Health anxiety ruining my life looking for advice/help can't cope

I'm so happy I found this thread.

it explains so much to me of my behaviour lately. I've thought I was losing my mind. 

im 25 and have been having such health anxiety lately. Ive self diagnosed myself with all sorts, Google is the enemy. I had a bang on the head a few weeks ago and googled possible side effects.. and bam that was it, I thought I was having a brain bleed, I was looking for fluid coming out of my ears, thinking I was going to drop down dead. I put myself into an absolute panic. Then My anxiety got worse, cramps meant I had cervical cancer. (I stopped taking the pill and was having cramps from my body readjusting) so I booked a smear, now I'm terrified waiting for the results thinking the worst. I've been to the doctors too many times, convincing myself of all sorts. Getting my blood pressure checked, heart rate checked, having urine tests, blood tests. You name it.

it wasn't until I went on to anxietyUK's website and read up on health anxiety and saw this...

If you can answer YES to most of the questions it is likely that you are affected by health anxiety.

During the past 6 months:

Have you experienced a preoccupation with having a serious illness due to bodily symptoms that has been ongoing for at least six months?

Have you felt distressed due to this preoccupation?

Have you found that this preoccupation impacts negatively on all areas of life including, family life, social life and work?

Have you felt that you have needed to carry out constant self examination and self diagnosis?

Have you experienced disbelief over a diagnosis from a doctor or felt that you are unconvinced by your doctor’s reassurances that you are fine?

Do you constantly need reassurance from doctors, family and friends that you are fine, even if you don’t really believe what you are being told?

i tick all of the above. You may too? 

ive drove myself crazy with worry. I've lost weight through having no appetite, caused stress to my body, constant dry mouth, light headedness, fast beating heart from working myself into a panic. 

Its an an awful thing to constantly have on my mind. So glad I'm not alone in this. 

 

Just wanted to know what ever happened to your symptoms did they ever go away? And did you anxiety get better?

Hi nicola 57830 i have health anxiety i go to the doctors every week i don't believe them it's called health anxiety everything the doctor tells me that there's nothing wrong with me i don't believe them i keep thinking they not telling me.but he said I'm listening to my head too much and that will send false signals to our bodies.so thinking something bad is wrong with us when there's not.try relaxing yoga or join a group with other people.talking about it helps too.i wish you well.x

Hi nicola

how are you going now? Sounds exactly like what I'm experiencing now!

Everyone must realize we are not one dimensional and our body is only a part of this problem.  Your physical body reacts profusely from your mind and your thoughts and experiences that you have endured in your life to date. Docs and GP will only handle the physical aspect. Therapist will only partially handle the thoughts, because if you do not tell the entire truth or cant realease what the root cause is and you truly might not even know this, then therapist can only spdeal with the limited info you provide. Then there is your soul, yes we all absolutely have souls we are made up of energy that is a scientific fact. So your spiritual aspect needs a part in this as well. The mind, body and soul must be involved in the journey to self healing. We all get stuck on the physical so we get trapped in a viscious cycle of panic attacks. Unbalanced at best. The physical part needs a full check up with a doc and a proper healthy diet with excersise and learning to belly breathe. The mind needs to learn cbt and how to calm itself and properly self talk in a rationale and functional manner. The spirit, or soul needs to be loved and embraced and learn gratitude and  appreciation for the world around you. Its is a journey, it is difficult and at times very challenging. I have found it very challenging but better if i include the mind, body and soul and not only the physical body. There is no quick fix here, if there was none of us would be falling apart. The same way you run to a doctor for the body you need to learn to meditate or cbt with mediation to delve into your own mind to figure out when this started and why and how. Its a very oersonal journey and youll find you have held onto false beliefs and punish yourself terribly by negative self talk and thinking and hopefully learn forgiveness. Forgiveness doesnt mean you condine a person or experience it means you accept what occured you accept you were hurt and you forgive yourself, you let it go piece by piece and stop basically abusing yourself. Its learning what is really true versus what others have made you to believe is true about yourself. The mind is a powerful tool for creating a fearful life or a happy one. A difficult journey and a lot of work involved. Many healthy minds tend to realize quickly there are occurances or things they can not control and do not self blame or punish themselves. Good for them we have to learn this because negative self talk and focusing or hoping there is a ohysical base, and yes oeople have physcial illness too and can begin from a ohysical illness, but doesnt mean you get panic attacks either way. Im just saying this whole panic attacks thing is NOT one dimensional at all. I have this for decades on and off and yes i have physical ailments but the journey is the same to rewire myself to find happiness and be grateful and allow myself a good life mentally and spiritually. Its just all connected is all im trying to say. We all think we are terrified of being sick and dying but we are all terrified of living and that the basis here. Cbt, mindful breathing techniques, proper diet and movement, cardio, mediatation and appreciation of nature and the world and self love and knowing and believing you are worthy to heal and be happy is imperitive on this journey. Doesnt matter what occurred or what you did or didnt do in the past, you can not go back in time anyway. You have the present moment and in that all the above needs to be incoroorated. Thats the best advice i have and what i am doing to find peace personally. There are so many resiurces availabke thriugh the internet if you search it. Energy healing (meditations) is very self soothing and helpful. Lucky are the people just born and existing in this world who have been lucky enough to sub cinciously know all this, but we have to learn it. We are more aware of our bodies so we get sidetracked by health anxiety. Good luck on your journey and believe you can and will get thriugh thus and emerge with a greater understanding of who you really are.

