what triggered your health anxiety?

[hm1177]

I'm still trying to work out what triggered my health anxiety but remain confused! I woke up one day with it. I had spent the weekend before busy and healthy and happy (family party on the sat afternoon then swimming with the kids on the sunday) and on the monday I had health anxiety. I had never been obsessed with any symptoms i'd had before. When I was 18 I suffered from acute appendicitis for 8 months before the docs took me seriously and removed it (it was very enlarged by the time they did) but I never got worked up about it and took it all in my stride. I also got through 2 pregnancies without any anxiety. Anyway on this morning i woke up feeling like s**t - swollen glands and really tired and weak and so went to the doc who was fairly dismissive and told me to rest (with a 2 yr and 5 yr old at home). Anyway it all escalated from there but I still dont understand why I went from not fearing illness to becoming obsessed with it all.

So what i want to know is do you know what triggered off your anxiety or are you as baffled as me?


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[amu]

I woke up one day with anxiety (started with headaches at the time), and the day before I had been happy. However, I'm 100% sure the real reason was that my father died 6 months before that, I think it was kind of a delayed reaction to that. Didn't anything happen to you during the year before that day?

[KelzBelz]

Mine started with a pain in my chest and went from there i was doing ok till i lost my son then i worried about every aspect of my health thanx to drs x

[Emaa]

Sounds daft, but getting punched in the nose when I was 13 started my health anxiety because it gave me a deviated septum and completely freaked me out..

I think my ex-stepdad played a big part in my health anxiety, because *although undiagnosed* he had health anxiety and would often tell me he was dying - when I was alot younger.

Saying that though, I remember back to when I was in junior school and I used to check my legs for blood clots and things, so I guess I've always had it. It wasn't regular and didn't become a problem until I was 13 though.

[CJH86]

Hi, im pretty baffled about mine to be honest!!!...a couple of years back i had a perforated appendix then a nasty infection afterwards, didnt really have a flicker of anxiety at that point (maybe coz i felt too ill to even think about it)

Id say ive always been a bit edgy about my health, but when i started the 3rd year of my pharmacy degree last year and started worrying about quite strange things for my age like heart faliure, stroke etc and i just woke up one morning a month or so back and its pretty much taken over my entire life!

strange how the mind works

[Surviving]

Well I guess maybe I can consider myself one of the lucky ones... ...I do know where mine came from... Started with an extremely bad dizzy spell, chest pains, body pains... Went from doctor to every specialist known to man for 4 years before being diagnosed with a few chronic pain conditions... But jumping from doctor to doctor and being made to feel like it is all in your head gives one a nice healthy anxiety disorder to deal with on top of everything else...