How I suppressed my HA

As with many people on here I have been bombarded with every kind of imaging/blood test a PCP could throw at me. Crushing my fears for a short amount of time until something new surfaces.

I got through a lot of high and low times. As of now my HA is at an all time low and its been that way for a while, but I've also been that guy on the floor wondering "What next", "this time it's for real". So if any advice I can offer will help someone even if its 1 person, great.

My lowest point for me was shifting through my stool's (gross right?) for no reason at all. Not because I had a bad stomach ache or they were a weird color. I just wanted to make sure they were to my " standards". Although it would get my approval :yesyes: it didn't stop the fear of "what if" returning later.

Eventually this led me to a PCP that my wife goes to as well. Did the CBC, urine, all that awesome stuff all blood work came back squeaky clean (Had 3 other blood works the same year from a different doctor, all same results). Urine came back with trace blood and protein.

So as you can imagine I started googling everything I could about those particular symptoms. Google is a pretty awesome tool, but not for stuff like this. Long story short, Scared my self, Had an ultrasound ect 3 blood works, Chest X-ray 24 hour urine, no known cause was found so now I just sit around with it. Which led me to buying test strips off amazon and lesson 1!

You are not a doctor (or maybe you, are but for me these were my thoughts). This was a big one for me, The realization that I am not qualified to be doing this. That if I screw something up ( which is very likely and always happened) How do I handle it? I remember I used a urine test strip and some of the pee dripped off the ketones pad and onto the bilirubin and all the sudden it was a color that wasn't even on the list for bilirubin. Do yourself a favor. If you are seriously concerned with something, get it checked out by a doctor you trust and do your best to be leave them. I mean there doctors.


No amount of reassurance from someone else is going to be good enough to calm your worries. This is something I Worked on with my Social worker and it helped me wake up. All those times I asked my wife "do you think "I'm okay?" or my mother and father "Will I be alright?". Sure, Once you ask you think you are "reassured" but are you really? In my case all my ultrasounds and bloods works didn't mean a thing about a week after I got them. it was back on to my worry. The only thing that helped me was Self reassurance, only once I was able to reassure myself was I truly happy. Everyone is capable. Give it a shot! Try to go for a day without asking anyone if you're okay or "what do you think?" You will feel really good after :)

Counseling, Something everyone should have regardless their issues, (at least that's my opinion). Counseling helped me out a lot, made a lot of breakthroughs and realized that my HA more or less came from my parents. My father who Is still to this day worried about his health destroyed his 20's with constant fear and dread of the "What if" factor. He is now 60 very healthy, and the torch seemed to get pasted to me.
Another reason for me was the fact that my mother has diabetes. She's always had it, always will have it, and is knocking on her 50 year anniversary with it. So its pretty obvious as a child I was subjected to my fathers panic and my mothers constant tests. Counseling helped me work through my struggles and get to a point where I can be happy. If Counseling is available to you I highly recommend it!!

This website is a wonderful resource where people with similar conditions can come together and talk about how much HA sucks. Its terrible, it destroyed my life for years, I'm 25 now and I don't want to waste anymore time with it.

I don't post much on here, mostly browse. I like to read people's success stories and how they are coping with their issues but I see a lot that are just posting blood work and seeking reassurance from other forum members( I'm guilty of it to :noangel:), Which by all means is fine and is Their decision, I do not judge. But from my experience this only increased my anxiety was the opposite of therapeutic I can only recommend trying to reassure yourself.


I don't think there is a cure for my HA, I believe it will always be there but I am now enjoying my life more and working on getting even better. I have taken Zoloft and Ativan for months and they are very helpful to me and have helped me cope with issues.

You can't let this ruin and run your life I spent years worrying about mysterious illnesses and then almost died in a motorcycle accident. My time spent up to that point was wasted. If I died that day I would have had very little to show for it.

I'm very new to posting here So I don't know all the rules, but there is a youtube video I would recommend to watch.
Its called "Your time in Jelly beans" and it really put things in perspective for me.

