Health Anxiety Experience Question

[superjonboy]

Hi. I've just bought the book Overcoming Health Anxiety.

I'm looking to see how others experience of Health Anxiety happens.

My first question is this.

What do you experience first the thoughts or the symptoms?

Kind Regards.

John.

[lamentinglaura]

I experience the symptoms then my anxiety goes through the roof.

[superjonboy]

thanks Laura I think it's the same for me.

[Gazman]

Symptoms, always symptoms!! then i dwell on it and then i worry what it could be, then i start thinking it could be this or that, unfortunately i googled and researched symptoms so much at the start of my HA that i now have loads of lists of symptoms and the deadly diseases they relate to stored in my head lol so everytime i get a symptom... boom! it's MS or MND or a brain tumor or cancer etc etc lol

[lamentinglaura]

lol That's the same as me Gazman. I've googled so much that I think I know every symptom to every disease known to man. I'm always terminal.

[ames6767]

symptoms ususally missed beats then panic sets in

[Jimpy]

Symptoms comr first for me, or at least they seem too, could be doing anything with my day then I have a symptom and I retreat into myself and start really getting anxious.

[KK77]

I think it can work both ways. Symptoms can set off thoughts and vice versa. Mind and body are linked.

But it's definitely the thoughts we have to focus on controlling/rationalising.

[sarah jayne]

Definately the symptoms. Im always ill and constantly worry that ive got something seriously wrong with me. I honestly believe that if i wasnt ill then i wouldnt suffer from anxiety, its like a vicous cycle that im trapped in...

[Ireni]

I'm the same as Sarah-Jayne, it may not be correct but it certainly feels as though if I wasn't ill then I wouldn't be anxious. What happens is I'll get a symptom and then freak out about it and obsess over it. The anxiety will make the symptom worse and give me new symptoms and once the illness is over, it'll have made me so scared of getting ill again that I can't go out and my anxiety increases causing illness etc. It's one big, unbreakable cycle. :weep:

[Nathan246]

I seem to feel symptoms coming on an then start feeling anxious an panicy. I sometimes spend long periods worrying about my health an that i might have things wrong with me, imagining the worst. I have been on propranolol 40mg a day for about 7 weeks an this seems to be calming me, although i do still have moments of worry and try to think positive an get through them. I seem to have less energy and get tired more than i used to, this might be effect of propranolol. Today i went to doctors as i was worried about swelling on my gum, he checked it an prescribed some antibiotics as it my be infected. He said what i knew he would that my teeth are in a bad way and i really must see a dentist. Im now worrying about going to dentist an what will happen, i know i reall need to do this and that getting treatment will make me feel better in long run but it is going to be really difficult to take the plunge as i havnt been for over 20 years.

[tofutoffees]

I used to have really bad health anxiety. It has calmed down a lot (with a lot of hard work). However, since my final test and all clear, I have been feeling a wild, clawing anxiety and extremely quick heart beat. I was on valium before the test results so I didn't go mad with panic... and today I had to get an emergency prescription. And this isn't health anxiety - it's like the health anxiety and the perceived symptoms were a focus to hide something else (something nebulous, that I can't pinpoint, but which is causing me a lot of distress).

It is really annoying! I don't know if anyone else has experienced this?

[Darwin73]

Usually the symptoms for me. But on the odd occasion when I'm feeling ok, a thought will cross my mind like "oh I haven't had such and such a symptom for ages", and low and behold that symptom will start occuring withing the next 24 hrs. Yet I still don't understand how the brain can cause the body to produce symptoms.

[cattia]

For me it's usually the symptoms, however if I read or hear something about a particular symptom then that could start me obsessing over it. For example I might have a lot of trapped gas and not really think too much about it, but if I then inadvertently discover that trapped gas is actually a sign of ovarian cancer, I will start to obsess over it. I will then start getting other symptoms (e.g. pain in my ovaries) that I didn't have before, and that reinforces my idea of what's wrong with me.