Overcoming health anxiety permanently

Hello everybody. I've posted here a fair few times, most recently over worries about muscular/nerve diseases due to a twitching/ stiff finger, and prior to here I frequented anxiety zone when I worried.

Yesterday, I went to an amusement park. It's a fair ride (about an hour) from where I live and is a pretty big park I've visited several times in the past. All my memories of visiting there are incredibly happy ones, as are my memories of the past almost entirely. As I walk around the park, I spend half my concentration focusing on enjoying the ride and indulging my happy memories, whilst the other half is spent terrified and obsessing over my fear that i'll be incapable of moving in a few months due to some terrible disease.

Now of course, given the contrast between the two moods, of course I was pining for happier days.

Eventually, we reach an old, rather rickety roller coaster from the 50s- one of the older attractions in the park. As we queue up to ride, I notice a sign that reads something along the lines of riders needing to be in good health due to the force the ride applies to you. I distinctly remember reading that very sign every time I'd visited the park and thinking exactly what I did then- I truly hope I'm in good health, as I am terrified I am not. I've spent my whole life dying from numerous diseases I didn't have. At the age of 5 my Mum sat with me in the hospital as I had an ECG because I thought I had pains in my heart. So as much as I am still terrified at the prospects of my finger, I know I need to do something.

Therapy is the clear answer you'd think, and even in the past I've had therapy. In fact, I made good progress to the point where my therapist decided we no longer needed to meet. I had a good period of around a year before Health Anxiety reared itself again over Leukemia worries late last August. So whilst I appreciate therapy is of course a solution- what do you need to do for it to be permanent. If you're not willing to wait for months, even years on end, it is expensive- and in my case was only a temporary solution.

What the hell am I meant to do? It's so bad that even after the death of a close family member, my thoughts of course turn to the finger that started twitching. Clearly I am self obsessed, and this perhaps plays into why I have hypochondria, and perhaps if I had real problems to deal with these thoughts would never occur to me. At one time, whenever I came into some free time from school or whatever, like clockwork my worrying would begin shortly afterwards, but that hasn't been true for a few years now, I'll worry regardless of whether I have free time or not.

Should I pursue further therapy, even if it only temporarily worked last time. Do I even have any further options? I've spent approximately 75% of my life worrying about dying of some terrible disease and I am truly sick of it, but at this point is it just too ingrained in my personality?

Don't give up . I in middle of cbt and don't feel much progress but we have to keep trying
It a horrible illness and unless you had it I dint think anyone can fully understand it
Just wanted to say I don't have the answers but keep going
I currently in a ms anxiety panic .
Ellie

Yes hang in there. My health anxiety started with menopause and when my father died. Hit me like a ton of bricks. I want it to go away. Winter the bad weather adds to it. If i could only forget it. Amazing if my brain stops dwelling the aches and pains go away. Last couple weeks I just can't let it go. I'm on vacation this week and I know it only going to make my HA worst. More time to dwell . Hang in there.

I know how you feel! I had an ECG at the age of ten because I was having panic attacks and they didn't know what was wrong with me and why I kept getting dizzy etc. That was 30 years ago and I have suffered with anxiety ever since. I have had good periods and bad. I've been on medication and been through a couple of years of counselling. I also feel that I'm unsure where to go next with this. I feel that since I have been this way pretty much my whole life, it seems kind of unlikely to me that I can truly change now. But I don't want that self limiting belief to be the thing that stops me making progress. For me there is no clear reason why I am this way, other than that I had a couple of hospital stays as a child, I wonder could that be the underlying factor. I guess I will never know. I don't know whether a cure is possible, but it sounds as though you, like me, have had spells of being somewhat better so at the very least we can aim to make these longer and more frequent that the bad spells.

I truly wonder what the answer is. I have been through cbt, i am now on medication, the original poster and i are worried right now about the same disease. I have spent 75 percent of my life worried about numerous diseases,i dont believe it's hypochondria , i think its something that happened to us in our childhood to either be very frighten of sickness or death, i wonder if hypnosis would help, any advice would be appreciated.

I don't have health anxiety just your average garden variety of anxiety. I took the tools my therapist gave me and I challenge my thinking all the time. As for worry? Is there anything I can do about the situation? No, then I need to focus on the present. It takes work and persistence but you can overcome these thoughts.

There have been similar posts over the years here. It's a question of healing vs. cured IMO. Cured or overcoming anxiety permanently, implies there are no side effects from the illness. We recover completely from a cold with no side effects. However, like in my situation, I'll always have the scars from surgery and side effects from treatment. My heart disease will never go away and in fact, even with treatment, meds, diet and exercise, it's progressing.

I don't deny one can be "cured" from a mental illness. I overcame depression after my illnesses. I still have challenges but I'm definitely not depressed as I was and I work hard to keep a positive attitude.

My daughter is "healing". I know of many members who are doing the same and quite a few that IMO are well on the way to being "cured". That being said, the scars I'm talking about don't have to be physical. Perhaps we're not meant to be "cured". Perhaps "healed" is a more appropriate word. Perhaps being able to see or feel that scar is a positive thing as it reminds us of where we were and how far we've come.

Positive thoughts