I hope No one takes this post the wrong way, I'm not trying to instigate anything. These are simply my Opinions and how I dealt with my Anxiety. Everyone has their own way of coping and I hope that I May have helped someone with there issues.

Good luck and feel free to message me if you have any questions XD.

Edit: The amount of spelling mistakes is remarkable. I am to lazy to fix them hopefully you can decode my jibborish.

I really think it's important that people DONT google. Its a major trigger and every person, every medical case is an individual experience. So many symptoms are related to innocent medical conditions that while its ok to worry a little, ask your doctor to investigate.

Mose, Im glad you pulled through also. I like to help those with HA these days. I really hope so many can look back over their past and realise they are far healthier than they believe.

Great post Mose - and it is heartening to hear you have a found a way of managing your health anxiety. We gain valuable insights about how this illness takes hold, and it is interesting to hear how other members have gained control of their lives again.

thanks for posting that Mose. Really glad that you found some causes for your anxiety and are showing others that it doesn't have to always be this way...

Great post Mose thank you

Some great advice for sufferers of HA. Thank you. :)

That was an excellent post Mose, congratulations. The key is to stop running away, to turn around and face it head on.

For me, I let my anxiety morph into thinking there is something very wrong with me that isn't related to my anxiety, when in fact I KNOW it all stems from it!!! Its hard to come back from the spiral that is "what if". I am having a very difficult time with it lately and being that I'm getting married in 2 weeks doesn't help :O

Solid advice. Not achievable for some of us, however. Not without professional help.

I was fine for years until my toddler caught a stomach bug. Now I fear everyday someone's going to catch one. I don't even like going to the store. Help...

I read this post before and loved it. I just reread it and looked at the video you mentioned, it was excellent. I don't want to spend anymore jellybeans* worrying.

I agree with the original poster wholeheartedly.
1. Don't Google.
2. You are not a doctor.
3. No amount of reassurance from someone else is going to be good enough.

Number 3 is particularly hard for my wife to get her head around. To me (a non-sufferer) it is clear that her every imagined illness needs to be 'treated' with the general techniques for combating anxiety. But she is desperate for me to check her symptoms, research, endlessly discuss it, and ends up sitting in a mess of fearfulness day after day.

Would you're wife benefit from the forum?

---------- Post added at 22:29 ---------- Previous post was at 22:24 ----------

I used to go so far as to ask my husband to look something up for me but no so relay the information back to me (as that would be too much) but to store it in case I ever needed it - poor man!

Thank you this has been very helpful

Great post no wonder its "sticky":yesyes:

Thanks

Dr Google used to be my bff, it takes so much to not type in my millions of symptons but it really helps to avoid it

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mose

As with many people on here I have been bombarded with every kind of imaging/blood test a PCP could throw at me. Crushing my fears for a short amount of time until something new surfaces.

I got through a lot of high and low times. As of now my HA is at an all time low and its been that way for a while, but I've also been that guy on the floor wondering "What next", "this time it's for real". So if any advice I can offer will help someone even if its 1 person, great.

My lowest point for me was shifting through my stool's (gross right?) for no reason at all. Not because I had a bad stomach ache or they were a weird color. I just wanted to make sure they were to my " standards". Although it would get my approval :yesyes: it didn't stop the fear of "what if" returning later.

Eventually this led me to a PCP that my wife goes to as well. Did the CBC, urine, all that awesome stuff all blood work came back squeaky clean (Had 3 other blood works the same year from a different doctor, all same results). Urine came back with trace blood and protein.

So as you can imagine I started googling everything I could about those particular symptoms. Google is a pretty awesome tool, but not for stuff like this. Long story short, Scared my self, Had an ultrasound ect 3 blood works, Chest X-ray 24 hour urine, no known cause was found so now I just sit around with it. Which led me to buying test strips off amazon and lesson 1!

You are not a doctor (or maybe you, are but for me these were my thoughts). This was a big one for me, The realization that I am not qualified to be doing this. That if I screw something up ( which is very likely and always happened) How do I handle it? I remember I used a urine test strip and some of the pee dripped off the ketones pad and onto the bilirubin and all the sudden it was a color that wasn't even on the list for bilirubin. Do yourself a favor. If you are seriously concerned with something, get it checked out by a doctor you trust and do your best to be leave them. I mean there doctors.


