Any advice appreciated.

[wherefromhere]

This is my first post although I do read others often. My name is Tara I am 36, I have 2 children. I have always been an anxious person and I now suffer with Health Anxiety. Its started 6 months after my first child was born. I developed tinnitus and wanted to know why so I researched on the internet constantly for around a year. I diagnosed myself with everything from MS, Lupus, I have had 2 brain scan, numerous balance and potential hearing test, every blood test you can imagine and they can not find anything wrong which is great. So why do I still feel like there must be something wrong? I feel very real physical symptoms that I can't get my head around being caused by anxiety? Does anybody else get very real symptoms? I seem to get different symptoms every day. I get tingling in my feet and legs, chronic leg pain, pain in my left arm, tingling in my face, tongue, I feel dizzy and off balance. At the minute I think I have throat/mouth cancer because I have had this annoying ache in my throat. I also think I could have Periphial artyery disease because I get terrible calf pain and I am starting to show signs of varicose veins.
I wish this would go away so can be a better mum and wife and also person. My mind is so consumed by these thoughts that I hardly think about anybody else.
Does anybody mind sharing there experiences and any advice of things that have hepled.
I go to the gym 3 times a week I eat a healthy diet, I don't know what else I can do. I have had CBT for a year but I don't think it helped much really.
Very sorry to go on.
Tara X

[Baster9]

Hello Tara,

It's like this, the more you think about your problems and condition the worse it will get. I learn a few things about anxiety since I have one as well. To get over anxiety you need to understand a couple of things. First thing is that you have anxiety and nothing else, I mean you can see for yourself how silly is to think that something is wrong with you when you ran every possible test right? Second thing is to accept the symptoms and let them be part of you, do not fight them it will only make things worse, just remember you are totally fine, nothing's wrong with you and whenever you feel like fainting or dizzy don't think of it just continue to do your stuff, since you're not going to faint in any way! Believe me, anxiety can not do any damage to your body (as you know by now) therefore just let the time cure your anxiety, accept that you are anxious and you will be for a little more, just don't fight and since it can not hurt you don't pay attention to it.

If you got more to talk to let me know.

Baster

EDIT: Also, yes anxiety is linked with physical symptoms, such as shortness of breath, feeling dizzy, feeling like passing out, off balance, muscles pain, stomach pains even diarrhea, chest pain, chest tightness, and so much more. They're different in each individual and of course you can have only few or one maybe even all of them.

[Captain Caveman]

Hi. As baster mentioned, you don't want to be fighting/resisting these feelings. Allow them to be there.

You are feeling like you are because you have trained your brain to be sensitized to such symptoms. You need to re-train your brain to cause habituation. It takes time and energy, but it is so worth it. You need to expose yourself to your fears.


"Exposure therapy is a set of techniques designed to help correct mistaken beliefs. For hypochondriasis, exposure involves gradually confronting the situations and bodily sensations that that person avoids because of the fear of illness. During exposure, patients also learn to tolerate uncertainty about whether or not a sensation is really a symptom. Even though at first, people become anxious when they do exposure practice, the distress is temporary—it subsides by a process called habituation. As a result of habituation, the person learns that they do not need to fear these situations and sensations because their distress does not go on
forever.

Response prevention is used in tandem with exposure. It involves resisting the urge to seek information or reassurance about health and illness." http://www.ocdchicago.org/images/uploads/pdf/EP13.pdf

[Vanilla Sky]

Hi and welcome to NMP :welcome:
Paige x

[Frozen in fear]

This is my first post although I do read others often. My name is Tara I am 36, I have 2 children. I have always been an anxious person and I now suffer with Health Anxiety. Its started 6 months after my first child was born. I developed tinnitus and wanted to know why so I researched on the internet constantly for around a year. I diagnosed myself with everything from MS, Lupus, I have had 2 brain scan, numerous balance and potential hearing test, every blood test you can imagine and they can not find anything wrong which is great. So why do I still feel like there must be something wrong? I feel very real physical symptoms that I can't get my head around being caused by anxiety? Does anybody else get very real symptoms? I seem to get different symptoms every day. I get tingling in my feet and legs, chronic leg pain, pain in my left arm, tingling in my face, tongue, I feel dizzy and off balance. At the minute I think I have throat/mouth cancer because I have had this annoying ache in my throat. I also think I could have Periphial artyery disease because I get terrible calf pain and I am starting to show signs of varicose veins.
I wish this would go away so can be a better mum and wife and also person. My mind is so consumed by these thoughts that I hardly think about anybody else.
Does anybody mind sharing there experiences and any advice of things that have hepled.
I go to the gym 3 times a week I eat a healthy diet, I don't know what else I can do. I have had CBT for a year but I don't think it helped much really.
Very sorry to go on.
Tara Xi feel the same as you ive had cbt for over a year now in this time just started going out but not alone
:welcome:

[wherefromhere]

Thank you everyone for your reply's. The nicest thing for me here is knowing that you are not alone.
Baster your advice is wise words and that is how I would like to handle my anxiety about my health as I am aware it is not going to just disappear over night. I must try and remember not to fight the feelings but go with them and be confident that they will go. Am I right in thinking that Health Anxiety is different to Hypochondria? As with Health Anxiety you obsess over real symptoms? That's what I do anyhow. Take for example this blue vein under my skin on my calf I don't notice it until it aches, then I begin to ruminate over, research on the internet etc.
I am very happy to be a part of NMP, I know it will help me.
Thank you all.
Tara
XX

[Captain Caveman]

Am I right in thinking that Health Anxiety is different to Hypochondria? As with Health Anxiety you obsess over real symptoms? That's what I do anyhow. Take for example this blue vein under my skin on my calf I don't notice it until it aches, then I begin to ruminate over, research on the internet etc.

Hi Tara. My understanding is that Health Anxiety or Health Phobia is another term for Hypochondriasis.

"Hypochondriasis fears are, by definition, fueled by bodily sensations. In OCD, bodily perceptions rarely precede obsessions or complusions." -Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: Theory, Research, and Treatment By Richard P. Swinson

http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/showthread.php?t=86084