Health anxiety over husband?

[Pinguanxious]

Wow it’s been a very long time since I’ve used this forum.

Ok so I suffer with GAD and OVD ( mainly pure O as it goes hand in hand with my anxiety and half the time I don’t know whether it’s my ocd hat or my anxiety hat, although I am incredibly bad with locks plugs etc) but anyways my background is all in my previous posts.

Basically my husband got sick this year, pneumonia. He’s 28. We rushed him to hospital because he was having chest pains that left him crippled in agony.
He has always been in good health. So when they said pneumonia we was surprised. No cough, no sputum, a very very mild fever. But mainly just pain.
I’ll try and keep it short, but it developed into pleural effusion ( fluid in the lung )
At this point he still didn’t have a lot of pneumonia symptoms. I went on google.... big mistake. I wasn’t trying to diagnose. I was trying to understand how he got pneumonia and what we could do about it.
The big C word. Causes pleural effusions and pneumonia and C can be hidden by pneumonia... after that, the rest was history.
He has had his lung drained
6 xrays and a CT scan. All show pneumonia.
He has an enlarged lymph node in his chest too. And at the latest appointment the pneumonia was 10x better and we was officially discharged from the hospital. His bloods are now normal. All chest pain is gone.
Doctors have said they don’t suspect C.

He has a cough, aparantly it’s normal. But getting to the point of my story

It’s been 3 weeks since discharge. He still has a cough,
7 weeks since the lung drain.

I’m obsessed that C is actually the cause. That it caused pneumonia and is now hiding.
Everything I have read says that health anxiety focuses on yourself. I am a bit of a googler and worrier with myself but nothing on this level.
It takes up all of my day, it’s always there. I spend hours trying to get evidence
Husband is adamant he’s now fine and the cough is normal and that it’s my ocd/anxiety doing this

But hospitals miss things and can you even have this health anxiety over someone else?

I am pleased to say I did come off my meds a year ago, they got me through the worst time in my life I’m mostly better than I was ten years ago. But this has baffled me.

Any advice would be appreciated. I can’t go back on meds because we want to start trying for a baby ( it got delayed due to the illness of course )
Thankyou! X

[cofo]

this is not the way that lung cancer would normally present. my mother had it and they found it right away just with a chest xray.
if he got pneumonia from having lung cancer, it would be advanced enough for it to show on a CT scan, let alone one of the 6 xrays
also, pneumonia happens at any age, from babies to elderly. however, lung cancer doesn't normally happen in a 28 year old healthy male.
lastly, he is better.
get off of google and start trying to make a baby!!

[Fishmanpa]

All the reassurance you need is in your own post ;)

Positive thoughts

[ankietyjoe]

The reason this is baffling you is that you're not qualified to diagnose a medical condition, especially one that's already been diagnosed, treated AND cured.

A few hours on Google doesn't trump a decade of medical school.

[Pinguanxious]

Turns out i have TWO accounts and this is the one I always used lol. I don’t know how I signed into the other one I may have to deactivate it.
To clarify I am also sharn18 but I’ll use this account and contact admin to deactivate the other one.

Thankyou for your responses. I uunderstand not a medical professional
I also understand this isn’t valid worry’s I know it ties into my other issues, but I was asking can you have health anxiety over other people as everything I see seems to focus on yourself not someone else?

X

[Pinguanxious]

P.s COFO

That last line gave me a chuckle 😂

[lofwyr]

I had walking pneumonia once and coughed for four months straight before it cleared up finally. He could be coughing for weeks and weeks still. Your body takes a long time to clear itself of fluids in the lungs

[Pinguanxious]

Lofwyr it’s amazing how oneumonia does that. I mean logically I believe the doctors. However as many people know logic doesn’t always work. The fluid drained was horrible too. It was kind of like Fanta fruit twist colour ... worry of that puts anyone off Fanta lol!
The doctors did say several months. Like I said to my husband, he started getting sick New Year’s Day so to me he’s been sick for four months but realistically only fully finished treatment three weeks ago. As it didn’t clear properly for ages!

