skippy66
28-05-14, 12:15
Below is a chapter from my book, How to Beat Health Anxiety. I hope some of you relate to this, and I would welcome any comments/questions/feedback below:
How do I know if I have health anxiety?
This is a tricky one because if you have health anxiety you may think that your symptoms can’t possibly be caused by your mind and not some serious physical disease. Doctors have to tread carefully - the threat of litigation looms large if they wrongly diagnose a genuinely ill person with health anxiety. In fact, ‘genuinely ill’ is the wrong phrase because people with health anxiety experience symptoms which make them feel genuinely ill - they get real stomach pains, real muscle twitches, real headaches. Health anxiety is not about pretending you’re ill or looking for attention, it’s about being terrified that these genuine symptoms you’re experiencing are a sign of imminent death. In the face of real symptoms, doctors can do nothing but order the required tests to rule out anything serious.
In my experience of health anxiety there are several indicators of the problem. These are things that I used to do, and you might do them too:
Obsessive online research about your symptoms
I would consult Google every time I got the slightest twinge of pain or weird symptom that I couldn’t easily explain. I got an iPhone four years ago and that’s when my health anxiety hit an all-time high. Previously I could only google health stuff when I had access to a computer; now I could do it whenever and wherever I wanted: in a car, on the sofa, on the loo! ‘Dr Google’, as I like to call him, became my 24/7 on-call doctor, sometimes offering reassurance but often suggesting that I probably had something terminal. It got so bad that I was researching various symptoms every single day, sometimes for hours a day. I became an expert in several fields of medicine (in my own mind) and believed I knew more about certain conditions than the doctors I saw.
You are never adequately reassured
No matter how many medical tests you have, no matter how many reassuring articles you read online, and no matter how many doctors tell you that they can’t find anything wrong, you are never fully reassured. With health anxiety you are locked in a vicious cycle of reassurance-seeking, finding temporary reassurance, experiencing new symptoms (or the same symptoms), doubting that original reassurance and seeking new reassurance. If you find yourself constantly seeking reassurance about your health you probably have health anxiety.
You have trouble being on your own
I never wanted to be alone in case I had a heart attack or stroke and there was nobody there to revive me or call for help. Whenever my wife left me alone in the house my anxiety levels would increase and this would cause more symptoms. The anxiety increased when my children were born, as I felt extra pressure to be ‘well enough’ to look after them on my own.
Another habit I fell into was using my wife for reassurance. I would always tell her my latest worrying symptom and say: “Do you think this is normal?” Part of the reason for telling her how I was feeling was to give her advanced warning to be ‘ready’ just in case that headache did turn out to be a stroke. She had to put up with a lot - I think this is probably the case with many spouses/partners of people with health anxiety. I am so grateful to have had such an understanding and patient wife during this period. I would not tell my friends about my problems due to embarrassment - my social circle never suspected a thing.
You avoid medical TV shows
Before health anxiety kicked in for me I used to watch and enjoy shows like Casualty and ER without a care in the world. When the health anxiety became a problem I avoided these shows like the plague. I didn’t want to see or hear anything that mentioned serious illness of any kind. I was so hyper-sensitive to the mere mention of health problems that I developed what I like to call ‘health anxiety dyslexia’. I was so obsessed with my health that I would mis-read or mis-hear words as medical-related words. For example, someone once mentioned the name ‘Jasper’ on a TV show and I heard ‘chest pain’. The word ‘artifacts’ became ‘heart attacks’. Not even avoiding everything health-related worked.
You lurch from one symptom to the next
One week I would be obsessed with ache in my left arm which I was convinced was a sign of an impending heart attack. It was probably the way I lay on it in bed. The next week another symptom took hold, such as numbness in my right foot which I thought must be MS or a brain tumour. When the numbness in the foot started, the arm ache disappeared. The following week would see a completely new symptom occupying my thoughts and making me think I was seriously ill. Symptoms came and went regularly. Some would reappear, others would vanish forever for no particular reason. I got so bad that whenever I saw a doctor I felt like I didn’t know where to start with the vast number of symptoms I needed to ask him for reassurance about.
You catastrophise
People with health anxiety tend to automatically think of the worst outcome for any symptom, and as I’ve already mentioned Dr Google tends to back this up. It’s called catastrophising - thinking that a head pain is definitely a stroke, a heart palpitation is definitely going to be fatal, a tingling in your head is definitely MS. For me this extended to other things - a bit of turbulence meant that the plane was definitely about to crash. When you’re in this state of mind you are constantly ‘on edge’. My general anxiety levels were very high and this even triggered full blown panic attacks from time to time. My blood pressure was high and this caused even greater anxiety about my heart.
You are generally unhappy
Living with health anxiety is not pleasant. Thinking you’re about to die is one of the most stressful things a human being can experience, and when this happens several times every day it is bound to have a negative effect on your mood and general outlook. I had so much to be happy about in my twenties - a beautiful wife, two amazing children and a good job which afforded me lots of free time to spend with my family. There were plenty of times I felt happy and normal (when I wasn’t experiencing symptoms), but the next scary symptom was never far away and it made me think the world was ending. I felt I had too much to lose.
You feel like nobody really understands
The other thing about living with health anxiety is that it tends to be poorly understood by anyone who hasn’t experienced it. Some people think that hypochondriacs are attention-seeking and self-centred, always focusing on themselves rather than others. In my own experience this is not the case at all. I have never been an attention-seeker - I shun the limelight. I experienced real physical symptoms which, although tests have proved weren’t serious, often caused a great deal of physical pain and stress. Health anxiety is being in an almost constant state of terror that you’re going to die of something horrible. It isn’t about fabricating symptoms in order to get time off work or an attempt to get sympathy from people.
