question to those who have recovered from HA

[roxy90]

How do you stop yourself from thinking the worst thing every time you develop a new 'symptom'?

Apart from a couple of blips I've been doing great for about 3 weeks now, I'm in a totally different place to what I was before and I'm very pleased. However if I get a pain or something my mind will automatically go to a serious illness.

Now I'm doing very well in not dwelling but sometimes I think oh god. I hve calf pain going into my shin. Hurts to touch worse when walking. My mind automatically goes to a blood clot, without even thinking. A lot of the time I can put these out of my head but sometimes I can't. I am now worrying ridiculously. How can I stop assuming the worst?

[LunaLiuna]

By rationalising them, instead of thinking blood clot, think 'oh maybe I've just strained my muscle' :)

[cpe1978]

I think Roxy that we need to understand that everyone has health worries and often everyone's minds will race to the worst conclusion. It is how we compute that information that I think sets people with HA aside, and also the extent to which we dwell on it.

This morning I had a visit from a structural engineer for some work I am getting done on my house. As we sat and had a coffee talking about his recommendations he mentioned that he and his wife had some bad news over the weekend. She had been having tummy troubles for a couple of years and in the end had a full body scan. They found a growth on her lung and kidney, in all likelihood a renal cancer that had spread.

They were to find out tomorrow how bad it is. The thing is, this guy had faith in the health profession, he was almost pragmatic. He knew that even if she were diagnosed that in all likelihood they would treat her and she would survive. Of course there is a risk that wasnt the case, but whilst there was hope, he hoped and today he had lots of it!

If that were you or I, I rather suspect that we would assume death was imminent! It did make me think.