Thankyou for your response! Hope you are ok now? Did you have any long term effects? They said that scarring can occur. That just sounds nasty! X

[nomorepanic]

Admin have seen your two accounts and will merge them

[Pinguanxious]

THANKYOU! This is the one I use. I was going to use the contact page but saves me a job! Great stuff thanks! Xx

[Pinguanxious]

Can I ask since I seem to have missed the vital question, has anyone got any advice on how to overcome health anxiety without medication?
I know that it’s playing up because we want to start a family and the idea of being a single parent petrifies me. That’s obviously what this has stemmed from.
Any advice on overcoming, tips and tricks would be appreciated. I don’t want reassurance on my husband though because after my lifelong ocd and anxiety battle I am aware reassurance seeking is a massive no no.
Just advice on the anxiety itself ☺️☺️ Thankyou lovely people x

[ankietyjoe]

Can I ask since I seem to have missed the vital question, has anyone got any advice on how to overcome health anxiety without medication?
I know that it’s playing up because we want to start a family and the idea of being a single parent petrifies me. That’s obviously what this has stemmed from.
Any advice on overcoming, tips and tricks would be appreciated. I don’t want reassurance on my husband though because after my lifelong ocd and anxiety battle I am aware reassurance seeking is a massive no no.
Just advice on the anxiety itself ☺️☺️ Thankyou lovely people x

Stop Googling, period. HA is a habit more than any other kind of anxiety. It's self perpetuating and almost always fuelled by the sufferers actions.

[AMomentofClarity]

Stop Googling, period. HA is a habit more than any other kind of anxiety. It's self perpetuating and almost always fuelled by the sufferers actions.

Absolutely this!

i would also add that you have to come to terms with the unknown. Yes, illness/death happen. But guess what? You’re not preventing any of it by worrying. Control what you can in terms of healthy lifestyle and let the rest take care of itself.

[Pinguanxious]

That’s the bit I’m trying on most, half tempted to block google on my phone lol!
But I have resisted temption to google lung cancer today, instead I have tried to focus on googling CBT techniques, try and relearn some of the old stuff I have forgotten.

I have suffered with ocd and anxiety since a family trauma at 5. ( diagnosed officially by a phsychologist not dr google) so I am no stranger to all of the symptoms. Sometimes we all need a bit of support.
Thankyou joe

[Pinguanxious]

Absolutely this!

i would also add that you have to come to terms with the unknown. Yes, illness/death happen. But guess what? You’re not preventing any of it by worrying. Control what you can in terms of healthy lifestyle and let the rest take care of itself.

I think the problem is, yes we will all die, and although I don’t like the idea of it I’m accepting of it, my husband is my safety net so to speak. Like a comfort blanket, that’s probably why I’m more concerned about his life than I am my own. But I agree with you 100%! Thankyou for your advice

[ankietyjoe]

The main problem with Dr Google is that literally any symptom you put in there can and will eventually lead to something terminal. Every time, 100% There are no exceptions to this.

For example, the most common complaint that Dr's see is back pain. And does that lead to cancer on Google? Of course it does.

There is absolutely no way you can use Google as a tool for reassurance. What you are in fact doing is absolutely guaranteeing to make yourself feel worse, every time, no exception.

I would recommend meditation. Look into it, read up on it, and start practising it. Fundamentally, meditation is a training tool to intercept that part of thought between stimulus and response. It allows your panic brain time to breath before you start checking. It works.

[Pinguanxious]

You are right! I could probably google headache and I’m dying of a brain tumour or something.
I have used insight timer app to help me sleep before. Do you have a particular app you use?
The one thing I struggle with is every time he coughs I panic. Of course there is no way to avoid this, but is there any coping strategies I can use whenever he coughs to stay calm and remember it’s just HA?
Thanks so much for your input. I’m determined to recover from this so I’m interested to learn what I can!

[ankietyjoe]

Meditation isn't about using an app, it's about you taking responsibility for sitting and focusing on the meditation object, which is usually your breath. It's a very active process, not a passive one.

Often, people think that meditation is about relaxation or 'finding your zen', but it has nothing to do with that. Meditation is simply the practice of refocusing your mind when your mind becomes distracted. It doesn't matter if it becomes distracted, because that's what your mind will do. What matters is that you gently refocus when it does, dozens of times a minute if necessary. You can't fail with meditation, the practice is the point, not the success.

And the reason it works, is that over time your brain learns NOT to react to every sensation, thought or input. This is why you'll stop reacting every time your husband coughs...or further down the line when you find something on your body that you'd usually google and panic about. If you are feeling anxious, you just observe the feelings in your meditation, but you practice not reacting to them, you simply refocus on your breathing.

