Hypochondria (Health Anxiety) is taking over my life. Here’s my story, asking for help.

Hello, this is going to be quite lengthy but it is all necessary and I would really appreciate it if you would read to the end.

I have a debilitating mental illness, which is anxiety. More specifically, hypochondria or health anxiety.

It all began when I was sixteen. I was completely healthy with no medical history. I had a panic attack before I fell asleep one night. It was very frightening as I had never had one of these before. I had chest pains, I was feeling cold sweats go down my body and I was very short of breath. I went to see the doctor the next day, and I had a simple EKG done (the first of many..) EGK was normal but he said if this persists, further testing will be done.

Of course, I kept having these attacks. Except they really did feel like heart related symptoms. I would be short of breath, chest pain radiating to the jaw & left arm. I went to the Emergency Room one day after I was so out of breath and weak. Every time I tried to stand up, I would start to black out. I received another EKG, a chest x-ray, blood work, stress EKG, and an echocardiogram. All results were normal. This was a huge relief for me as I was worried out of my mind that I had some heart condition. After a few days, my symptoms went away.

2 months later, my groin area hurts. It hurts when I walk especially and it’s tender to the touch. As with my past symptoms, I ask the internet to see what I have and it says testicular cancer. So for a month I research, and research testicular cancer to see if this was what I had. I finally got a scan and it was negative. And the symptoms diminished.

At this point, I’m starting to realize that I have some sort of realization issue. I need to know that everything I feel isn’t a life threatening disease. However, my mind can’t grasp that yet.

6 months later, I get a headache. I get headaches all the time, they run in my family and it’s no big deal. But this one, it felt.. different. It occurred on one side of my head and it was constant. I felt it everyday. Soon afterwards I develop photophobia, olfactory hallucinations, and the scariest part was that one of my pupils was bigger than the other. There had to be something serious going on. Back to the internet, and internet says I have a brain lesion. However, I didn’t exhibit some of the more common symptoms of brain tumors such as dizziness, headache worse when laying down, nausea, vomiting, blurred or double vision. That was reassuring, but I was still terrified. After a few doctors appointments, I convince the doctor to order me a CT scan of the head. It is done, and the scan was normal. I was ecstatic.. temporarily. It seemed too good to be true, so I researched “Can a CT scan rule out brain tumors?” And the internet said “CT scans rule out most tumors, but definitely not all.” The fear sank back in.. and all over again I’m terrified and I’m back at the doctor. I am given the gold standard, the MRI. The results came back after a nerve wracking 24 hours and the results were.. normal.

And just like that, my symptoms vanish. This is all CLEARLY in my head. I have come to the realization that somehow, my mind creates imaginary symptoms to diseases I don’t have. It sounds really crazy.

One month later, knock knock. Guess who? Chest pain and shortness of breath are back! And WORSE than ever. I was in full out cardiac freak out mode. The symptoms I was experiencing now were textbook examples of myocardial ischemia. Chest pain on exertion, shortness of breath, chest pain that radiates to the left shoulder, arm and jaw, palpitations and irregular heartbeat. Now how could this be? All of my previous tests came back normal 6 months ago. I went to my doctor again and at this point I don’t feel welcome anymore. Anytime I walk into that place the all too familiar nurses roll their eyes like “this kid again..” and I’m basically like a broken record to my doctor. Every time I see him it’s “I’m pretty sure I’m dying. Can you order me this test so we can confirm that.” There are no more tests to do at this point. The only thing I do is go to a different urgent care facility every time I have extreme symptoms and they do an EKG that always ends up normal. It’s really strange, but I always really hope that one of those times the EKG will appear positive for some kind of abnormality, because a lot of the time you can have a cardiac arrhythmia but it won’t show electrocardiographic changes “all the time” just only at the right time.

Or.. it’s all in my head.

To this day I still experience those symptoms and I deal with them. No one knows what to do. Towards the beginning of 2017, my doctor and I agreed to start me on an SSRI medication for the anxiety. I went on fluoxetine (Prozac) for 6 months. Nothing changed. I was still always worried about my symptoms but I physically reacted more “chill” towards my worries around other people. I eventually went off the medication as I did not find it useful to me.

Fast forward.. two years.

So, two years have gone by. My condition has been at a constant. It’s not better, but it’s not worse and that’s good. Still experiencing chest pain, shortness of breath. And still freaking out about other illnesses but these episodes usually last about a few days and I get over it. Something big is about to happen though. I’m about to start college. And this condition MUST be eradicated before college because if I keep letting it take over my life throughout school, I will be setting myself up for failure.

First half of freshman year is alright. Hypochondria is still present.. I Went to the doctor a few times whenever I got a little cold.. you know just so I can make sure it gets healed and doesn’t progress to meningitis, sepsis, myocarditis, rheumatic fever etc. That’s my hypochondric laundry list of worst fears whenever I feel the smallest amount of any pain. Per usual, there were points where my chest pain/shortness of breath were very bad again and had me freaked out.

Second semester of freshman year.. the PEAK of this disease. This was a living nightmare. So.. I get back from Christmas break, ready to start the new year. Only a few days in, an all too familiar symptom strikes: daily headaches. Once again, I am not concerned because I have experienced these before and I know that they’re benign. However as the weeks progresses, I was deteriorating. My legs started to get very weak and I would wobble whenever bending my knees. My left hand developed a tremor and holding things / pouring drinks etc. was very tricky. And the scariest part.. my headaches were worse in the morning and when lying down, I developed frequent nausea and threw up often mostly in the morning, and I would have these awful dizzy spells. I once again looked up the symptoms of a brain tumor.. and I had 10/10 every.. single.. symptom. I went into a deep depression because I knew I was dying. I knew it was real this time. I was constant skipping class, and I was failing all of my classes. I went to the doctor, who was actually for once concerned and ordered me and MRI. The MRI was scheduled for 2 weeks ahead and that was the longest wait. The 2 weeks finally arrived and I had my MRI done, this time with and without contrast so I could definitely know what’s going on. I knew I had a tumor I just wanted to know where it was and what kind it was. After the scan, I took a dreaded 2 days to get the results. I was so anxious that I called my doctors cell phone to ask for the results myself.. and lo and behold.. they’re normal.

I was so relieved and shocked that it came back normal. But after months of deep depression I was free, until I felt a throbbing pain in my calf which is right now. I am scared I have a DVT and scheduled an ultrasound to rule it out. Am I experiencing all the symptoms? No but people often times have NO symptoms and then die suddenly.. but hey I’m just gonna get scanned and it’ll be normal and then I’ll wait until the next medical scare.

But this cannot keep going on..

I need serious help. I can’t get over this fear and it has enveloped my life, captivating my potential for a high quality of life. I am ready for a breakthrough and it needs to happen soon because my life is about to get so busy and it WILL NOT be held back by this disorder.

Please, anyone you’re more than welcome to talk to me. Tell me how to get help or tell me how to cope or share with me your experience with this.

Thank You

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