Feeling less lonely already - Hi!

[iBloke]

I wish I had discovered NMP a long time ago - until now I have always thought I was the only person in the world who felt like me. I've been lurking around the site for a couple of weeks and now I'm ready to dip my toes in the water. So, hi!

I am a 56 year old university teacher - married with two daughters 22 & 20. Thinking back I guess I have had health anxiety since my teens, although I only had a label put on it about 14 years ago when a straightforward visit to the docs and an off-the-cuff remark by him ("don't worry if you were really ill you'd be losing weight") led me to worry off 15kg in four months and the passing of almost another year until I accepted that I wasn't about die.

The anxiety is always there but the really bad times are episodic. I feel highly sensitised to changes in my mental and physical state and the slightest anomaly can trigger weeks or months of anxiety.

I have been on 50mg of Sertraline for over 10 years. I don't feel as though it has made much difference although it's impossible to know what I would have been like if I hadn't taken them. When I'm rational I am as rational as anyone - when I'm irrational nothing, it seems, can convince me that this isn't it this time.

After six months this year of coping with constant job-loss worries in spring and summer finally got resolved, the pent-up stress started manifesting itself through my health anxiety.

Another ill-judged reassurance visit to the doc has led to me increasing the Sertraline to 100mg which in turn has me experiencing or imagining a whole host of side effects. I'm in my fourth week now and the only changes I have experienced are negative ones - except that now I'm finding it almost impossible to cry even though I feel like I want to.

So it feels like it's set in for the long haul again. Writing this feels therapeutic in itself which, I guess is a start!

[tracieann]

hi i bloke its quite jaw dropping here to find out there are so so many people just normal average people who have this awful thing going on in their lives it can happen to anyone at anytime and is very hard to accept I am married have two kids 21 and 18 who i adore and a seemingly happy life working as of all things a medical receptionist at a local hospital the other side is that i have crippling health anxiety cancer phobia emetophobia and have had more tests than you could every think possible due to hypervigilance and obsessional thoughts i have been on citalopram 40mg for a long time .i have thought i had lung bowel stomach pancreatic brain liver and so many other cancers i have spent hours reading googling (not a good idea ) crying fretting symptom hunting dr visiting and Thank God all has been well i can sit and tell you all this rationally but the minute any symptoms appear i start again my husband is fab but even he gats fed up my sister just sighs and rolls her eyes luckily i have a wonderful gp who understands ha otherwise i dont know where id be you may feel strange for a while as they have increased your medication try to bear with it a little yet as for this lovely site help is only a login away good luck :welcome:

[rb1978]

I am the same; I think in the last year alone I have convinced myself I have ovarian cancer, cervical cancer, a brain tumour, leukeamia and bowel cancer. On the face of it I do what I think a lot of us do - muddle through at work or whatever and people don't really know we're sat there in the office convinced we have cancer. Sounds so silly to write it out like that.

I'd say my anxiety is always there in the background too, a symptom will trigger it. At it's worst I'll then sit there googling or crying over it.

I think hypervigilence is a terrible thing - when you're so attuned to your body, you notice every single sensation. I suffered with dizziness a few years ago, that was dreadful - I became utterly hypervigilent about everything to do with motion and was convinced I was going to collapse all the time whenever I went anywhere.

This site is a life saver though - just reading through the posts and knowing you are not alone is an absolute Godsend.

[iBloke]

Hi Tracieann & rb1978
Thanks for your replies. I agree about the hypervigilence. It's the worst aspect of HA for me, even more so than reassurance-seeking. I am constantly monitoring my physical and mental states - always before I get up in the morning and periodically throughout the day. Any sign of something irregular, even really trivial things, and I start to feel the anxiety build up. If I'm symptom-free I'm rational but the self-monitoring is still going on in the background making sure I don't miss anything - so it's never very long until something gets into my head.
The awful thing is that although I recognise how ridiculous and sad this sounds (especially when it's written down like this) I can't stop doing it.

[JustJules]

Hi ibloke, totally understand everything you are going through. I'm exactly the same. Sat here at work convinced I've got something ternminal, have lost weight, no appetite, all sorts of yukky symptoms I won't bore you with but also have totally rational moments from time to time.

I've also been going through a terrible time at work and about to lose my job due to redundancy and I've just been offered something else today and yet I can't face the thought of it and just want to go homoe and put my head under the duvet and forget about everything. My latest bout of HA started back in April and it's not getting any better despite me being on Citalopram for the last few years again and now paying to see a Hypnotherapist/Counsellor, who is great but as soon as I leave her, all the doubts of what I've just listened to set in and I'm back to square one. I don't know where the help is as I've realised that the NHS is just not equipped/interested in dealing with people like us and my family think I'm nuts, which doesn't help. I'm 56 and have been like this most of my life but with really long spells of being fine and then, wham, it hits again...I'm so tired of it all and running around in circles trying to find a solution.

At least like you say, you can come on here and offload onto like-minded folk who totally understand you!

I wish you well.

[iBloke]

Hi JustJules
Thanks for your reply. It might not be much consolation to you but just hearing that I'm not the only person in the world like this is a great help to me.
Over the years I have paid privately for hypno, counselling, existential therapy and CBT. They all work at the time when I'm there (at least the rational part of me sees the benefit) but they don't stop me being irrational when I get a symptom or two.
Currently, what are probably the side effects of being 25 days into my sertraline upgrade are fuelling my HA big-time. And nothing positive noted yet. It's tough!
Anyway, good luck with the new job - I wish you well too.

[JustJules]

Thanks. Just have a look at a link that someone posted on here that I looked at. It's really, really, good....quite long-winded and he apologises for repeating himself on several occasions as he's trying to get his message across to us, but brilliantly written by a fellow sufferer who has gained a really great perspective on HA and anxiety. I got so much from it - Note to self: re-read it!!!

nothingworks.weebly.com

If you can't get on the link, just google 'nothing works' and it's under there....