No amount of reassurance from someone else is going to be good enough to calm your worries. This is something I Worked on with my Social worker and it helped me wake up. All those times I asked my wife "do you think "I'm okay?" or my mother and father "Will I be alright?". Sure, Once you ask you think you are "reassured" but are you really? In my case all my ultrasounds and bloods works didn't mean a thing about a week after I got them. it was back on to my worry. The only thing that helped me was Self reassurance, only once I was able to reassure myself was I truly happy. Everyone is capable. Give it a shot! Try to go for a day without asking anyone if you're okay or "what do you think?" You will feel really good after :)

Counseling, Something everyone should have regardless their issues, (at least that's my opinion). Counseling helped me out a lot, made a lot of breakthroughs and realized that my HA more or less came from my parents. My father who Is still to this day worried about his health destroyed his 20's with constant fear and dread of the "What if" factor. He is now 60 very healthy, and the torch seemed to get pasted to me.
Another reason for me was the fact that my mother has diabetes. She's always had it, always will have it, and is knocking on her 50 year anniversary with it. So its pretty obvious as a child I was subjected to my fathers panic and my mothers constant tests. Counseling helped me work through my struggles and get to a point where I can be happy. If Counseling is available to you I highly recommend it!!

This website is a wonderful resource where people with similar conditions can come together and talk about how much HA sucks. Its terrible, it destroyed my life for years, I'm 25 now and I don't want to waste anymore time with it.

I don't post much on here, mostly browse. I like to read people's success stories and how they are coping with their issues but I see a lot that are just posting blood work and seeking reassurance from other forum members( I'm guilty of it to :noangel:), Which by all means is fine and is Their decision, I do not judge. But from my experience this only increased my anxiety was the opposite of therapeutic I can only recommend trying to reassure yourself.


I don't think there is a cure for my HA, I believe it will always be there but I am now enjoying my life more and working on getting even better. I have taken Zoloft and Ativan for months and they are very helpful to me and have helped me cope with issues.

You can't let this ruin and run your life I spent years worrying about mysterious illnesses and then almost died in a motorcycle accident. My time spent up to that point was wasted. If I died that day I would have had very little to show for it.

I'm very new to posting here So I don't know all the rules, but there is a youtube video I would recommend to watch.
Its called "Your time in Jelly beans" and it really put things in perspective for me.

I hope No one takes this post the wrong way, I'm not trying to instigate anything. These are simply my Opinions and how I dealt with my Anxiety. Everyone has their own way of coping and I hope that I May have helped someone with there issues.

Good luck and feel free to message me if you have any questions XD.

Edit: The amount of spelling mistakes is remarkable. I am to lazy to fix them hopefully you can decode my jibborish.

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This was a great post, thanks for sharing :)

Hi, anyone still about in here? I was wondering how you control those intrusive thoughts and 'symptpms' that crop up when you're doing well? I fight mine. A lot. Most the time I win. I think. But when I'm having a free/low time I'll have twitches or aches and I'm back o square 1...

Hi yes am here as a newbie so sifting through lots of posts and hopefully learning some positive ways to deal with HA.

It's very difficult when you've (I've) got into a pattern of obsessing over, symptoms, especially new ones!!

Call me crazy but reassuring other people that are battling HA and being able to use my "logical" side is helping me drown my own anxiety. I remember a comment on a youtube video where one guy claimed to be able to control his anxiety by doing math, since it forces you to use the logical part of the brain versus the creative one.

you are definitely right - no amount of reassurance from other people will make me feel truly happy and the thing is I don't even believe them and I only believe what my brain tells me which are all awful stuff (im gonna die, i have cancer etc)

THE worst thing are all the "WHAT IFs", i am only 19 but I have diagnosed myself with at least 4 cancers, and I am still 80% sure that I will get one specific cancer when im older, the uncertainty is the worst part, what ifs what ifs what ifs....The thing is I never will know when will cancer happen to me, or will it ever happen? (My mind keeps telling me it will) I don't want to waste my youth like this as I am still so young and my future should be full of wonderful things but instead i kept imagining myself in my own funeral which is so so so scary. I don't know how to cope with this anymore, its ruining my mental and physical help and I feel so helpless at all times and i feel like i will die soon and i cant enjoy THIS moment.

