skippy66
07-03-22, 10:56
This is a tricky one because if you have health anxiety you may think that your symptomscan’t possibly be caused by your mind and not some serious physical disease. Doctorshave to tread carefully - the threat of litigation looms large if they wrongly diagnose agenuinely ill person with health anxiety. In fact, ‘genuinely ill’ is the wrong phrase becausepeople with health anxiety experience symptoms which make them feel genuinely ill - theyget real stomach pains, real muscle twitches, real headaches. Health anxiety is not aboutpretending you’re ill or looking for attention, it’s about being terrified that these genuinesymptoms 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 arethings that I used to do, and you might do them too:
1. Obsessive online research about your symptoms!
I would consult Google every time I got the slightest twinge of pain or weird symptom that Icouldn’t easily explain. I got an iPhone four years ago and that’s when my health anxietyhit an all-time high. Previously I could only google health stuff when I had access to acomputer; now I could do it whenever and wherever I wanted: in a car, on the sofa, on theloo! ‘Dr Google’, as I like to call him, became my 24/7 on-call doctor, sometimes offeringreassurance but often suggesting that I probably had something terminal. It got so bad thatI was researching various symptoms every single day, sometimes for hours a day. Ibecame an expert in several fields of medicine (in my own mind) and believed I knew moreabout certain conditions than the doctors I saw.
2. You are never adequately reassured!
No matter how many medical tests you have, no matter how many reassuring articles youread 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 ofreassurance-seeking, finding temporary reassurance, experiencing new symptoms (or thesame symptoms), doubting that original reassurance and seeking new reassurance. If youfind yourself constantly seeking reassurance about your health you probably have healthanxiety.
3. 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 nobodythere to revive me or call for help. Whenever my wife left me alone in the house my anxietylevels would increase and this would cause more symptoms. The anxiety increased whenmy children were born, as I felt extra pressure to be ‘well enough’ to look after them on myown.
Another habit I fell into was using my wife for reassurance. I would always tell her mylatest worrying symptom and say: “Do you think this is normal?” Part of the reason fortelling her how I was feeling was to give her advanced warning to be ‘ready’ just in casethat headache did turn out to be a stroke. She had to put up with a lot - I think this isprobably the case with many spouses/partners of people with health anxiety. I am sograteful 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 neversuspected a thing.
4. You avoid medical TV shows
Before health anxiety kicked in for me I used to watch and enjoy shows like Casualty andER without a care in the world. When the health anxiety became a problem I avoidedthese shows like the plague. I didn’t want to see or hear anything that mentioned seriousillness of any kind. I was so hyper-sensitive to the mere mention of health problems that Ideveloped what I like to call ‘health anxiety dyslexia’. I was so obsessed with my healththat I would mis-read or mis-hear words as medical-related words. For example, someoneonce 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.
5. 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 signof an impending heart attack. It was probably the way I lay on it in bed. The next weekanother symptom took hold, such as numbness in my right foot which I thought must beMS 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 andmaking me think I was seriously ill. Symptoms came and went regularly. Some wouldreappear, others would vanish forever for no particular reason. I got so bad that wheneverI saw a doctor I felt like I didn’t know where to start with the vast number of symptoms Ineeded to ask him for reassurance about.
6. You catastrophise
People with health anxiety tend to automatically think of the worst outcome for anysymptom, and as I’ve already mentioned Dr Google tends to back this up. It’s calledcatastrophising - thinking that a head pain is definitely a stroke, a heart palpitation isdefinitely going to be fatal, a tingling in your head is definitely MS. For me this extended toother things - a bit of turbulence meant that the plane was definitely about to crash. Whenyou’re in this state of mind you are constantly ‘on edge’. My general anxiety levels werevery high and this even triggered full blown panic attacks from time to time. My bloodpressure was high and this caused even greater anxiety about my heart.
7. You are generally unhappy
Living with health anxiety is not pleasant. Thinking you’re about to die is one of the moststressful things a human being can experience, and when this happens several timesevery day it is bound to have a negative effect on your mood and general outlook. I had somuch to be happy about in my twenties - a beautiful wife, two amazing children and agood job which afforded me lots of free time to spend with my family. There were plenty oftimes I felt happy and normal (when I wasn’t experiencing symptoms), but the next scarysymptom was never far away and it made me think the world was ending. I felt I had toomuch to lose.
