the rest of your life suffering from health anxiety. You do have a choice. You can recover. Why should you not be the next?

[Natsteveo in reply to Jeff1943]

Hi Jeff thank you for this... it has made so much sense and I know what I’m doing to myself it’s just telling the anxiety 😟 I’m getting there today though I just went out in my car for a little bit and I managed to push what it was bothering me out of my head tomorrow is another day so I will do some self healing the best I can anyway I know I will conquer it it’s just acceptence that the physical symptoms from anxiety I have to control.. but thank you 🙏

[Jeff1943 in reply to Natsteveo]

One last word, you may know it already. If you want to truly recover through Acceptance then I commend a little book to you: "Self help for your nerves" also published as "Hope and help for your nerves" by Doctor Claire Weekes, M.B.E., written many years ago, obtainable for next to nothing new or used on Amazon or Ebay.

Everything I know about anxiety disorder comes from that book. Good luck on your journey to recovery, if that is your wish.

"Face. Accept. Float. And let time pass."

[gilded_masquerade]

I get really bad bouts of panic or anxiety with health and it’s such a stressful thing to deal with.

The biggest things I can suggest to you is to avoid looking anything up online, it may seem helpful but it’s more damaging than anything.

I was always told that if the pain or sensation was truly bad, you wouldn’t have time to worry and panic (that one may be false but I figured I’d mention in just in case)

But the most important thing I can suggest is that you try writing it down and asking yourself questions, challenge the thoughts. I personally thought this last one was a load of tripe at first but it really works!

I’d have a headache and assume the worst but when I sit there and say “oh well it’s a tension headache” or “oh yeah, I worked out this morning” it eliminates the fear.

The only other thing I can suggest, and I know it’s going to be the least appealing but try just sitting with it. Not reacting but not ignoring it either.

The most important thing I’ve learned about panic and anxiety is that facing the fear is the most vital thing you can do.

I’m sorry if none of this exactly helped, it is different for everyone but I hope that I helped in someway, no matter how small. Take care of yourself 🖤

[b1b1b1 in reply to gilded_masquerade]

It is true that if something really bad happens you don't have time or energy to panic. I had a total blockage in my small intestine several years ago. The pain was 1000 on a 1-10 scale. I was taken to an ER, the pain was relieved by sucking everything out above the blockage. I then had surgery and was fine. This condition is life threatening but I did not have a moment of panic or fear (just pain). Normally I do have health anxiety.

[Catsamaze ADAA Volunteer in reply to gilded_masquerade]

So true...avoid consulting Dr. Google. Not that I do but I’m trying. If there are 10 reassuring entries on there about your symptoms there will be one saying it’s all over and you will die . Which one of these will you fixate on? Exactly.

[Natsteveo]

Hi 🙋‍♀️ thanks so much for this message it’s exactly how I go off ... mine started over 14 years ago when my lovely mum died of pancreatic cancer she passed literally 7 weeks after diagnosis it was devastating so every pain I get I automatically assume I have the same and because I have terrible backache and pain in my side I’m going back to my mum having this pain so I’m reverting back to her pain thinking and convinced myself I have it it it’s horrible to have to go through this.. thanks so much xx

[NYtoFLA]

Yes, I do. That is why I got on here. On Friday my doctor told me that she believes many of my health issues are exacerbated by my health anxiety or even caused by my stress level. Right now I am obsessing about this lymph node that is still swollen after 5 days into antibiotics. And the wheezing I noticed once tonight when I inhaled. And the pain in my chest. Any of this sound familiar? Distractions help to some extent. I have been writing stories tonight to occupy my mind. I understand that Covid restrictions are not helping your situation. We are so limited that we cant do things that might help. Walking the dogs is great. Exercise perhaps? I hope tomorrow is better.

[Natsteveo in reply to NYtoFLA]

I wouldnt worry too much about ya lymph node saying that with health anxiety it just dont work like that does it my daughter has had a swollen lymph node for 2 years shes had every test all come back clear anxiety irritates it more.....hope all is well and you start to feel somewhat better very soon

[stellina04]

So I also have health anxiety, I feel like I'm strange because I'm totally fine unless something happens to me. Anyone else?

I woke up the day after valentine's day with crushing pain in my chest every few seconds. When I would swallow or drink water it hurt going down. So I tried to eat alittle and it hurt to swallow then too.. my mom came over with milk of magnesia and it calmed it down from every second to every time I swallowed. By the end of the night I could eat toast with just alittle pain and every day so far it hasn't come back. I had my husband look stuff up and it looks like it can be multiple things including esophagus cancer.

Well that was it I panicked thinking it was cancer I'm terrified I'm going to die. I am getting a scope done on Monday but it feels like forever away. All I can think of every second is I don't want to die, I don't want to die.

It's like I'm standing in the middle of a crowd of people screaming for help and no one can hear me. I feel frantic and terrified and I just don't know what to do.

It's whenever something happens to me health wise I freak out. Before I was getting a pain in my breast and I swore it was breast cancer. I recently had thyroid cancer which I found because I was presistant in going to a specialist and I had like no symptoms other than one thyroid levels being slightly high.

[Natsteveo in reply to stellina04]

Oh my I cannot put this into words how I’m just like you...I’m my own worst enemy i over catastrophically everything I think of I also convince everything I feel is the big c related ... and what makes yours worse is because you’ve had thyroid cancer so you are bound to have this the way you have.. have they taken it all out!! I had skin cancer and that frightened the living daylights out of me so everything I feel I revert back to it it’s just a nightmare... we need some sort of zen I’m going to start meditation tomorrow something gotta help us

Nat xx

[Heather829]

Are you feeling any better since starting medication? I developed health anxiety several months ago. It's awful.

[Natsteveo in reply to Heather829]

I've been on medication for years and mine is coming in waves at the minute. How are you doing xx

[Heather829]

Thank you for asking. First, I'm really sorry to hear yours is coming in waves. Have you changed medications at times and has it helped? I'm thinking of you today and praying for some relief and peace for your mind. One thing a counselor told me that does help me a bit is to remind myself I don't have (insert disease); I have health anxiety. Also to not fight all my anxiety, but to feel it so it can pass. It's not easy, but sometimes after just feeling it I'm able to take a true deep breath.

I am feeling better. I've been on Zoloft two weeks now. It did make me more anxious initially but that's starting to taper off. I've also started counseling although it's too soon to know if it will be helpful.