drmark05
15-05-11, 07:09
This is going to sound arrogant, and for this I apologise, but I am a smart person. I have a Masters degree in Communications and a PhD in the same field, and have been teaching at university level for the past 10 years. Having to stand before hundreds of often disinterested teenagers every week and encourage them to learn requires a fair degree of confidence, so it came a somewhat of a shock to have that confidence rocked by health anxiety.
It started not long after I turned 40 - I was giving a lecture and I felt a little dizzy. Normally I would have just dismissed it but for some reason thought I'd check what Google had to say (even though I blast my students for relying on Google). The first three hits were about heart attacks and described pretty much what I was feeling exactly, along with other symptoms I wan't having, such as numbness in the limbs. The next day I got up to give a lecture and sure enough, my left arm began to feel numb. I panicked, feeling short of breath and dizzy, convinced my students were about to be given something really interesting to talk about over lunch. So I canceled the lecture, went straight to the nearest doctors office and told them I thought I was having a heart attack.
I wasn't. They did tests. The reminded me that I can do a 90 minute workout at the gym with no problems. They convinced me that what I was experiencing was an anxiety attack, which was both confronting and relief all mixed into one.
Life went on, my heart didn't stop and I though all was well. Then I found a blemish on my leg, which Google assured me was probably skin cancer. Back to the doctors, back for more tests. All negative, all OK.
A couple of weeks go by, and a very mild pain appears in my side, along with matching pains in my tailbone and hip. Logic would indicate that this is muscular, but Google has me convinced it's colon cancer. Has to be. I never used to go to the loo this often before (or did I?). Never mind that the FOBT came back negative and the doctor thinks it's probably due to carrying an overloaded camera bag on one shoulder.
I finally bit the bullet and saw a counsellor, and while it is still early days I do feel like that was an important first step. Though I felt a bit silly describing my reactions to what are really mild sensations, he helped me understand that people with health anxiety are hyper-sensitive to every bodily sensation. It helped, and it made me feel a little less stupid.
And that is what this post is about. Despite being very well educated and a self-confessed "smart person", this thing has had a major impact on my life. The one good thing to come out if it was that I finally learned that the only dumb thing is to not seek help when you need it.
It started not long after I turned 40 - I was giving a lecture and I felt a little dizzy. Normally I would have just dismissed it but for some reason thought I'd check what Google had to say (even though I blast my students for relying on Google). The first three hits were about heart attacks and described pretty much what I was feeling exactly, along with other symptoms I wan't having, such as numbness in the limbs. The next day I got up to give a lecture and sure enough, my left arm began to feel numb. I panicked, feeling short of breath and dizzy, convinced my students were about to be given something really interesting to talk about over lunch. So I canceled the lecture, went straight to the nearest doctors office and told them I thought I was having a heart attack.
I wasn't. They did tests. The reminded me that I can do a 90 minute workout at the gym with no problems. They convinced me that what I was experiencing was an anxiety attack, which was both confronting and relief all mixed into one.
Life went on, my heart didn't stop and I though all was well. Then I found a blemish on my leg, which Google assured me was probably skin cancer. Back to the doctors, back for more tests. All negative, all OK.
A couple of weeks go by, and a very mild pain appears in my side, along with matching pains in my tailbone and hip. Logic would indicate that this is muscular, but Google has me convinced it's colon cancer. Has to be. I never used to go to the loo this often before (or did I?). Never mind that the FOBT came back negative and the doctor thinks it's probably due to carrying an overloaded camera bag on one shoulder.
I finally bit the bullet and saw a counsellor, and while it is still early days I do feel like that was an important first step. Though I felt a bit silly describing my reactions to what are really mild sensations, he helped me understand that people with health anxiety are hyper-sensitive to every bodily sensation. It helped, and it made me feel a little less stupid.
And that is what this post is about. Despite being very well educated and a self-confessed "smart person", this thing has had a major impact on my life. The one good thing to come out if it was that I finally learned that the only dumb thing is to not seek help when you need it.