8. You feel like nobody really understands
The other thing about living with health anxiety is that it tends to be poorly understood byanyone 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 ownexperience this is not the case at all. I have never been an attention-seeker - I shun thelimelight. I experienced real physical symptoms which, although tests have proved weren’tserious, often caused a great deal of physical pain and stress. Health anxiety is being inan almost constant state of terror that you’re going to die of something horrible. It isn’tabout fabricating symptoms in order to get time off work or an attempt to get sympathyfrom people.
In my experience of health anxiety there are several indicators of the problem. These arethings that I used to do, and you might do them too:
1. Obsessive online research about your symptoms!
I would consult Google every time I got the slightest twinge of pain or weird symptom that Icouldn’t easily explain. I got an iPhone four years ago and that’s when my health anxietyhit an all-time high. Previously I could only google health stuff when I had access to acomputer; now I could do it whenever and wherever I wanted: in a car, on the sofa, on theloo! ‘Dr Google’, as I like to call him, became my 24/7 on-call doctor, sometimes offeringreassurance but often suggesting that I probably had something terminal. It got so bad thatI was researching various symptoms every single day, sometimes for hours a day. Ibecame an expert in several fields of medicine (in my own mind) and believed I knew moreabout certain conditions than the doctors I saw.
2. You are never adequately reassured!
No matter how many medical tests you have, no matter how many reassuring articles youread 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 ofreassurance-seeking, finding temporary reassurance, experiencing new symptoms (or thesame symptoms), doubting that original reassurance and seeking new reassurance. If youfind yourself constantly seeking reassurance about your health you probably have healthanxiety.
3. 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 nobodythere to revive me or call for help. Whenever my wife left me alone in the house my anxietylevels would increase and this would cause more symptoms. The anxiety increased whenmy children were born, as I felt extra pressure to be ‘well enough’ to look after them on myown.
Another habit I fell into was using my wife for reassurance. I would always tell her mylatest worrying symptom and say: “Do you think this is normal?” Part of the reason fortelling her how I was feeling was to give her advanced warning to be ‘ready’ just in casethat headache did turn out to be a stroke. She had to put up with a lot - I think this isprobably the case with many spouses/partners of people with health anxiety. I am sograteful 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 neversuspected a thing.
4. You avoid medical TV shows
Before health anxiety kicked in for me I used to watch and enjoy shows like Casualty andER without a care in the world. When the health anxiety became a problem I avoidedthese shows like the plague. I didn’t want to see or hear anything that mentioned seriousillness of any kind. I was so hyper-sensitive to the mere mention of health problems that Ideveloped what I like to call ‘health anxiety dyslexia’. I was so obsessed with my healththat I would mis-read or mis-hear words as medical-related words. For example, someoneonce 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.
5. 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 signof an impending heart attack. It was probably the way I lay on it in bed. The next weekanother symptom took hold, such as numbness in my right foot which I thought must beMS 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 andmaking me think I was seriously ill. Symptoms came and went regularly. Some wouldreappear, others would vanish forever for no particular reason. I got so bad that wheneverI saw a doctor I felt like I didn’t know where to start with the vast number of symptoms Ineeded to ask him for reassurance about.
6. You catastrophise
People with health anxiety tend to automatically think of the worst outcome for anysymptom, and as I’ve already mentioned Dr Google tends to back this up. It’s calledcatastrophising - thinking that a head pain is definitely a stroke, a heart palpitation isdefinitely going to be fatal, a tingling in your head is definitely MS. For me this extended toother things - a bit of turbulence meant that the plane was definitely about to crash. Whenyou’re in this state of mind you are constantly ‘on edge’. My general anxiety levels werevery high and this even triggered full blown panic attacks from time to time. My bloodpressure was high and this caused even greater anxiety about my heart.
7. You are generally unhappy
Living with health anxiety is not pleasant. Thinking you’re about to die is one of the moststressful things a human being can experience, and when this happens several timesevery day it is bound to have a negative effect on your mood and general outlook. I had somuch to be happy about in my twenties - a beautiful wife, two amazing children and agood job which afforded me lots of free time to spend with my family. There were plenty oftimes I felt happy and normal (when I wasn’t experiencing symptoms), but the next scarysymptom was never far away and it made me think the world was ending. I felt I had toomuch to lose.
8. You feel like nobody really understands
The other thing about living with health anxiety is that it tends to be poorly understood byanyone 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 ownexperience this is not the case at all. I have never been an attention-seeker - I shun thelimelight. I experienced real physical symptoms which, although tests have proved weren’tserious, often caused a great deal of physical pain and stress. Health anxiety is being inan almost constant state of terror that you’re going to die of something horrible. It isn’tabout fabricating symptoms in order to get time off work or an attempt to get sympathyfrom people.