View Full Version : My thoughts on health anxiety - some may help you
Having lived with health anxiety for 14 years I have done a lot of thinking and reading about the causes of anxiety and the methods used to control it. Maybe a few of them may help you a little.
Unfortunately it seems that most people with health anxiety, including myself, have trouble cinvincing themself that what they have is health anxiety. We spend so much time worrying about all of the conditions we could have, we do not look after the real problem, the health anxiety.
If you have thought in the last few years that you could have various different illnesses and have ended up not having them, and you find yourself worrying about simple symptoms to the point where you convince yourself you have a serious Illness, then you have health anxiety and you need to turn your attention to the condition you have, rather than the various conditions your health anxiety is making you think you have.
From my own experience alone i can give you the following list if symptoms that can be caused by your health anxiety...
* heart palpitaions and / or rapid heart beat
* periods of high blood preassure
* Skin itching
* Stomach cramps
* frequent urination
* headache
* skin rash (yes anxiety can give you a rash)
* loss if appetite
* Lack of concentration
* Disturbed sleep
* Sweats
* Becoming emotional (crying) at things you would not usaully become emotional about.
* Thoughts fixed on one thing (The illness you are worried about at the time) no matter what is going on around you.
* The feeling that something bad is about to happen.
There are lots more possible symptoms, but the ones above are the ones i have experienced and have related to anxiety.
You need to admit to youself that you have health anxiety and come to terms with the fact that it is in itself a condition. When i first came to terms with this i felt embarrassed about it, but i was wrong to do so because it is a real illness, not just you being stupid.
I have found that although health anxiety feels nasty, something in my brains feels comforted by the feeling of thinking there is something wrong with me. It doesnt feel nice but i can definately tell that for some reason my brain NEEDS to worry about something. This is what i have come to beleive that health anxiety is... for some reason the brain gets so used to worrying about something, when there is nothing to worry about, it FINDS something to worry about. A small malfunction of the brain perhaps, or possible a type of addiction / dependency to the chemicals that the brain produces when you are anxious. That is just my thought on it and is not based on any medical findings.
Do you find that when you are not worrying about your health, you worry about something else, and then when you begin to worry about your health, none of your other problems seem at all important? I know thats what happens to me, and i think that is a big part of it.
So how do we go about dealing with health anxiety. Well there is no easy answer to this because your symptoms are caused by the same organ that you will need to use to deal with the symptoms. There seems to be no magic cure, and dealing with axniety will not happen overnight.
Here's a few things that may help you to reduce your health anxiety...
* Stop looking up symtoms on the internet (this is the very worst thing you can do)
* Stop checking your body for small symptoms, spots, rashes and lumps. (once every six months you can check for lumps in breast or testicles but no more than that is needed)
* Stop checking your stools and urine for colour changes (nobody who does not have health anxiety does this)
* Tell your doctor that you beleive you have health anxiety and ask him if there is anything he can recommend, such as counciling.
* Do breathing exercises. Lay on your back and breath in for 5 and out for 6 seconds. Do this when you get symptoms such as tingling or heart palpitations, or during intense anxiety.
* Go for a walk every day. So simple to do and helps you so much. I dont know why but walki
once again good advice
thankyou and keep it up
how to not fear though. how to break this cycle
jackie
Wow, pretty inspirational stuff. i hope we hear a lot more from you mate!!
Shiv x
Thank you so much for putting into words a lot of the feelings I get but find hard to articulate. I too seem to hop from one worry to the next - it's as if I cant just allow myself to be happy - I seem to look for things in a constant chain. My doctor knows me pretty well now whereas a few years ago she had no idea who I was, however, none of my symptoms have ever been caused by a serious medical problem.
worriedGrace
10-04-08, 16:40
Thank you for explaining health anxiety so well and suggesting ways to avoid it. I can always spot someone with health anxiety but with me it is always the real thing. Rather like an alcoholic can see that someone else is one but not himself.It just annoys me that so much of my life has been taken up worrying about things that have never happened.
Coolrvrsally
08-10-08, 00:11
thanks for the good words.
I'm glad this popped back up to the top of the current threads because I'd never seen it before.
I'm particularly interested in what JBgood said about needing to be worried about something. I have tended to worry obsessively about something all my life, health sometimes, other things at other times. The last 5-6 months the health anx has been uppermost.
I think also that I have some weird, almost subconcious belief that if I don't worry about a potentially bad thing, it might happen. Or that if I think about a good thing too much, it won't happen. I sometimes feel that if I stop worrying about the plane crashing, it will crash. Like me worrying about it is the thing that's keeping it in the air. :blush:I know it's ridiculous on a concious level, but it's there, just on the edge of my mind, where I can't quite grab it and throttle it :).