There are plenty of guided meditations on Youtube for example, but I found a lot of them to be distracting. Overly spiritualised with too much reverb and shimmery music. It kind of defeats the point (for me). It's not a relaxation technique, although feeling relaxed can be a pleasant side effect after a while.

I would suggest reading up on Vipassana meditation and mindfulness. There's a very good book my Mark Williams on Amazon that got me started with it, and it completely cured my anxiety and HA. Even recently I had a massively stressful period which provoked a lot of anxiety, but I just got on with stuff without panicking. I know it'll pass, so I'm cool with it.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mindfulness-practical-guide-finding-frantic/dp/074995308X

[lofwyr]

Lofwyr it’s amazing how oneumonia does that. I mean logically I believe the doctors. However as many people know logic doesn’t always work. The fluid drained was horrible too. It was kind of like Fanta fruit twist colour ... worry of that puts anyone off Fanta lol!
The doctors did say several months. Like I said to my husband, he started getting sick New Year’s Day so to me he’s been sick for four months but realistically only fully finished treatment three weeks ago. As it didn’t clear properly for ages!

Thankyou for your response! Hope you are ok now? Did you have any long term effects? They said that scarring can occur. That just sounds nasty! X

Yeah, that was years ago, in fact when I was 28, ironically, about 20 years ago. There was some super minor scarring, causing two very small nodules (both completely benign) in my right lung, no noticeable effect at all. Feel great, 100% O2 saturation, at 28 recovery from pneumonia is almost a certainty. Just takes some time.

[Pinguanxious]

Meditation isn't about using an app, it's about you taking responsibility for sitting and focusing on the meditation object, which is usually your breath. It's a very active process, not a passive one.

Often, people think that meditation is about relaxation or 'finding your zen', but it has nothing to do with that. Meditation is simply the practice of refocusing your mind when your mind becomes distracted. It doesn't matter if it becomes distracted, because that's what your mind will do. What matters is that you gently refocus when it does, dozens of times a minute if necessary. You can't fail with meditation, the practice is the point, not the success.

And the reason it works, is that over time your brain learns NOT to react to every sensation, thought or input. This is why you'll stop reacting every time your husband coughs...or further down the line when you find something on your body that you'd usually google and panic about. If you are feeling anxious, you just observe the feelings in your meditation, but you practice not reacting to them, you simply refocus on your breathing.

There are plenty of guided meditations on Youtube for example, but I found a lot of them to be distracting. Overly spiritualised with too much reverb and shimmery music. It kind of defeats the point (for me). It's not a relaxation technique, although feeling relaxed can be a pleasant side effect after a while.

I would suggest reading up on Vipassana meditation and mindfulness. There's a very good book my Mark Williams on Amazon that got me started with it, and it completely cured my anxiety and HA. Even recently I had a massively stressful period which provoked a lot of anxiety, but I just got on with stuff without panicking. I know it'll pass, so I'm cool with it.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mindfulness-practical-guide-finding-frantic/dp/074995308X

Thankyou! That’s so helpful I’m going to have a look at this book now. I agree it has a lot of shimmery music and I do get distracted when they speak about a higher power because I am an atheist and to me it then distracts me from the whole thing because how can I meditate to something I don’t believe, if that makes any sense! I just need to reduce my anxiety every time he coughs as normally the cough is my trigger!

[Pinguanxious]

Yeah, that was years ago, in fact when I was 28, ironically, about 20 years ago. There was some super minor scarring, causing two very small nodules (both completely benign) in my right lung, no noticeable effect at all. Feel great, 100% O2 saturation, at 28 recovery from pneumonia is almost a certainty. Just takes some time.

That’s amazing that you recovered with no long term effects and ironic it’s at the same age lol! Plus it’s nice to hear from someone who has been through it!
When he had the pleural effusion his o2 was 91-93%
After draining it was at 97%
His heart rate also went down from 120 to 80 and BP decreased too.
It was his left lung so had a bigger effect on his heart. 3 weeks ago there was a small amount of infiltrate still at the base of the lung so logically I know that he’s still coughing because of that. It’s technically been 3 weeks since his last scan and it wasn’t fully clear.

I think google has made this worse and made me doubt the doctors as I read oneumonia can mask cancer or lung cancer can cause pneumonia.
He smokes too ( he is quitting and has already cut back by half) and that probably hinders his recovery too. I also read xrays miss cancer if it’s small. But saying that I’ve not read about CT scans missing cancer! And he’s had one of those done and it showed a large fluid collection and a swollen lymph node ( which of course swells when infected) but no cancer. And logically I also know that as a CT scan is a 360 scan a tumour can’t exactly hide like it can in an X-ray.

