what triggered your health anxiety?

[hm1177]

I'm still trying to work out what triggered my health anxiety but remain confused! I woke up one day with it. I had spent the weekend before busy and healthy and happy (family party on the sat afternoon then swimming with the kids on the sunday) and on the monday I had health anxiety. I had never been obsessed with any symptoms i'd had before. When I was 18 I suffered from acute appendicitis for 8 months before the docs took me seriously and removed it (it was very enlarged by the time they did) but I never got worked up about it and took it all in my stride. I also got through 2 pregnancies without any anxiety. Anyway on this morning i woke up feeling like s**t - swollen glands and really tired and weak and so went to the doc who was fairly dismissive and told me to rest (with a 2 yr and 5 yr old at home). Anyway it all escalated from there but I still dont understand why I went from not fearing illness to becoming obsessed with it all.

So what i want to know is do you know what triggered off your anxiety or are you as baffled as me?


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[amu]

I woke up one day with anxiety (started with headaches at the time), and the day before I had been happy. However, I'm 100% sure the real reason was that my father died 6 months before that, I think it was kind of a delayed reaction to that. Didn't anything happen to you during the year before that day?

[KelzBelz]

Mine started with a pain in my chest and went from there i was doing ok till i lost my son then i worried about every aspect of my health thanx to drs x

[Emaa]

Sounds daft, but getting punched in the nose when I was 13 started my health anxiety because it gave me a deviated septum and completely freaked me out..

I think my ex-stepdad played a big part in my health anxiety, because *although undiagnosed* he had health anxiety and would often tell me he was dying - when I was alot younger.

Saying that though, I remember back to when I was in junior school and I used to check my legs for blood clots and things, so I guess I've always had it. It wasn't regular and didn't become a problem until I was 13 though.

[CJH86]

Hi, im pretty baffled about mine to be honest!!!...a couple of years back i had a perforated appendix then a nasty infection afterwards, didnt really have a flicker of anxiety at that point (maybe coz i felt too ill to even think about it)

Id say ive always been a bit edgy about my health, but when i started the 3rd year of my pharmacy degree last year and started worrying about quite strange things for my age like heart faliure, stroke etc and i just woke up one morning a month or so back and its pretty much taken over my entire life!

strange how the mind works:scared15:

[Surviving]

Well I guess maybe I can consider myself one of the lucky ones... :huh: ...I do know where mine came from... Started with an extremely bad dizzy spell, chest pains, body pains... Went from doctor to every specialist known to man for 4 years before being diagnosed with a few chronic pain conditions... But jumping from doctor to doctor and being made to feel like it is all in your head gives one a nice healthy anxiety disorder to deal with on top of everything else...