As for health anx, I think there's a part of my brain that believes that if I don't worry about a symptom, no matter how trivial, it will turn out to be something serious and life-threatening. I can remember thinking these things as a child, maybe I've never completely grown out of it. It's disturbing because I don't think I'm a superstitious person at all, mostly I'm quite logical and rational. But I have this. Huh.
So agree with LeeBee. I think my health anxiety is a kind of 'control' thing. There is part of me which thinks if I am on constant 'guard duty' I can stop things happening, if I'm not constantly worrying something bad is waiting to happen. I actually feel suspicious and scared if I have nothing to worry about. I'm actually afraid of being happy, because I know there will be a price to pay. I know this sounds insane, but panic isn't rational. Due to problems when I was a kid after my father died I learned not to show my feelings because I knew I would be punished - eg: sexually abused or something, so I stopped showing my emotions and these days I can't show my feelings. I think this also leads to frightening physical symptoms - because the emotions I can't show have to be expressed in some way and they go back into my body and scare the hell out of me. Sometimes after I've had a bad bout of the 'terrors' - like a couple of days ago - I get the most wonderful feeling of peace for a few days and then it all starts building up again.
I'm glad this popped back up to the top of the current threads because I'd never seen it before.
I think also that I have some weird, almost subconcious belief that if I don't worry about a potentially bad thing, it might happen. Or that if I think about a good thing too much, it won't happen. I sometimes feel that if I stop worrying about the plane crashing, it will crash. Like me worrying about it is the thing that's keeping it in the air. :blush:I know it's ridiculous on a concious level, but it's there, just on the edge of my mind, where I can't quite grab it and throttle it :).
I agree this is an excellent thread. I also have to say that I can relate to what Leebee has said. I AM superstitious though (irritatingly more so recently--you should feel my panic when I see a single magpie), and for me I find it terrifying to think 'positive', because I feel as if I'm tempting fate and sods law will come back around and bite me on the proverbial. I know that this is a dangerous way to think and have to wonder how the heck CBT is going to help me with such a mindset. *sigh*
Having lived with health anxiety for 14 years I have done a lot of thinking and reading about the causes of anxiety and the methods used to control it. Maybe a few of them may help you a little.
Unfortunately it seems that most people with health anxiety, including myself, have trouble cinvincing themself that what they have is health anxiety. We spend so much time worrying about all of the conditions we could have, we do not look after the real problem, the health anxiety.
If you have thought in the last few years that you could have various different illnesses and have ended up not having them, and you find yourself worrying about simple symptoms to the point where you convince yourself you have a serious Illness, then you have health anxiety and you need to turn your attention to the condition you have, rather than the various conditions your health anxiety is making you think you have.
From my own experience alone i can give you the following list if symptoms that can be caused by your health anxiety...
* heart palpitaions and / or rapid heart beat
* periods of high blood preassure
* Skin itching
* Stomach cramps
* frequent urination
* headache
* skin rash (yes anxiety can give you a rash)
* loss if appetite
* Lack of concentration
* Disturbed sleep
* Sweats
* Becoming emotional (crying) at things you would not usaully become emotional about.
* Thoughts fixed on one thing (The illness you are worried about at the time) no matter what is going on around you.
* The feeling that something bad is about to happen.
There are lots more possible symptoms, but the ones above are the ones i have experienced and have related to anxiety.
You need to admit to youself that you have health anxiety and come to terms with the fact that it is in itself a condition. When i first came to terms with this i felt embarrassed about it, but i was wrong to do so because it is a real illness, not just you being stupid.
I have found that although health anxiety feels nasty, something in my brains feels comforted by the feeling of thinking there is something wrong with me. It doesnt feel nice but i can definately tell that for some reason my brain NEEDS to worry about something. This is what i have come to beleive that health anxiety is... for some reason the brain gets so used to worrying about something, when there is nothing to worry about, it FINDS something to worry about. A small malfunction of the brain perhaps, or possible a type of addiction / dependency to the chemicals that the brain produces when you are anxious. That is just my thought on it and is not based on any medical findings.
Do you find that when you are not worrying about your health, you worry about something else, and then when you begin to worry about your health, none of your other problems seem at all important? I know thats what happens to me, and i think that is a big part of it.
So how do we go about dealing with health anxiety. Well there is no easy answer to this because your symptoms are caused by the same organ that you will need to use to deal with the symptoms. There seems to be no magic cure, and dealing with axniety will not happen overnight.
Here's a few things that may help you to reduce your health anxiety...
* Stop looking up symtoms on the internet (this is the very worst thing you can do)
* Stop checking your body for small symptoms, spots, rashes and lumps. (once every six months you can check for lumps in breast or testicles but no more than that is needed)
* Stop checking your stools and urine for colour changes (nobody who does not have health anxiety does this)
* Tell your doctor that you beleive you have health anxiety and ask him if there is anything he can recommend, such as counciling.