What I’ve done today is created a document, all of the evidence against, and I’m refusing to google or “check” with my husband, it’s gone well today. I know I will have lapses but I’m hoping it passes.

I will update on this thread as time goes on as I know the rules like us to keep to one thread.

[ankietyjoe]

Thankyou! That’s so helpful I’m going to have a look at this book now. I agree it has a lot of shimmery music and I do get distracted when they speak about a higher power because I am an atheist and to me it then distracts me from the whole thing because how can I meditate to something I don’t believe, if that makes any sense! I just need to reduce my anxiety every time he coughs as normally the cough is my trigger!

I'm atheist too, although I don't even think I'm that. Religion/God isn't something I even think about.

I do believe that spirituality can exist in the absence of those things, and to me that means feeling a connection with your surrounding, with other people and other living creatures etc.....but that's often masked by day to day life.

There is hard science behind meditation though, it physically alters the brain and creates new neural pathways that mimic those that are formed as children, when we just sat there watching things happen and enjoying them, before experience taught us to fear things.

[Pinguanxious]

Makes sense. I mean I do enjoy just watching nature and things but most of the time I’m too anxious now to do it!

Was ok most of today. Until I came home and heard the coughing. But I’m trying to not let it affect me much.
It’s not even a massive cough, it’s like two short coughs every 15-30 minutes sometimes longer. So realistically I should be able to control it. Going to read the book in bed tonight get some mindfulness practice going!

[ankietyjoe]

Makes sense. I mean I do enjoy just watching nature and things but most of the time I’m too anxious now to do it!

Was ok most of today. Until I came home and heard the coughing. But I’m trying to not let it affect me much.
It’s not even a massive cough, it’s like two short coughs every 15-30 minutes sometimes longer. So realistically I should be able to control it. Going to read the book in bed tonight get some mindfulness practice going!

Be careful of this kind of mental logic. What happens if he lets out a big cough tomorrow, does that mean it's ok for you to freak out again? Well, no.

For example, I had a cold about 6 weeks ago, and I'm still coughing. It's normal, it happens.

Glad you felt better today though!

[Pinguanxious]

This is true! You are right that’s a mental trap I don’t want to fall into!
Wow hope you feel a bit better now though?
I’ve made a deal with myself that if the cough gets worse I’ll take him to the doctor, if it stays the same I will wait it out for a month or so to give him more time to heal. I think that’s that best way for me to control it for now. Need to ride it out, wait for it all to lessen

[ankietyjoe]

Or, leave it up to him ;)

[Pinguanxious]

😂 you are a funny guy. I wish I could, but my husband wasn’t even willing to go the first time until I made him and I’m glad we did! But to be honest he knew something was wrong that time. This time he’s adamant he’s fine so maybe I should trust his judgement more!

[ErinKC]

Therapy is what has gotten me through health anxiety without meds. It's been wonderful. As for other things, I've also found buddhist writing on mindfulness to be very helpful. I'm not religious at all and don't believe in an afterlife, and that's why buddhism (despite being a religion) is really appealing to me. It's all about experiencing the moment vs thinking or planning the future. You Are Here by Thich Nhat Hanh is very good. He speaks about death in a very comforting way.

Your husband will be ok. As others have said, he's young and strong, but coughs can take ages to go away. When I just get a regular cold I end up coughing for weeks.

Also - one of the things that has been helping me a lot lately is to consciously be less hyper-aware. Anxiety is all about about being hyper vigilant to whatever it is makes you anxious. So, I try to find ways to not notice the things that usually trigger anxiety or that I over think. So, as hard as it is, try to make the decision to not listen for your husband's coughing. He's an adult who knows when he's sick or not. You can check in with him to ask how he's feeling, but try not to make it your responsibility to monitor his health, both for yourself and for him. My mom has health anxiety that focuses on both herself and on others and her hyperviligance to what's going on with everyone around her can feel oppressive.

[Pinguanxious]

Erin that actually soundslovleh , do you have any recommendations on books?

You are right logically I know he will be ok.

