Crippling health anxiety

Posted , 12 users are following.

For the past 6 weeks I have been overcome with anxiety and fear about my health and death. I'm so bad that I have self diagnosed about 10 illnesses this week. I'm driving myself crazy by poking and prodding at my body. I'm at my wits end does anyone else feel like this. I get really panicked my these thoughts and the attacks are awful.

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  • Posted

    Hi Tara

    I am exactly the same! I have very bad panic disorder but have recently started feeling new symptoms such as very bad muscle tension and twitching and very bad prickly skin feeling! I have convinced myself I have either Ms or a brain tumour or fibromyalgia the list is endless! Which in turn is only making things worse. I try to stay calm and not think about the bad things but it always seems to catch up with me again!

    You are not alone

    • Posted

      Yea I get all the random pains. Stomach discomfort from worrying. I'm sore from religiously checking myself. It feels like I'm. Alone in these thoughts. People think I'm being silly
    • Posted

      I feel exactly the same, whenever I talk to anyone about it they look at me as if I am going mad ( sometimes I feel as if I am! ) I get lots of random things happening all over my body and everything just leads me to think something is seriously wrong even when people tell me it not!!
    • Posted

      I have been to the emergency room and GP. have had several blood tests and chest xray. And still I'm coming up with other things ahhh
  • Posted

    This sounds exactly like me!! Mine has been for about 7 weeks. I've always been anxious and worried about death, losing family and something happening to myself. I started seeing a therapist and hit put on lexapro. This sucks and is exhausting. I owe $3600 to hospital bills in the past 7 weeks. Both for a panic attacks and one for a ct scan bc I thought I had a brain tumor. My tension headaches were so bad that I had burning sensations in my head that scared me into thinkin it was a tumor. If it isn't one thing it's another. Now I worry about my chest and lungs, since I'm anxious I smoke more cigarettes than normal and now I'm worried about my chest. Medicine is helping a but but having bad side effects. So it's been really hard and I completely understand what your going thru.
    • Posted

      It's just not normal. The effects it's having on my body is horrible.
    • Posted

      I get it. My body feels like crap too. But it's our anxiety. It does this to us. I've felt every form of anxiety there is. Numbing in hands, tension headaches, heartburn, chest pain and tightness,dizziness, all kinds of weird sh*t. The thing tho is we make ourselves sick. Our anxiety makes us feel like something is wrong with us. Shoot I haven't felt like myself in a while and now I'm taking a new anti depressant I have all kinds of weird feelings. Are you seeing a therapist? If you find a good one they really do help. At least give you done tools to find better ways to cope and deal with anxiety.
    • Posted

      Im exactly the same all weekend iv self diagnosed myself with lung cancer because my chest top back and lungs are hurting! So stressful
    • Posted

      I just get random pains all over from it. And it doesn't help when I look up these pains on the Internet. Yea I think I'll try a therapist.

  • Posted

    I totally understand, besides my daily freak out about heart attack and stroke, I recently started worrying about

    1. collapsed lung because I had pain on my side (then I pass gas and the pain is relieved but I still worry about my lungs)

    2. DVT, because I had a pain in my ankle that started a day ago but I think that's from my shoes and really don't know why I think about dvt because I don't sit or stay in the same position for too long, nor do I have clotting problems

    3. Pancreatitis, because I had abdominal pain, but again they went away when I passed gas

    4. Something wrong with my artery in my neck because I had neck/shoulder pain

    Health anxiety is one of the worse things I've ever experienced because any little thing will put me on edge for the rest of the day and I feel like I can't enjoy life anymore. I don't have any advice, as I'm looking for some myself, but you're not alone. I found that writing everything I feel lessens the stress of me thinking about it.

    • Posted

      That's me exactly. I have a pain in my neck from poking the lump I have in it the last 7 years. I'm convinced now that after all this time it's growing and I just can't leave it be. It's like OCD. My whole body hurts from stress. I literally have new pains each day
    • Posted

      Yes me too! It's weird because I look at the new pains in 2 views:

      1. Wow another pain somewhere else, this has to be anxiety because how can so many things be wrong with me?

      2. Omg another pain, something has to be causing all these pains, how can it JUST be anxiety?

      Its gotten to the point where I can't differentiate real danger in my body anymore. And Idk what to do about...stick it out? Call my doc? Rush to the ER?

    • Posted

      I've been to the er and GP and had bloods abd chest xray done and it says I'm fine. I'm crippled with the random pains I hate feeling like this
  • Posted

    Im going the exact same thing! I have had all these aches and pains in my body for over 2 weeks! And i keep thinking im having a heart attack, it's driving me crazy
  • Posted

    Hi Tara, Yes you are going to die, just like me and your friends and family. Life begins at birth and is like a jigzaw puzzle. We are born and the pieces of the puzzle are taken out of the box and put on a table ready to start making the puzzle.

    Each year the pieces of the puzzle are put together untill we reach our mid life. (This is different for all people) At this time the puzzle is completed, then slowly the pieces are put back into the box and eventually the lid goes back on the box.

    What you are describing is common, it's a classic trigger for severe anxiety, It effects the body with real physical symptoms. These feeling of doom and gloom happens because you have not dealt with your problem that started the anxiety in the first place.

    Only you can establish the reason for your anxiety. Once you have found the trigger you can either work out a plan of action to reduce the trigger,  you can work with it (Say to yourself that it is not going to go away, so I will change some parts of my life so that I can cope with it and it will not effect the way I feel physically) or you can learn about anxiety so that you understand what is happening to you. 

    There are plenty of ways to self-help reduce the feelings. However you can get into a frame of mind that you sometimes like having anxiety. We are all human and have feelings that are good and bad. The good feelings make us happy and the bad feelings make us sad and depressed. You have a bad feeling that you have something wrong with you. You have, it's called ageing. If you did not have something wrong with you you would be Super-Human. Look at the Related information regarding Relaxation / Self Hypnosis / Tranquility. Only then will the anxiety you have will slowly reduce and fade away. With relaxation the adrenalin reaction of Fight or Flight will help you to come to terms with your feelings. Good luck Peter.

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