Please help me with my Health anxiety

[leesome]

Hi I'm new here but so happy I have found this place.

I have suffered for a couple of decades with one thing or another and am diagnosed with OCD.

I am curently undergoing CBT but I am not improving, quite the opposite.
The CBT has removed any classic OCD, if there is such a thing, and left me with the full brutal pain of health anxiety. Almost is if the OCD symptoms were merely a better option to be consumed with than the alternative.

I'm a 41 year old smoker and I am convinced that it has finally caught up with me.

I monitor every breathe, I have mild asthma (no lectures please), I feel every rib expand every time I breathe and am short of breathe constantly. But when I am pre-occupied elsewhere I am not!!!!!

I worry I am going to have an heart attack and will leave my kids and wife alone.

When I look into the future it is black..blank..nothing there.

I feel silly writing this so I'll cut it short... where do I go to find help...are there good books or litterature..what about good therapists in the Midlands or North West.

Please help me, I have 2 kids that are just going through the final diagnosis for Aspergers and my wife cannot take anymore.
Lee

[looking4answers]

Hi,

You are in very good company here.Many of us have all kinds of anxiety and also are smokers.. Unless you have been diagnosed with lung issues.. then im thinking you are being a little anxious about that. Im 55 and I have been smoking since I was 14 and well..Its not caught up with me yet and we live at one mile and a half above sea level.. People at sea level have 25 percent more oxygen.. so well so much for worry.. Anyway welcome here and we are all here for you .. Hope you are feeling better.. Michael