How do I know if I have health anxiety?
This is a tricky one because if you have health anxiety you may think that your symptoms can’t possibly be caused by your mind and not some serious physical disease. Doctors have to tread carefully - the threat of litigation looms large if they wrongly diagnose a genuinely ill person with health anxiety. In fact, ‘genuinely ill’ is the wrong phrase because people with health anxiety experience symptoms which make them feel genuinely ill - they get real stomach pains, real muscle twitches, real headaches. Health anxiety is not about pretending you’re ill or looking for attention, it’s about being terrified that these genuine symptoms you’re experiencing are a sign of imminent death. In the face of real symptoms, doctors can do nothing but order the required tests to rule out anything serious.
In my experience of health anxiety there are several indicators of the problem. These are things that I used to do, and you might do them too:
Obsessive online research about your symptoms
I would consult Google every time I got the slightest twinge of pain or weird symptom that I couldn’t easily explain. I got an iPhone four years ago and that’s when my health anxiety hit an all-time high. Previously I could only google health stuff when I had access to a computer; now I could do it whenever and wherever I wanted: in a car, on the sofa, on the loo! ‘Dr Google’, as I like to call him, became my 24/7 on-call doctor, sometimes offering reassurance but often suggesting that I probably had something terminal. It got so bad that I was researching various symptoms every single day, sometimes for hours a day. I became an expert in several fields of medicine (in my own mind) and believed I knew more about certain conditions than the doctors I saw.
You are never adequately reassured
No matter how many medical tests you have, no matter how many reassuring articles you read online, and no matter how many doctors tell you that they can’t find anything wrong, you are never fully reassured. With health anxiety you are locked in a vicious cycle of reassurance-seeking, finding temporary reassurance, experiencing new symptoms (or the same symptoms), doubting that original reassurance and seeking new reassurance. If you find yourself constantly seeking reassurance about your health you probably have health anxiety.
You have trouble being on your own
I never wanted to be alone in case I had a heart attack or stroke and there was nobody there to revive me or call for help. Whenever my wife left me alone in the house my anxiety levels would increase and this would cause more symptoms. The anxiety increased when my children were born, as I felt extra pressure to be ‘well enough’ to look after them on my own.
Another habit I fell into was using my wife for reassurance. I would always tell her my latest worrying symptom and say: “Do you think this is normal?” Part of the reason for telling her how I was feeling was to give her advanced warning to be ‘ready’ just in case that headache did turn out to be a stroke. She had to put up with a lot - I think this is probably the case with many spouses/partners of people with health anxiety. I am so grateful to have had such an understanding and patient wife during this period. I would not tell my friends about my problems due to embarrassment - my social circle never suspected a thing.
You avoid medical TV shows
Before health anxiety kicked in for me I used to watch and enjoy shows like Casualty and ER without a care in the world. When the health anxiety became a problem I avoided these shows like the plague. I didn’t want to see or hear anything that mentioned serious illness of any kind. I was so hyper-sensitive to the mere mention of health problems that I developed what I like to call ‘health anxiety dyslexia’. I was so obsessed with my health that I would mis-read or mis-hear words as medical-related words. For example, someone once mentioned the name ‘Jasper’ on a TV show and I heard ‘chest pain’. The word ‘artifacts’ became ‘heart attacks’. Not even avoiding everything health-related worked.
You lurch from one symptom to the next
One week I would be obsessed with ache in my left arm which I was convinced was a sign of an impending heart attack. It was probably the way I lay on it in bed. The next week another symptom took hold, such as numbness in my right foot which I thought must be MS or a brain tumour. When the numbness in the foot started, the arm ache disappeared. The following week would see a completely new symptom occupying my thoughts and making me think I was seriously ill. Symptoms came and went regularly. Some would reappear, others would vanish forever for no particular reason. I got so bad that whenever I saw a doctor I felt like I didn’t know where to start with the vast number of symptoms I needed to ask him for reassurance about.
You catastrophise
People with health anxiety tend to automatically think of the worst outcome for any symptom, and as I’ve already mentioned Dr Google tends to back this up. It’s called catastrophising - thinking that a head pain is definitely a stroke, a heart palpitation is definitely going to be fatal, a tingling in your head is definitely MS. For me this extended to other things - a bit of turbulence meant that the plane was definitely about to crash. When you’re in this state of mind you are constantly ‘on edge’. My general anxiety levels were very high and this even triggered full blown panic attacks from time to time. My blood pressure was high and this caused even greater anxiety about my heart.
You are generally unhappy
Living with health anxiety is not pleasant. Thinking you’re about to die is one of the most stressful things a human being can experience, and when this happens several times every day it is bound to have a negative effect on your mood and general outlook. I had so much to be happy about in my twenties - a beautiful wife, two amazing children and a good job which afforded me lots of free time to spend with my family. There were plenty of times I felt happy and normal (when I wasn’t experiencing symptoms), but the next scary symptom was never far away and it made me think the world was ending. I felt I had too much to lose.
You feel like nobody really understands
The other thing about living with health anxiety is that it tends to be poorly understood by anyone who hasn’t experienced it. Some people think that hypochondriacs are attention-seeking and self-centred, always focusing on themselves rather than others. In my own experience this is not the case at all. I have never been an attention-seeker - I shun the limelight. I experienced real physical symptoms which, although tests have proved weren’t serious, often caused a great deal of physical pain and stress. Health anxiety is being in an almost constant state of terror that you’re going to die of something horrible. It isn’t about fabricating symptoms in order to get time off work or an attempt to get sympathy from people.