Health anxiety

[Ericamo1]

I went to er today for my neck pain that I was having and for the tingling in my hands. They did xray and said most likely aggravated or compressed nerve. They have me muscle relaxer. I had panic attack as I was in there getting xray I felt like I couldn't hold my head still so my mind jumps to a crazy disease. Before I know it I'm convinced I have Parkinson's. I also have been getting muscle spasms or twitches in my calf muscles and look that up I convince myself I have als symptoms. I have started working out recently lifting weights and such and that's when my leg cramps started so logically it would be something like dehydrated muscles or lack of some vitamin but I cant ever accept the common things and then i work myself into a frenzy and its downhill from there. I feel so overwhelmed and overly obsessing and I cant stop myself. No matter where I'm at or what I'm doing I pay attention to every little twinge in my body and then obsess over it.

[Hidden]

Omg same here... everything! It's sonoberwhelmong

[Ericamo1 in reply to Hidden]

I tell myself not to google but then I google my symptoms and then I find myself going through them and comparing and then I usually panic and call people and they think I'm crazy so o try not to do that anymore. These past few months have been horrible for me. I do take anxiety medication but it doesn't really help my overwhelming thoughts.

[Careful1]

Health anxiety is terrible and people who have never experienced it can never understand what it's like.

I was a hypochondriac as a child, battled health anxiety my entire life. I had a good stretch of 7 years where I thought I had beaten it but here I sit going through a real medical problem and its triggered my anxiety, brought it all back with a vengeance.

I know how you feel, you aren't alone.

[Ericamo1 in reply to Careful1]

Sorry to hear thatI think my trigger was I had a medical scare but it turned out not to be serious but after that I felt like I had to go to dr for everything I've had so many tests done and every one of them comes out fine but then I think they must be missing something...I absolutely hate feeling like this it's literally taken over my life.

[Careful1 in reply to Ericamo1]

Yup, classic health anxiety. No matter how many times they tell you that your okay, you will always doubt it in the back of your mind... It's the nature of the beast unfortunately

In the past year I have had test after test after test trying to figure out what is going on with me but haven't gotten any answers just yet. Many drs have thought I had liver disease because some of my symptoms esp the visible ones match up with cirrhosis but my liver checks out okay other then being enlarged and fatty. I am seeing an endocrinologist this coming month and a genetic dr in July. I am hoping to get an answer from one of them as they are my last hope before I have to start seeing a more complicated specialist. Its incredibly hard for someone with health anxiety to not have an answer and it's taken everything I have not to Google till my fingers fall off and self diagnose myself with every disease known to man. Googling is the one thing I have managed not to do during this bout as I know that will lead me down a road that has no end in sight.

Have you tried meds and therapy? They help to a certain extant. I have tried many things over the years but I found that the answer to fixing myself was inside of me. I had to train my brain... I had to tell myself over and over, every minute of every day that I was okay. So much so that when I started going through what I am going through now I tried to convince myself that it was just anxiety, if it wasnt for some of my issues being visible I probably would have kept ignoring it all... It's sometimes hard to distinguish what's caused by anxiety and what isn't because unfortunately people with health anxiety are very in tune with their bodies so we notice every tiny thing that is different.

Step 1.... if you Google your symptoms, stop... It really is the worse thing people like us can do.