Where does HA come from for us?

[SleeplessFog]

Is it an illness we already have that has created it? Death of a loved one? What triggers it or is always there since we were little?

[lauren6]

I wish I knew. I kept an ongoing diary as a child and see writings starting at 10 years old about health worries. Really horrible, I even talked about not wanting to live anymore. I did not have illness or death in the family, nothing in my diary happened around that time. I have scrutinized every word to see what was going on in my life and can't trace it. My feeling is that it was there even when I was younger than 10. I look at photos and see myself looking away from the sun, afraid, always afraid of something affecting me adversely.

I wish I knew because maybe I could have undone what caused it through therapy but since I will probably never know, I just try the best I can with cognitive therapy, the lovely people here, whatever helps. Great question and I hope you get a lot of replies.

[countrygirl]

I know exactly where mine comes from - my gran who was at that time my mother as she had brought me up from a baby, was diabetic and I was told at 3 yrs old she wasn't allowed to eat sweets or she would be ill but she used to pinch my sweets and I got terribly cross with her apparently. She then started to have mini strokes but didn't do anything about them and 6 months later had a massive stroke that left her unable to move or speak. I was 4 yrs old and had to look after her during the day while my real mother was out at work. AFter 6 months of this she was taken to hospital and I never saw her again but was told she had died when i was 5 yrs old.

My childlike mind was then convinced that any symptom was sign of impending serious illness that would kill you. I am now nearly 48 yrs old and have never ever with endless therapy being able to change my reaction to symptoms and I know I never will but I am with Dr help managing my condition a bit better.

[Kraggy]

My anxiety started only a few month's ago, When I had a swollen Lymph node that I felt for the first time....I googled, and googled, and googled...Ended with with Health Anxiety & Frequent doctor visits, Knowledge is not allways good...Apperantly the way I got it is fairly common in Medical Educations, Called the "Student Disease"

as from Wikipedia:

"Medical students′ disease, also known as hypochondriasis of medical students or medical student syndrome or medical student disorder is a condition frequently reported in medical students, who perceive themselves or others to be experiencing the symptoms of the disease(s) they are studying."

[Jan63]

My health anxiety only started last September when I googled and thought I had throat cancer which turned out to be acid reflux.:blush: It seems to be one thing after another since then though and every little thing I get has just got to be cancer - I hate it.:weep:

[NJAM]

I think I had OCD when I was a child (fear of germs, chronic hand washing, etc), and have a family history of depression. My anxiety problems really only began when my mother passed away unexpectedly in March and I started to have some health issues (most of which appear to be minor but have escalated in my own mind).

[minihaha]

my health anxiety has been borne of general anxiety and borderline depression that was untreated for a long time (my fault entirely....i never asked for help) and of course that old chestnut..."too much knowledge is a bad thing" . I also have some rejection issues that i suffered with parents as a child which only came to light consciously in my thirties. Me and my hubby have also been trying to have a family for 8 years now with no succcess and this is the single biggest factor in my general anxiety if i'm honest. I am also very guilty of only dealing with issues when they have become so huge that they consume me. I have learnt with counselling and a more relaxed lifestyle that these issues can be overcome - its just very hard to do so .

[SleeplessFog]

I think I have been anxious always but not 100% of the time. I grew up in a house with a sibling who had a life threatening illness. Like I have said in other threads...when I was sick I was sent to be with relatives, our house had to be insanely clean, you would not believe the amount of medical equipment that was in my house. I have always been a germophobe because of this. Because I had to be.

I know way too much about hospitals and medications. My sister became resistant to antibiotics...antibiotics freak me out. I won't take them sometimes. As I got older, I took care of her a lot. When she was in college I was the closest to her so I had to take her to the hospital and look after her when my parents couldn't.

When she died I was really depressed. I guess I never realized how anxious I was....I hated being alone...I was scared to go to sleep. I was scared of getting sick.

I've always had a fear of the unknown and fear of things that are out of my control. After I got labyrinthitis this year after falling, I got into health anxiety. I thought I was having a stroke and was going to die...I only felt better if I was taken to the ER. Then I would feel better for a few weeks...then it would be only a few days.

Every time someone has died from serious illness in my family...the hospital did not know 100% what had caused them to die. I became untrustworthy of doctors (although I totally trust my GP) for a long time.

I have an irrational fear of dying, dying in my sleep, and being unconscious. Since I am a pretty curious person with a science background (and a sibling who is a nurse) I know too much about medical stuff and thats why I get freaked out. And I know better...I just don't know how to make it stop. I have to know how everything works and why things happen. When I don't, I start to panic because its out of my control.

I think my anxiety has been an undercurrent in my life for a long time...it escalated after my sister died...but didn't become out of control until recently. Since they don't know what actually made my sister spiral out of control in her illness...I relate it to what's wrong with me now and I worry that since they don't have a 100% cure for my dizzyness, that I will never be okay. But I know this is silly...I just can't get it to go away.

[Valka]

I've been prone to obsessing over my health since I was fairly small. I remember going through months of thinking I had a brain tumour when I was maybe 10 or so. For me, I think a lot of it can be traced back to issues with my body in general. I was a chubby kid and from a very early age I felt like I was extremely fat and that there was something wrong with me, like I wasn't good enough because of my weight. Since around the age of 10 - again, the same age - hardly an hour has passed without my thinking negatively about my weight. I think focusing all that attention on my body has at least exacerbated my health anxiety.