Hi there - health anxiety is a pain in the ass. I'm new to this and have been dealing with it for 6 months. I've become a Google doctor and I have overcome almost every serious illness known to man, even the terminal ones, according to Google. I try hard to laugh about it daily but only find myself doing it again and again. This helps. Writing how I feel and how I'm not alone. Sounds to me like you are perfectly fine with a health anxiety disorder....let's try to deal with that. I think that trying hard makes it worse. I find keeping busy has been the most useful. Talking about it also has helped.

Breast (left) had mammogram. heart, arms, left leg, dizzy spells, xray for my lungs, you name it and I've had them tested

, im sorry to hear what ur going through but i know how you feel , I've suffered from these horrid feelings for almost 2 years now, it's true what they say DON'T Google the symptoms I've done it all, I've been afraid to go to doctors but desperate to go see them at the same time, then finally plucked the courage up and run to them repeatedly for months they did all the test but they all kept coming back clear, i wasn't happy so went to another doctor done all the explaining again and again 😢 they weren't giving me the answers i was looking for , i looked on line this day and found a health anxiety page i went into it and as i read through it i couldn't believe i was reading about me , i cried and cried as i read it t right till the end i felt such a relief all my symptoms had gone i felt normal for couple days then bang it reminded me it was still here of to doctor again, i day in her room told her what had happened she nodded her head i said if you knew why didn't you tell me she said i did, i fine the test for you, you didn't believe so you had to come to that place in yourself where you knew what it was, i believe my health anxiety came from a illness that happened within my family that ended a life, 😢 so i took on all the symptoms of that person and then some without realizing it, so i believe that this is the root cause of my health anxiety in the deepest parts of our minds there is a place we go in a instance without realizing that were can't see the light for the dark areas but i believe that i WILL !! grab hold of that light and get back to being me again even stronger , find out what the trigger was for your axiety and work from that very point xx We will all beat this demon called health anxiety, stay strong nicola xx

Yep going through the exact same thing. I'm 17 and this started happening to me on holiday in Europe. I thought I has having a heart attack cause I had chest pain in my left side and was struggling for breath (or thought I was) but it was just a massive panic attack. Ever since all I can think about is my chest pain. Google tells me I have heart disease, atrial fibrillation etc etc. Then i started having stomach pain, whicb google told me i had liver cancer, appendicitis etc etc. My GP has said im fine. Any tips on how to cope with this stress, I have a heap of interviews for universities coming up in the next few weeks and this is all I can think about?

I started having these same symptoms in Nov 2015. I have been having them and doing the same thing as far as google. I drove my family and husband insane. I have been to the emergency room 3 times since, drs office 8 times since, a mental health specialist, I have had a chest Xray, Cat scan, 3 EKGs, Blood work, Urine, ultrasound and the list goes on. All test came back good. Recently I had a house fire and it sent my anxiety to a record high and I am now scared to sleep because I wake out with my heart beating like its about to beat out of my chest. I am so glad I could share this with you all so you know that you are not alone. I am a 33 yr old mom of 2 girls (12 and 8) and I pray daily that I am going to be ok so I can raise them. I have faith that I will be ok. But sharing and hearing others stories could be a way to help us through this.

