Is it possible to get over HA with constant physical symptoms?

[Ben1989]

Hi everyone,

I would say I've had HA for well over a year now and during this time I've never not had a hard physical symptom (not a single week or month without).

My question is therefore this - is it possible to get over HA when big physical symptoms present themselves on a day to day basis, not just a case of worrying but suffering physically?

[swajj]

No I don’t think so. Go see the neurologist and when he or she tells you that you don’t have a neurological disease you can start to address your HA. The biggest mistake you can make is getting the all clear from a neuro and believing you are over your HA. Something else will happen. It may be different symptoms of MS or ALS which suddenly appear and make you wonder if the neuro would have had a different opinion if you’d had them at the time of your visit. Or it may be the perceived symptoms of a different illness entirely. Your HA led you to believe that you have MS or another neurological disease and your HA will lead you to believe something else. That’s how it works.

[Ben1989]

So how do you get over it?

[swajj]

You have to speak to an expert about your symptoms. If you don’t you will continue to believe that you have something neurological. You could start counselling but I think you will have it in the back of your mind the whole time. Are you scared to see a neuro Ben?

[Ben1989]

You have to speak to an expert about your symptoms. If you don’t you will continue to believe that you have something neurological. You could start counselling but I think you will have it in the back of your mind the whole time. Are you scared to see a neuro Ben?

I started to see a counsellor and to be honest I didn't have the best confidence with her as she had never heard of HA and didn't do CBT. We just chatted and I was all chatted out after two sessions.

I'm not no. I do want to see one but I'm not sure if my GP would tell me no.

[swajj]

You need to find a different counsellor. My psych told me that after about 6 weeks of counselling I would notice an improvement. At the end of 6 weeks I noticed no improvement at all. But then I started to notice little changes in the way I viewed my health problems. It was an incredibly slow process and it took me a long time to recover completely. I could have symptoms 24/7 but during my 50 minute sessions with him I was symptom free. He made me challenge my thought processes and I didn’t have time to focus on my symptoms.

---------- Post added at 18:48 ---------- Previous post was at 18:44 ----------

Counselling is a slow process but you still need the right therapist. I would tell your doctor that you want to attend counselling but in order to give it the best chance to work you need to see a neuro to get the all clear. Your doctor should subscribe to the view that if you have been given the medical all clear it is time to address your mental health issues.

[Ben1989]

That sounds great.

I need to look into a different counsellor/company who have dealt more with HA

[Beckybecks]

It's definitely a slow process. We've trained our brains to panic about every little symptom and now we have to untrain.
That's what CBT is all about but it takes a lot of effort and self discipline.
I think it's similar to being an alcoholic or anorexic. It's ALWAYS there but you can control it.

[cattia]

I would say it depends how consistent the symptoms are. If you see a neurologist and they give you the all clear I doubt it would help in the longer term, you would just move on to a different worry and then it's a wait to see another specialist and so the cycle continues. If your symptoms are always there but they change from one thing to another as your worries shift then that's a good sign that they are anxiety. If you have q constant bothersome symptom then it's worth getting checked out but remember anxiety can cause a full spectrum of physical issues and you definitely have it, the chances of you simultaneously having two conditions that cause the same physical symptoms, are low.

[swajj]

That sounds great.

I need to look into a different counsellor/company who have dealt more with HA

I’m not sure how many counsellors specialise in health anxiety Ben. Mine didn’t but with his help I recovered. My psych is old and I reckon he’ll retire soon. If I ever had HA again I would try to find someone who specialises in anxiety disorders. In Australia, many psychologists include the areas they specialise in in their details.

I often try to work out how my thought processes are different now that I am HA free compared to how they were when I was consumed by HA. One thing in particular stands out to me. That is that I don’t focus on my body anymore. If I have a headache I take a couple of headache tablets and expect it to go away. When I had HA I would wonder what was causing the headache. Just recently my eye was twitching for weeks. I know that my eye twitches when I am under a lot of stress. It had been an extremely busy time at work and my first and only thought was that. The HA consumed me would have (and did) worry if it was a sign of a neurological disorder. Only to cause twitches elsewhere resulting in more worry because it was further evidence of MS or ALS or whatever.

No one can tell you how to overcome your HA. There is no magic pill, no book, website or video that holds the answer. You need to change the way you think. I couldn’t have done that without the guidance of an expert. Go and see the neurologist Ben. Not for tests but for a chat. Remember that old neuro I told you about who used to post here? I remember him saying that specialists in a field like neurology don’t look at symptoms in isolation. They look at the company they keep. It is highly likely that the neuro you see will tell you that you don’t require tests.

[daisyflower]

It's possible, yes, because physical symptoms don't ever stop. There is always something to worry about.
A huge distraction is the best way to get over it. My health anxiety completely went away for 4 years when I got pregnant. I still had the physical symptoms for a month or so, but I stopped caring about them as I had something 'bigger' to focus on and they eventually went away.

l try to take the 'oh well, if I've got [insert whatever it is im worrying about] then I have it and that's just the way it is' approach but this works better on people like me who are afraid of going the doctors and avoid them.