Then there were two big triggers that I can definitely identify; first, I had a severe kidney infection and inflammation when I was 16, and was pretty ill in hospital for a while. It took them ages to figure out what was wrong with me and it was really traumatic. None of that helped. Then when I was 19 I was going through a really stressful time, on my own in a new country, and became convinced I had contracted HIV after having unprotected sex. That was definitely what triggered the panic disorder which now accompanies my health anxiety.

So it's a combination, I think - the possibility was probably always there genetically/biologically (lots of anxiety and depression in my family) but circumstances fuelled it.

Interesting topic, by the way!

[Valka]

"Medical students′ disease, also known as hypochondriasis of medical students or medical student syndrome or medical student disorder is a condition frequently reported in medical students, who perceive themselves or others to be experiencing the symptoms of the disease(s) they are studying."

My sister-in-law started experiencing health anxiety for the first time as a med student, during a stressful time just after she'd had a baby. Her GP told her it was really, really common.

[Kraggy]

I think I got it aswell, although I do not study Medicines. I googles alot and since im overall a pretty good learner...Well today my doctor was surprised how I managed to point out my Lymph Nodes xP.
And i've had anxiety ever since I started learning about Lymph Nodes, started off with fear of the lymph nodes, and in the end spread up to diffirent forms of cancer. Ever since in my mind i've had pretty much most sources of cancer. :(

[Valka]

I've been obsessed with lymph nodes as well! They used to really freak me out as a kid, then when I found an enlarged one a couple of years ago it completely pushed me over the edge and I started feeling for them all the time. Turned out two of them were slightly infected from my psoriasis, and the third one wasn't abnormally enlarged at all! Wish I'd asked my doctor sooner and not worried about it for MONTHS ...

[purplehaze]

I think all anxiety comes from fear. Fear is learned, just as we learn to walk, talk, run etc. The question then comes to, "why are some more prone to H.A. anxiety etc"
My brother for example fell on a bottle of ginger he was carrying and blood everywhere. NO big drama for him...wrap the wound up and drive to hospital. Another time he slit his wrist while cutting something, again no big drama.

H.A. along with anxiety and panic attacks then live in the "what if world" what if this pain is cancer...what if this stomache pain is really something serious....
So from a paper cut it turns into "I may lose my finger or hand or arm"

The reality is, if we learn to fear we can learn or re-learn not to fear. My attitude is "can I cope with worst case" At the end of the day, we really have no choice, if we really do have something wrong with us medically then we will need to deal with it


But do we really want to waste our time on earth worrying about what may never happen?

Its tough but not impossible to combat


peace

[lauren6]

Purplehaze, I LOVE your post. It's so true. Now if I could only implement it! Really though, reading that helps me and inspires me to keep trying. Thank you!

[amu]

For me the whole mental health issue kicked off when my beloved grandfather died when I was 11. I got OCD after that (routines, intrusive thoughts) and health anxiety was lurking in the background, for example I had recently learnt about AIDS in school and I was worried that I would somehow catch HIV off a toilet seat or a kiss or someone's hand. I would also worry about getting pregnant at 12 years old without having sex, somehow in the school shower or something. Then it disappeared for a long time until five years ago (just realised it was five years ago today, actually! :weep:) my father suddenly died of cancer when I was 23 and 7 months pregnant. I coped until my son was born, but a few months after health anxiety kicked in with a headache that wouldn't go. I've been suffering from it ever since, so for 4.5 years! I only had about 8 months of break from it during an unusually happy period of my life.

[justbananas]

you've had a headache for the whole time? or just HA?

[justbananas]

i get a constant headache with my HA. i dunno what triggered it. i can think of several mini triggers that kicked off episodes, ie a movie, an occurence.. but not one big trigger. the biggest thing i can think of .. i guess i have always been pretty dramatic about illness, health scares for as long as i can remember .. i'm just anxious to begin with. but two years ago my cousin had a scare where they thought he had kidney cancer, and it turned out to be like calcium or something on his kidney.

after that i started doing checks, and convinced myself my head felt 'weird' .. i guess because nothing else did. funny thing is, ever since that day, i started getting daily one sided headaches, which seem to go away during periods where i don't think about it. unfortunately in the years since i've conjured up more symptoms which i of course attribute to my head pain, and i go through this never ending cycle. i have to constantly remind myself that i have a SPECIFIC DAY when i started making myself feel weird, therefore this is ALL MY DOING. the diziness, the shaking, the pains.. i can pinpoint the day it kicked off. but it's hard to remind and convince myself. i'm better than i was. that summer i literally went through the WORST experience with swollen lymph nodes. the worst. if u want to hear a funny sad story, but mostly funny .. but kind of sad, as in sad pathetic sad.. i can share that one with ya at some point. UG i groan just thinking of it.

[moonfairy]

My started when i was a child,my nana had home doctor book which was written in the 20`s.I used to get it and lock myself in the toilet reading it,I thought I had every disease going.Eventually she found out I was reading it all the time and hid it.She passed away last January,and Ive got the book here now,still have a look now and again.Don`t laugh but when I was a child about 11 ish,I read about spontaneous human combustion,and was frightened that I was going to combust:blush:
I was ok as I got older from teens to early twenties,then HA came back,dunno why.Ive recently found a lump in my neck and had CT scan,have to have an op to remove/biopsy it,dreading it being malignant,and Dr Google has helped me a lot with my HA that is.:mad: