Seriuosly Ill

[katyfitz]

Does anyone ever think they are seriously ill with there anxiety and that there docs arent doing enought to pin point there illness. These are my thoughts constantly. i have been the same for 7 months never better never worse. ,Can anyone tell me the key to not thinking so negatively. I just wish there was a doc on the NMP forum who suffers anxiety and could talk to us, that would be great.

just want some feedback please x

[Quirky]

Hi Katy,

I suffer health anxiety too so know how horrible it all is. What you're describing is natural with health anxiety and part of it, always wondering it it's something serious or something missed etc. All we can do it try and trust our docs if they have checked us out and reassured us, hard I know.
I have had alot of CBT in the past and I have currently been reading up on health anxiety, this is what it says we need to do to stop it:

1) Stop seeking constant reassurance - that doesn't mean never go to the docs if we are ill or things change or get worse, it means accept what we have been told for now and stop asking for reassurance from people all the time. Asking for reassurance becomes a vicious circle and in the end we end up needing more and more reassurance yet it doesn't reassure us. When we stop asking for reassurance initially it can make us more worried but it does work long term.

2)Stop monitoring and checking physical symptoms - try and accept the symptoms and don't think about them e.g for people that always monitor there pulse, they need to stop.

3) Stop spending time finding out about illness - stop googling and trying to find out what illness you may have etc

4) Stop behaving as though you are ill - being too scared to exercise etc

5) Stop avoiding things to do with illness, tv programmes, papers, magazines etc

This isn't aimed at you personally as I don't know what of the above that you do, this is the CBT approach that I was taught and my CBT book confirms it.

Lisa x

[hayles]

Hi Katyf

I am with you all the way on this one.
Excuse me for being a total ditz as this is my first post and I have never been on a forum before!

I have been suffering from Panic attackes/anxiety or whatever you want to call it since i was about 19 (im 24 now) I have always had a fear of vomiting since I was about 5 (according to my Mother). But the panic attacks manifested when I first moved out of home. They are not with me all the time, I can go a year ot 2 without one, but one day they Hit me and I seem to fall into a black hole of continuos panick from anything like 6 weeks to 6 months....I am in one of those now!

Cut a VERY long story short, i have started down a new spiral of terror with this stint of panic and that is that I am convinced I am dying, that I have something terribly wrong. I am due to be married in less then 4 month and I am terrified I wont make it!

I have terrible pains in my head with my panicks, light headed dizzy and of course feel sick

I have been to the Docs like a million times, she says it is stress and is prob sick of the site of me. I am in the process of privately paid tests, just a medical really as I am not convinced that I can make myself feel this way........I am also having councelling, and am reluctantly on AD's (very low dose though). I have also had hypnotherapy for my vomiting fear.

Sometime I am overwhelmed by such fear I just cant seem to keep it together. I have only just found this forum, and it is suprisingly very reassuring.

I just wish my head wasnt so screwed up to make me feel like this.

Hugs [Sigh...]

Hay x

[lisarose]

Hi Katy, I have been through exactly the same thing with the Health anxiety. my son was 4 months(Dec 2000) old and a panic attack hit me out of the blue, of course I didn't know what it was at the time and thought I was about to die of a heart attack or stroke or something. I went straight to hospital and they did some tests (ECG,blood test) and they said I had a panic attack. From that day on I never felt right and continued to suffer the panic attacks and wouldn't leave the house for fear of collapsing and dying, I started to feel more and more ill and was diagnosed with postnatal depression and anxiety and was admitted to a physciatric unit which was hell on earth and I felt worse when I came out than I did when I went in. I came out feeling suicidal and tried to take my own life because I felt so alone and that my children would be better off without me and that the doctors were missing something and i was convinced that I had some terminal illness and would die anyway. Despite trying several different meds I never felt better. I managed to pull myself out of the depression eventually but was still left with the awful anxiety and panic attacks. In 2004 I saw a very understanding lady GP as my regular GP had left and she prescribed Venlafaxine which really helped. I had to stop them last August as I found out I was pregnant which was a complete shock as I had the coil fitted because I was terrified of getting pregnant again and it worked well for 3 years and then suddenly I got caught. I decided to go ahead with the pregnancy after a lot of turmoil and I am now 3 weeks away from giving birth. I am suffering again at the moment from anxiety but luckily no full blown panic attacks but I am terrrified of giving birth and don't know how I will get through the labour without having a panic attack. I am going to go back on the Venlafaxine when I have had the baby just as a precaution. I really do know how you feel as I used to obsess constantly about my health and used to be at the doctors all the time having various tests but nothing ever reassured me. In the end I stopped reading medical books and health pages in magazines but I have to admit that I still feel sometimes as though there is something not quite right with my health but I have learned to live with it.
You are not alone and if you ever have any questions or just feel like a chat you can PM me anytime.
You will find lots of support on this site and you will realise that alot of people suffer the same thing.
Take care
Love Lisaxx

[hayles]

LIsarose,

Good luck with the birth.
I so want children, however my intense fear of being sick,
makes me doubt whether I can cope with being preggers

all the best x

Hay x

[Ma Larkin]

Hi Katy, I've felt like that for ages. I've been to hospital twice in the past 2 weeks convinced there was something wrong with my heart. I think its probably my age, I'm 39 & now convinced that I won't see 40. My mum & dad split up when I was 4, apparently my dad said he would die when he was 32 and he's 65 now! I can't get it out of my head that its only anxiety when the symptoms are so terrifying at times. The only consolation is that I'm still here regardless of what I think so I must be OK really. Just keep thinking that every time you get a symptom. Its only anxiety & I should just ignore it, it'll go away soon.

I reckon we should get on This Morning or whichever programme it is where they have Doc Hilary Jones, to see if he will sign up to NMP & put all our minds at rest lol!

I don't think there is a key to thinking positively, it takes a while to re-train our thoughts yet there is always something niggling at us that makes us want to get checked out or worry that its something more serious. Lets be honest though, it never is, is it mate.

Hope you get some good feedback that stops you worrying a bit hun.

Les, xx

[jackie]

what a good idea katy if we could get a doc to admit to anxiety it would be great to get their feedback. but i fear we must guard against constant reassurance as freedom from the constant need for that is essential if we are to recover

but i do think it would be great for a doc to share their experience and perhaps make us feel less near a real illness as so many of us do due to our horrible phisical symptoms

jackie

[cobra427]

Hi

I know exactly where you are coming from - my fear is that I have cancer but the doctors just haven't found it yet. I don't have any symptoms of any specific cancer, I just feel 'not right'. I also keep having this feeling that I am going to die of the awful disease. Does anyone else have this feeling? I keep telling myself that it is just the anxiety/depression.

Michelle

[Farr06]

Katy, I am always convinced it is something serious, and have been at my GPs once a week since January..even his receptionist is sick of me. I even badgered the nurse every day , asking if a smear test can show up sexually transmitted diseases, and more worry since yesterday GP only listened to my chest, keep asking myself why didnt he listen to my back????? And whats up with the general feeling of being physically unwell, does anyone else get that?

Anxiety Is Evil

[trish1955]

hi michlelle
my biggest fear is death but then i think its level now with cancer i to think i will die of a long suffering illness and when i went for my smear teest a few weeks ago she said i had a growth i thought i was going to dir there and then but doc says its just a polyps still not convinced and knowing i have to visit hospital to have it removed it making me feel even worse at the mo like i dont feel crap enough with the bloody panic attacks we dont need any bad news to bring them on we can do that all by how selfs wish they would invent apill that changes the way we think yet to find one that even i dare take to let me relax see i fear medication to i think i have collected a few fears along the way in life any way just thought i let you no your not alone

[strawberrie]

hey guys

i know exactly how you feel, every symptom i have however minor it is, is cancer, and like you michelle, i also had a phase where i had no symptoms and was still convinced i had cancer, the lack of symptoms made my anxiety about it worse cos i was convinced it was just so well hidden in my body that by the time they found it, it would be too late!

i have been reading up on health anxiety and one of the things which has helped me is to stop trying to prove there is nothing wrong with you. although doctors can prove through tests etc. that you do have a specific illness, it is impossible to prove that you don't have anything wrong with you. If your doctors have assured you that there is nothing wrong, you need to accept this and move on, instead of worrying about the remote possibility that they have missed something. Nothing is 100% certain. We take risks all day every day, in everything we do, and 99.99999999999% of the time nothing bad happens, its just accepting this that is the hard bit!

katy, i dont know if you saw my post 'great book on health anxiety' (sorry i dont know how to do the link [:I]), but it might be worth you checking this book out as it explains health anxiety really well, and has loads of good exercises to help with it.

take care all,
mag xxx