* Do breathing exercises. Lay on your back and breath in for 5 and out for 6 seconds. Do this when you get symptoms such as tingling or heart palpitations, or during intense anxiety.
* Go for a walk every day. So simple to do and helps you so much. I dont know why but walki
I have had health anxiety for along time on and off. I have tried to ease it with different things. I feel the only way that you can try and help yourself is to practice relaxation when you aren't going through a health worry. Try to set yourself up for when it happens, rather than having nothing to fight when it does hit you. Even so I'm still struggling with it so it doesn't always work.
Kathy
strawberrie
09-10-08, 10:16
this is such an interesting thread :) i can totally relate to so many of the things people have said here - i don't think of myself as a superstitious person but i do have this fear that i am tempting fate if i allow myself to be happy, things like booking a holiday in advance is a big no-no for me cos looking forward to something nice means something bad will happen :weep:
i also tend to change from worry to the next, sometimes i will have a few health worries all at the same time but one will be dominant, and then once i get over that one, one of the others will take its place, its exhausting! :mad:
a great book i have read (lots of times) is 'the worry cure' by Robert Leahy - it deals with all these reasons why we worry (we think it will protect us from bad things happening, feeling an overwhelming responsibility to check out every symptom just in case etc.) - i have found this book really comforting and helpful and would recommend it to anyone who has thoughts like these :yesyes:
it is very nice to hear that people have the same thoughts as me (i dont mean that i wish health anxiety on anyone, but its nice to know i'm not the only who feels like this) :hugs:
The best book I have read on this in a long time is the one Nic is selling in the NMP shop for peanuts called unsurprisingly 'Overcoming Health Anxiety'. :yesyes:
Piglet :flowers:
LeeBee - (and everyone else, including JBGood, who started this thread) - so much of what you have said I can relate to - you won't believe how much.
Basically, in a very short nutshell - I didn't have HA until I found my mother dead at the age of 12 - totally out of the blue and unexpected. She only had a melanoma (I say 'only' - nowadays, a totally preventable cancer, but back in the 70's, there was sooo much we didn't know and she didn't take action quickly enough so it was deadly).
So now I know that my mind subconsciously does exactly what you said LeeBee - it tries to control things. If I worry about something, perhaps I can lessen its impact or stop it happening, whereas if I don't - it's going to happen, WHAM, come down on me like a ton of bricks when I was least expecting it.........
So that's it - that's why I worry and get anxious about every tiny little symptom. There is no part of my body that has remained untouched by this in the last twenty odd years. But mostly, it is fear of the Big C, which is what killed my mother.
Now all I have to do is stop it! Ha ha - like it was THAT easy!
Im with you all on this.
I can stop a plane crashing with my worrying.!! lol.thats the power i have. the more i think about it the less it is likely to happen.
My best worry is about dying in the street, work or a place where there are no ambulances! cos its never happened, dosn't mean it won't!
I worry i have ovarian cancer, skin cancer, gonna get my moles checked though, leg dvt, brain heamorrage(sp), and that my indigestion and gastritis cannot possibly cause pain in my chest, and breast and that actually im on the way to a heart attack, this though is the longest running heart attack in history, as at this moment i have worried about this for 3 months!
However, years ago i bought a cd from the charity no panic(i dont know if this sight has connections with it now) its a cd where you tense each muscle group and then relax, my God i swear this works, but needs doing every day even if you are having a good day. I remember the first time i did this i thought i was dying! in fact it was relaxation. lol.
there are days when i sit and i am relaxed, and then im superstitious about why i am feeling that way, you know.........calm before the storm, so then i get tense again. Honestly i know what is wrong with me, but sometimes i work hard and get great months, and had a good year so i know it can be done. the thing i wont let it do is ruin my life. Claire Weekes dares me to stand in the midst of it and accept what it is, and there is the start....to accept and live the life you have been given.
I go on holiday every year, i have a husband and child and will not let it stop us from doing this, i work full time, and i go away for days, i have my kids friends round on a weekend. dont get me wrong this is hard, but worth the effort. Ive even booked again to go to africa, the middle of nowhere, but there is a hospital!! know exactly where it is!
I suppose what im trying to say is,........health anxiety is terrible, its ruins our right to enjoy life, to express ourselves, to make the most of our relationships, takes our sense of humour, but the good moments we do have can lead to good hours, good days and eventually a good month. we need to tackle it first though, and dont let it win.
jools
excellent thread, with very good advice
dawny xxxxx
piglits pal
11-10-08, 16:25
Im with you all on this.
I can stop a plane crashing with my worrying.!! lol.thats the power i have. the more i think about it the less it is likely to happen.
That's it isn't it. The more we worry about it the less likely it will happen to us.
How to break the cycle? Tell me please.:blush:
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