I think I’ve done a bit of soul searching today, and I was talking about the family we plan on starting.... and that’s when it hit me, the fear of starting this family incase I lose him, currently we have a good life, a decent income, steady jobs and are not well off but fortunate compared to others. That’s why I think all of this anxiety hs started. Because I’m scared of losing him and becoming a single mum.
I’ve never suffered health anxiety before, normally I have a more generalised anxiety and I have ocd.
I think I’ve found my trigger. This one illness hs shown me the scary truth that one day we will be separated, and with the plans to have a child the idea scares me more.
In a way I’m glad I’ve come to some kind of realisation as to why this has all built up.
I still cringe when he coughs, but I’m reading a new book, I used a guided meditation last night and I am now just focusing on getting better, although no effect yet of course! But haven’t used google all day so that’s a bonus ( I gave in last night though )
I will be going back to the doctor tomorrow too, just to talk about perhaps more CBT and other ways to self help during pregnancy to prevent worsening of symptoms

[ErinKC]

Erin that actually soundslovleh , do you have any recommendations on books?

You are right logically I know he will be ok.

I think I’ve done a bit of soul searching today, and I was talking about the family we plan on starting.... and that’s when it hit me, the fear of starting this family incase I lose him, currently we have a good life, a decent income, steady jobs and are not well off but fortunate compared to others. That’s why I think all of this anxiety hs started. Because I’m scared of losing him and becoming a single mum.
I’ve never suffered health anxiety before, normally I have a more generalised anxiety and I have ocd.
I think I’ve found my trigger. This one illness hs shown me the scary truth that one day we will be separated, and with the plans to have a child the idea scares me more.
In a way I’m glad I’ve come to some kind of realisation as to why this has all built up.
I still cringe when he coughs, but I’m reading a new book, I used a guided meditation last night and I am now just focusing on getting better, although no effect yet of course! But haven’t used google all day so that’s a bonus ( I gave in last night though )
I will be going back to the doctor tomorrow too, just to talk about perhaps more CBT and other ways to self help during pregnancy to prevent worsening of symptoms

That makes complete sense. The decision to have children is a huge, life altering one! I didn't have anxiety until after my daughter was born almost 5 years ago because the stakes of life were raised so much! My anxiety focused on myself and the fear of leaving her. So, I completely get you! I think therapy could be a great option for you to work through these fears and then also have that support system in place for when you do have a child.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Stop Googling, period. HA is a habit more than any other kind of anxiety. It's self perpetuating and almost always fuelled by the sufferers actions.

And that's why I expect most who talk of having HA really have OCD, given HA is a sufferers term. Compulsions are cycle reinforcers, they exist to feed back something expected to reinforce the fear since the cycle was created for rational fears. Stopping them is the way to cut the process off and whilst this is hard at first it gets easier and you feel you have more control later.

Then we have to think about how it's really just a theme of the OCD hence treating the real disorder is key and not the theme or it can just shift elsewhere. Remembering Pingu had a major spell with ROCD when on here before, I think it's very important to look at compulsion (things like Googling, reasurance) but also the reaction that leads to it and this is where the Mindfulnes is really helpful.

Hiya Pingu, long time no see! :welcome: Anyone can get pneumonia and unless you are in at risk category it's unlikely to be anything other than straightforward to treat. Reading horror stories is only going to scare you further and they are irrelevant. There will always be outliers, a healthy top athlete who dies from such a thing may be such a story, but these don't explain the millions of people who fully recover and that's it.

I has pneumonia like this. I went from a couple of weeks of some irritation of my asthma to waking in the night feeling like I had an elephant on my chest and off to hospital in an ambulance I went. I spent a week in hospital because I have asthma so was an at risk group despite being a normal teenager and healthy. It's never been an issue since sand I'm 43 now.

What I would put this down to is a traumatic event. Even if you wanted to take meds you GP would likely be wary because this could resolve itself as you distance yourself from the trauma. With this in mind stop yourself engaging in negative behaviours (as Joe mentioned the Googling, and reassurance seeking which you struggled with in the ROCD) and do things to help yourself like the meditation. Get on with life and try to be positive about things. Accept it was something that can happen to anyone and most people never have any later problems (and they have discharged him). Don't start Googling about that lymph node because it will bring cancer stories back when having a lymph node raised close to a site that had something that is a known cause of putting strain on that system is your reason for it. And you know it's illogical to consider this as a warning of something being wrong.

[Pinguanxious]

Hey terry!! Wow it’s been a while how are you??

