Health anxiety advice

[Sparkles1212]

How do you deal with health anxiety or health ocd? I've suffered for 40 + years and it is SO debilitiating. I know all the words to say to talk myself down, but they dont seem to help, very much, if at all.

For me it isnt being dead which worries me, its being ill. Suffering, you know?

What works for you? 😎

Nothing works. Am following for advice.

I really really hope that's not true @JacknDiane !

You have to learn to challenge your thoughts and break the panic spiral. It's not the thoughts themselves that are the problem It's the fear that comes with them. So for instance if you have a headache and think 'what if it's a brain tumour' you have to challenge that and think in a calm and rational way and balance the thought out and think it's unlikely to be that. This stops the panic from spiralling and stops you googling etc.

I had cancer years ago and after treatment I used to panic about the cancer coming back. My therapist told me that when I had that thought to balance it out with ok it might come back but then again it might not so what's the point of worrying about something that may not happen. This did take a lot of practice but after a while the new way of thinking of balancing it out became a habit and now it's automatic.

That is a LOT of work @2dogsandabudgie. But ultimately its work which needs to be done! Thank you. I hope you're doing well now 🥰

Accept it
accept the thoughts and let them be they lose power
it’s the only thing that works for me

It does take practice. We have to change the way we behave and think. A person who hasn't got health anxiety doesn't spend their time checking for lumps and bumps and analysing every ache and pain and googling symptoms. So we have to learn to act like someone who doesn't have health anxiety which takes practice, but it does become easier.

Like the pp said accepting the thoughts as just that, they are just thoughts not reality also takes away the anxiety.

Another one that worked for me was telling myself I would worry about it tomorrow as I didn't have time today and then the next day I would do the same thing and so on.

Also some people find that only allowing themselves 10 minutes a day to worry about something helps although you have to be strict with that.

These are some of the things that I have tried in the past. I hope you find something that works for you.

I know this isn’t a helpful thing to write, but I had/have the most awful health anxiety. One time I thought, no, not this time. Payed to see a private therapist to work through that episode. She was great.

Then I collapsed and ended up in hospital. I actually was very ill that time.

Sorry if that makes anyone feel worse but not everything is down to health anxiety.

So now I’m even worse and the only winner is AXA as I use them so much, my insurance premium keeps going up.

I was a sufferer of health anxiety for the past 2 years, had tried various tactics/treatments/medications. As a last ditch attempt I got prescribed medical cannabis. I take the oil daily. It does not get me high. But my anxiety has disappeared.

Goodness @MyChemicalarsehole! That must have been awful 🥺

Do you get it on script @Purplelantern?

Honestly prioritise getting good therapy.

Anxiety is anxiety, regardless of our triggers or thought patterns, and this kind of top down thinking alone can help a bit. I am early on in my therapy journey and its already helping a bit though I have been through a severe breakdown/burnout rather than my "normal" anxiety. Things you should look into thats helping me:

• Understanding hypervigilance/hyperstimulation generally
• Distress tolerance techniques
• Cognitive defusion techniques
• Behavioural activation
• Bottom up nervous system regulation

And also try and understand that anxious brains really struggle to be optimistic or look to the future in a neutral way. So posting online is often triggering as people drawn to the threads are often anxious themselves so it becomes a confirmation bias situation.

I have had health anxiety and it fucking SUCKS but I just dont have it anymore. I have developed general anxiety as a result of chronic real life stress and burnout and it sucks because anxiety is shit and horrible, but very treatable so please hang in there and seek treatment.

Dont forget the basics - eating regularly, hydrating well, checking for vitamin deficiencies and being moderately active. Sounds patronising but I notice my anxiety is 20x worse when these needs arent being met

Do you find your vitamin intake affects your anxiety @T1mesAreHardForDreamers?

@Sparkles1212 Absolutely 100%.

But I got blood tests done to check for deficiencies (Vitamin D, B12 and folate and also low ferritin that doesnt mean the NHS standard to be labelled a deficiency, but levels were also taken after a few weeks of supplementation so could have been even lower)

What I have found more important is macronutrients and diet. I had a poor diet and ate a LOT of sugar and refined carbs. Before my anxiety got really acute this year, I was starting to feel very bad after every time I ate. Like extreme fatigue to the point of intertia, even if I hadnt eaten loads. Magnesium has also made a very tangible difference, especially when my anxiety was bleeding into my dreams.

I ended up after some time cutting out gluten and dairy, at first I thought it was psychosomatic (I had developed a lot of irrational fear around food anyway) but recently tried to eat a mac and cheese and within half an hour had that same crushing fatigue and felt way more anxious than I had been that day. Annoyingly, having cut out both at the same time I can't definitively attribute my issues to either one but for now they are off the table.

Also really important is stabilising my blood sugar by eating regularly and focusing on balanced meals, not too carb heavy but definitely not no carb.

I will say though, making sure all these bases are covered absolutely help massively take away the intensity of anxiety. I have ADHD so its a struggle for me to keep up with these basics especially when before my anxiety skyrocketed I could make do with being lax.

But ultimately, when we are well we are able to deal with these without it causing anxiety, so the focus should be on getting help with your anxiety which involves therapy and understanding what a "hyperstimulated" or "disregulated" nervous system is, why it causes anxiety and how while it's really helpful to have the top down knowledge and skills from therapy, you also need to acknowledge the "bottom up" processes we need to engage in to calm our systems back down and feel safe. Breaking the loop is really important!

@T1mesAreHardForDreamers thanks! That's so helpful. If you've got time, could you expand a bit more on macronutrients?

Yes, on prescription. I have 2 different bottles of oil, one for day time, one for night time. The bottles cost about £55 each but they well last me well into the new year, I do keep getting reminded that I'm due my "monthly" prescription, but I dont need anymore. Honestly, it gave me my life back.

I got divorced. Turns out my anxiety was all stemming from being unhappy deep down.

I'd get your iron levels tested and supplement if you have ferritin under 100 and/or transferrin saturation under 20%. My health anxiety went away by getting my iron levels up.

The Iron Protocol for Iron Deficiency with or Without Anemia on Facebook is a great place to find out more - lots of people find their anxiety goes when they fix their low iron.

NB the GP's "normal" range is low enough that you can still be having symptoms - check the actual figures.

Vit D is also important.

Amazing advice and insight. Thank you all ❤️

@Sparkles1212 Sure, want to caveat that everybody is different, but feel like this is pretty universal advice.

Even if your anxiety feels really bad, and this sounds like too simple a suggestion, I can pretty much guarantee you will feel better than you do now by ensuring the basics are covered. Adequate hydration is critical and by macronutrients I mean ensuring my meals are more balanced. Some people do keto or low carb, I havent personally tried this for anxiety as I didnt like how I felt doing keto when I was well, but the usual focusing on moderate complex carbs with plenty of protein and good fat makes a big difference. I also switched to eating more regularly instead of eating 2 big meals a day. My stomach was so tense and I got stuck in a cycle of not being able to eat and then hunger and low blood sugar making me feel way worse, so eating regularly has helped a ton. I also developed awful reflux which required omeprazole and antacids from the anxiety which went away when I started eating regularly again.

I also agree with the poster who mentioned getting divorced and how her anxiety went away by solving the root cause. Im not saying I personally had anything like that but I realise now that my current mental load is far too high. Even though on paper my load is much easier than others, there were still way too many things that were bogging me down and getting on top of me.