People posting to the Health Anxiety forum mostly seem to be young adults presumably of normal health, but worried by the possibility of diseases like cancer.

While it's true that cancer can strike very young people, the odds of getting cancer are still extremely low while you are a young adult. Furthermore, five-year cancer survival rates (although they vary according to the cancer) are getting up around the 70% mark.

So what do people die from? According to a study recently published in Australia, the leading causes of death in order are 1. Coronary heart disease, 2. Dementia and Alzheimer disease, 3. Cerebrovascular disease, 4. Lung cancer, 5. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

If they sound like diseases mostly old folk (and smokers) get, you're right - the vast majority of people in western countries make it through to old age, especially if they don't smoke.

Google really IS the root of health anxiety ... imagine having symptoms and no internet ... you wouldn't worry until you saw a doctor and found out what it is ....I really blame the net for too much information which can be good in many ways but awful for people with health anxiety

---------- Post added at 08:09 ---------- Previous post was at 08:06 ----------

Quote:

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Originally Posted by derek7467

Google is horrible. 10 years ago I felt lumps on each of my testicles - went and got an ultrasound and a blood test and both came back fine - lumps were cysts. fast forward 8 years, I keep feeling them and think, "what if the test missed something" - then I read, the blood test looks for hcG in your system and realized my wife had pregnancy tests at home...What did I do? Yep, went home and used one and the minute it showed "not pregnant", I was reassured. Reassurance doesn't work, its a temporary fix, until the next thing...

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Good to know you weren't pregnant 😂

thanks dear for this great advice. really appreciated!

This is a great post Mose - thank you for taking your time to do this for others - how thoughtful! Just makes me realize why I joined NMP.... meeting others like me doesn't make me feel so alone anymore.

This post just saved me thank you very much for posting you're story here ,
ive been worried abt my health for a few months now and every little symptom gave me chills, im so glad that im not alone to go through this
I'm 15 and i just want to suppress my HA for a sustainable future before it turns into something like depression.
Thanks

Hi, your story sound very similar to mine, except that i just turned 50. I can relate to all the reassurance seeking that really only makes things worse. I thank you for your post

I have an issue where I do suppress health anxiety and a few years later it turns out I wasn’t imagining it. An example is my depth perception. When I heard someone say she needed glasses for depth perception problems I kind of suspected I had depth perception problems too. I didn’t have any proof of that, how can I know what normal depth perception is supposed to be? I could still watch 3D movies. I did have symptoms like being unable to catch a ball and sports phobia, but I thought that was due to just being neurotic or having a defective brain. So I just ignored my depth perception issues because I didn’t want to seem retarded or neurotic. I later found out I have poor vision in one eye which I think explains my depth perception. I think this happens with other stuff as well. I often convince myself I’m imagining problems when I’m not.

Thank you for the advise 🙂 constant battle between the rational side of my brain and the but what if side....

Congratulations on feeling better! I come from another forum called benzobuddies, please try to avoid ativan or anything like it; take it only for emergencies!

Thanks for telling us about this, also watching one colorful life m and m,

Mose, I have blood in urine (traces) too. Apparently, 10% of the population has that. I got all the Ct scans, and tests and nothing was found.


A piece of advise for the next worried reader who has blood in urine (microscopic, not visible)...this almost never leads to cancer diagnosis. It must be macroscopic blood in urine, not a random finding on urine test...that triggers concern.
And also women under age 45, with some minor blood in urine...apparently have ZERO chance of bladder cancer.



I was told that by the Head of Urology in Cedars Sinai.


Just FYI

I AGREE

Well done! Great news <3