Funny you mention about the ocd shifting, I actually said to my husband last night, once this goes I’ll only find something else to focus on! You are right it’s the actual ocd that needs treating not this theme, I have managed to fix the other themes and then it’s always switched. A while a go I was obsessed with calculating my finances, then I was obsessed with my mums finances. It’s ridiculous how the theme always shifts, but I don’t often go back to the same thing twice. It shifts and I have a respite, then my reoccurring plug sockets theme kicks in which always leads to a new obsession.
I’m also beginning to think my ( sorry ) feminine’s cycle has a lot to do with it as I’m more prone to compulsions at certain times of the month.

Take today for example, I’m a lot more relaxed about the whole thing, I’m still anxious but it’s not an all encompassing thought, and I’m wondering why I’m bothering with the doctor, and then tomorow I could be in full on monkey mode ( that’s what I’ve termed my compulsions after the monkey with the cymbals lol, stolen but funny )

[Weasley123]

OCD and ha definitely go together. I have a lot of ha about my husband and his heart. He is 41 and his mom died of a heart attack at 64. He exercises but like me never goes to the dr.

[Weasley123]

I often find myself obsessing over his food like if he has ice cream or fries or cake I worry but I eat all that too

[Pinguanxious]

Hey Weasley!
Yep I understand what you are saying, however my husband doesn’t even eat vegetables lol. But generally is for as a fiddle, doesn’t even get colds, that’s why this pneumonia came as such a shock, and because he smokes I’ve convinced myself that the doctors are wrong and really it’s lung cancer. Bizarre because I’ve never doubted a diagnosis before!
Because I’m planning on getting pregnant the doctor has given me propranolol for emergency days ( as long as I come off becfore the baby is 12 weeks, which is fine because I’m not pregnant yet )and referred me for more CBT. I didn’t want to go back on sertraline. Although amazing it isn’t exactly the safest during pregnancy.

And HA and OCD are definitely linked, this obsession of cancer is more like my ocd than when my GAD is playing up, GAD never causes any compulsions ( mental or otherwise ) I just sit and say what if all the time and feel uncomfortable, where’s HA is causing me to do the google and the reassurance seeking.

[MyNameIsTerry]

It's not so much that they are linked as that one sits under the other. HA is merely a theme available within OCD just as ROCD, POCD, HOCD, TransOCC, SchizOCD, etc can. The reason is these are all labels created by sufferers and you won't find them in either of the major diagnostic manuals, the APA's DSM and WHO's ICD.

I've come across people on here alone who posted for years about HA and then started having intrusive thoughts that replaced their HA themes. This was a big shock to them and they just weren't prepared for it, like so many of us weren't, me included as it was GAD for me before the OCD started up.

What we have to remember is that in OCD you can experience any theme available to it. OCD itself is split up into several categorisations dependant on how the behaviours appear e.g. some are mainly compulsions, some mainly obsessions, some mixed, etc. But OCD has become confused online, as OCD UK have stated, because of labels passed around on the internet and in some cases they may mean different things e.g. HOCD is Harm OCD to some and Homosexuality OCD to others (the latter being the main one used although it is not specific to homosexuality at all and people who are LGBT+ experience gay-to-straight or any other combinations within it). Hence OCD UK advise to be wary of mislabelling and make it clear it's not what the OCD is truly about.

You can take a "theme" or "flavour" as some call it and apply a tailored approach however without tackling the true disorder you are really just treating the current symptom. It's like the petals of the flower, why remove the petal to let it regrow another when it's the root that needs plucking? Why tackle each petal without the root that created them? And that's why they use exposure therapy to go beyond the theme and things like the Vicious Flower vs Virtuous Flower method to offer visual explanations.

The same with "Pure O", it's not a medical label. Those that say if you have this you don't do compulsions are likely wrong because medical professionals see what are called "covert compulsions". You don't have to be washing, checking, etc you could be "mental checking".

Of course, HA being a non medical label means it straddles various anxiety disorders. Hypochondria, for instance, according to WHO is a sub disorder in the Somatoform Disorders category (the DSM goes it's own way on this and the names of disorders differ). What some might believe is
Hypochondria may be OCD instead. It may even be
Hypochondria + another anxiety disorder or OCD + another anxiety disorder.

[MyNameIsTerry]

I'm doing much better than we we used to talk on your old thread thanks, Pingu. Still lots of challenges though.