Hi Nicola, I'm experiencing the same thing constantly checking myself I can't help but Google my symptoms Ergh I just want to feel normal, I feel like I can't catch my breath back and forth from the docs! I'm 31 have 4 children my husband doesn't take no notice of me!! The last month I've had X-rays, ekg, blood test, blood test for blood clots everything came back fine. I do suffer with under active thyroid with I take med for! I feel like I'm losing it everyday I google diffrent things and I can't help it 😫

hi

i'm a 15 yr old girl who has been suffering from health anxiety since i was about 12.

-it started when i first got my period and it was dark red and i thought i was dying.

-then i shaved down there for the first time when i was 13 and i had ingrown hairs and i thought i had herpes lol

-then i was still irregular with my periods and i missed one and thought i was pregnant even though I'd never had sex!

-then i felt a pain in my stomach and thought i had a bursts appendix.

-after that it stopped for a little while and resurfaced about a couple months ago because this past freshman year I've gone through depression and it triggered all of the bad things I've always been worried about i guess

-so I've been having headaches all last year really but i think it was due to an obsession I had with chewing gum and all the chemicals in it

-then recently I've had blurry vision like when i'm looking at the clock I can barely tell what is says and my parents just keep saying its from being on my phone and i believed them because when i was depressed all I would do was watch Netflix and movies all day on my phone ipad or laptop.

-then headaches behind my eye which i blocked out as eye strain

-then the headaches would move to wherever i was focusing on and i thought it was just tension headaches from anxiety

-and then a feeling a pipe in my throat was sticking deeper into my throat if that makes sense , feeling like something was stuck in it

-this has all lead me to believe I've had

brain tumors- i ruled out

cancer- ruled out

occipital neuralgia

and lately an aneurysm!!!!

the latest symptom is that I've had this really tight sensation in the back of my head at the top of my neck and i think i feel my lymph nodes on both sides of my neck!!

I've also had ringing in my ears and ear pain like I've got an infection

but the thing is it only goes away when I don't think about it and then when I think about it resurfaces

thing is it only goes away when I don't think about it and then when I think about it resurfaces

it's like really tight almost the feeling of a clinched fist or something

but something tells me that because of all the things I thought I had it's just my anxiety

and deep down I know that but I just can't shake the feeling of thinking something is wrong with me also I forgot to mention that the beginning of the summer I went to a waterpark with my friend in when I get out of the pool I had this really bad cough and I googled it and I kept seeing dry drowning so I convince myself I was dry Johnny and when I came home with my mother I had a really short breath like I was giving myself a real bad heart attack it was crazy because it was actually like I was having a heart attack and I couldn't breathe I really thought I was going to die we went to the doctors office and they said it was probably just my anxiety and of course they were right

- I also forgot to mention the huge detail my parents do not believe in Anxiety or depression

right now I'm suffering from the tight feeling in the back of my neck deep down I know its just my anxiety but I'm so scared all the time

SOMEONE PLEASE READ ALL OF THIS

oh yea i'm also ocd

thank you to those who read this!!!!! pleasee respond am I sick or is it just my anxiety this affects my whole life unless i'm out with friends having fun I forget about it

it's like the symptom i'm focused on goes away completely when I have another to worry about.

Is anyone still having those symptoms?

Hello, read this and want to take away your worries, I have this all the time I suffer with health anixty, after a misscarraige and a abusive relasionship, it is a horriable thing to go through and most people don't understand until they have gone through it their selves. I have the pains in my left boob it feels dull and sometimes quiet painful, it's nothing to worry about. I do cbt counclising and she answered all my worries. If you Google which I wouldn't recommend because it drove me insane told me I had a brain tumour! But if you do use Google as of a way to cope like I did, then everytime you type in a symptom type anixty after it and it will say chest pains breast pains are all symptoms of anixty! It can do amazing thinggs to your body! I go dizzy, feel sick have aches and pains everywhere, have horriable headaches, belltaches, tingling eveeywhere it's all just the rubbish side of anixty hope I've helped!