DS10 is really worried about his health and gets anxiety attacks

[mom17]

He was detected about whole in heart when he was 6.7 yrs old and had open heart surgery to close his ASD. We recently had 2 deaths in our neighborhood, one 1.5 yrs back his friend's mother expired ( cancer case) and my car-pool partner DD ( 12.5 yrs old) expired because of auto-immune disease. He knows about both case and infact heard me talking about those cases to other people over phone but didn't panic that time. For past 6 months he has been suffering from stomach ache( milk indigestion and we have stopped it) and we have a good control on it but he still gets flatulence and since kids don't have strong muscle, they can't throw out like adults so it causes pain/discomfort to him. He was also complaining of chest pain for 3 months now and Dr told us that growing/active kids( plays basketball/tennis) have this pain as their body is expanding and there is some gap ( called teething pain) in chest area.

He is an avid reader and knows most of the disease symptoms so associates every pain with some disease and gets panicked because of those and these two cases are so fresh in his mind that always says what if those things happen to me.
We met lots of Dr in past 3 months and all reports are fine but he thinks what if they are not able to diagnose, we kept saying that trust your parents, trust GOD and trust Drs. since we met so many of them but he always gives these 2 example and says it didn't happen with them. We are at our wits convincing him, has any kid you know of had these kind of anxiety ? Can somebody pls. suggest what can be done. We would like child physiologist to be last option. I am not from UK BTW. Any book which we can read and use ?

[Kaylasmum49]

Hi, I'm sorry that your ds is going through this. It sounds like health anxiety to me. I suffer from this and sadly it seems that my 13 yo dd is developing this aswell. She has anxiety issues but worries a lot about being sick and ill.

I would speak to your gp to try to get some help for your ds as this can be a scary thing to live with as an adult so even more so for a child.

[mom17]

GP advised for child Psychologist but we are just worried if it will turn out to be bad seeing how people perceive mental health issue. WE would like to handle/convince him as parents rather than any third person because of stigma associated with visiting Psychologist.

[Kaylasmum49]

If you are able to help him yourselves then that's really good but you might find that outside help with people who deal with these issues would be more beneficial. There shouldn't be any stigma attached to mental health but unfortunately some people just don't understand.

I hope that whatever you decide that your ds feels better soon.