You will be pleased to hear another guy who used to speak to you, MrAndy, left us ages ago with his anxiety gone. He was away due to physical illness for sometime but got better. He raised a thread about it on Success Stories.

[Pinguanxious]

I’m glad you are doing better ! And what fantastic news about Andy, I’ll have to hunt for that later.

I’m lucky in the sense that I get respites from my MH. This one just hit me a bit harder than the others. And your right it’s probablt because it’s a traumatic experience.

To be honest his cough is actually getting worse ( real not imagined ) but just in the sense that it is sounding more wet, and it’s worse when he lays down.
He has said to me if it’s not better by the end of the month he will go back to the doctors just to check it out ( not because of lung cancer but to make sure it’s healing as it should. However I’m a bit calmer about it now, I’m worried about the cough. I am obssessing over knowing exactly what’s going on, but I’m being a bit more rational. To be honest it’s probably getting a bit worse as it’s trying to clear the last bit of infection. When he had the pleural effusion ( the collection of fluid) his lung was so collapsed he couldn’t cough and this was 7 weeks ago. So I’m being logical and thinking finally his lung is starting to repair itself. But I’m still getting lots of intrusive thoughts. First think when I wake up the word lung cancer pops into my head. And then at regular times throughout the day, I’m just trying not to attach any meaning too them but it is hard!

[ankietyjoe]

It is hard, but the more you practice not reacting, the better it'll be.

You've practised getting yourself into this state for weeks/months...? The brain likes routine, it likes doing what it did yesterday, therefore altering thought patterns takes time. It's basically the same as dieting, you don't expect to lose weight the second you put the cake down, it takes time for your body to catch up with your new habits.

[MyNameIsTerry]

^ it's as Joe says. Something to also add to this is that the fear cycle was meant to set up a fear and thats's that. It wasn't made to remove them as easily because the rational fears Captain Caveman built were expected to stay for life. This means unpicking them takes longer than it does to build them because we are essentiually fighting against the tide.

Try to accept that your subconscious is just following a process it has been programmed to follow. It doesn't know anymore. You put it there somehow and now you will remove/amend it. Until then it will still do what it does and whilst this is very frustrating acceptance is important so we don't give it the feedback it craves to know it's still doing the right thing. Slowly starting it of that attention will mothball this.

It's tricky because you still have your husband with remnants of his illness. Even if he was 100% fine tomorrow if you had a cough or cold your subconscious could start with intrusive thoughts about cancer because the programming can still be there. But working on yourself changes that not just now but for the long term and other themes as you are working on the disorder itself. But remember if another theme does pop up, the same applies so try to cut it off in it's track before it takes hold.

I just think you've had a big test. A traumatic event, lots of worry about a loved one, worries about that future you both want and an anxiety disorder lurking underneath also unfettering by whatever any meds might have placated if it started up (they may have done little when faced with a traumatic event though for all we know).

As far as his coughing goes. When you lie down you start to break up phlegm. I've had many chest infections since childhood with my asthma and it was always the case. MY doctors/nurses have always told me that's just the body working to break it up and get rid of it and it will go. Sometimes I've had weeks of little bits of phlegm suddenly shifting like a tickly cough despite being fine all day. Different strains seems to do it. But he's had worse than that with pneumonia. When I had pneumonia I was off college for about 2 months but in my case I was ready to go back and then had a low count of platelets that floored me with loads of fatigue and meant a month of resting whilst my body recovered.

That might not be the case for your husband but the point I am making is that it's quite a lot of strain on the body and it is bound to take it's time until he is 100%. He's doing the right thing monitoring and seeing his GP if things aren't getting better or are worsening. Even then that doesn't mean the worst, it might just mean some more antibiotics to give him a boost or catch anything early or just to be on the safe side. But his GP will keep an eye and have him back to check things are going the right way.

[Pinguanxious]

So it appears that after several months of suffering with health anxiety I finally broke again and started ruminating on all my old worries. Guilt over past mistakes, low mood, went back to the doctor today and she said to go back on sertraline and that I need to try and stabilise my mood before having a child.
I feel like a failure. I know that his health is a trying time ( and he’s had another X-ray as he is still coughing we get the results tomorrow) but part of me thinks all this guilt over past mistakes and it’s my own fault I feel bad because I shouldn’t have made them. I got through it all before and was better for a long time, but now I think that actually I was masking it and that I’m never going to fully escape.
Haven’t posted in a while because I wanted to try and distance myself from everything health related. It didn’t work.