To ask if you have health anxiety, has anything helped you?

[healthanxious]

I have health anxiety and it is so frustrating and upsetting, there is always at least one type of disease I am worried I have.

Divorcing Dr Google is the best thing you can do for yourself. I was absolutely crippled by health anxiety a few years ago and NEVER googling is the main thing that helped. I’ve been ‘better’ ten years and I still don’t consult google for anything health related. Also, sertraline.

Following as I’m have the same issues.

@Flaunch that’s really useful advice. How did you ween yourself off google? What do you do when you experience concerning symptoms?

Watching closely as I feel exactly the same OP

About 4 months of sertraline and 6 months of cbt. Stepping away from Google. Avoiding sad stories about young parents being ill or dying.

I have this and I have found that CBT helped. The part that I found helpful actually was writing down what the worry was etc. Agree that not googling is also a good idea! However, I'd still be interested in this as although I don't worry that I'm sick now, I constantly worry about being diagnosed with cancer or something when I'm older. I just honestly couldn't cope with anything like that, I occasionally have panic attacks about it (although not for a while).

Google is an enemy in terms of health anxiety. 100% has to go.

If I do have any concerning symptoms I make myself wait at least a week to see if they pass (obviously not if it was like blood in urine or something). If not I make an appointment with GP.

I agree - don’t google symptoms. Also don’t watch TV programmes about illnesses or hospitals, don’t read articles or books about people with terminal illnesses.

Definitely don’t read the fucking Daily Mail!!

The other thing I would say is if you have had worries about having a serious condition before and have either had it ruled out by a doctor, or just by your symptoms disappearing, then in future you can mentally use that to calm you down. Eg “I am absolutely convinced I have x and am going to die.....but realistically I was also this convinced I was going to die of y last year and I was wrong about that, so I probably am now too.”

Also you should realise that a huge number of symptoms can be brought on and worsened by anxiety. So it is a vicious circle. If you must google your symptoms, try googling the symptom + anxiety. Most times it will be a cause, and that can help you mentally feel better, which in turn reduces the symptoms and makes you feel even better. If that makes sense!

It also helps to consider what the underlying fear is. For me it was leaving my children motherless - then considering what I can do to make life easier for them should I die whilst they are young. Insurance, making sure I had someone lined up to care for them etc.

I started taking escitaopram and xanax. I took both for about 18 months then weaned off xanax an then escitaloptam.
I was on medication for 3 years and I would say I am 90% better now than before.

For me being on medication allowed me to re-learn how to react to things normally rather than letting my mind spiral. Now the normal thought process happens naturally.

@Bizawit

Following as I’m have the same issues.

@Flaunch that’s really useful advice. How did you ween yourself off google? What do you do when you experience concerning symptoms?

It’s like anything really, drinking, smoking, eating too many sweets - you just have to tell yourself you aren’t going to do it any more, and then don’t.

If I do have a symptom I’m concerned about I’ll occasionally ask DH to google for me as he’s much more rational but I’ve found that once I was out of that fatalistic anxious phase I got much better as dealing with things sensibly and. I also learned that anxiety give you a load of very real physical symptoms and I was given a list of physical stress symptoms which helped massively as I could look at the list and remind myself that this feeling was probably stress, which made me less convinced I actually had MS which in turn made me less stressed..

Dr google is just feeding the stress beast what it wants. Do not subject yourself to it.

Oh yeah - definitely don’t read the Daily Mail!

I still watch lots of soothing TV. Much better for my mental health than doom and gloom.

@Shoppingwithmother

I agree - don’t google symptoms. Also don’t watch TV programmes about illnesses or hospitals, don’t read articles or books about people with terminal illnesses.

Definitely don’t read the fucking Daily Mail!!

The other thing I would say is if you have had worries about having a serious condition before and have either had it ruled out by a doctor, or just by your symptoms disappearing, then in future you can mentally use that to calm you down. Eg “I am absolutely convinced I have x and am going to die.....but realistically I was also this convinced I was going to die of y last year and I was wrong about that, so I probably am now too.”

Also you should realise that a huge number of symptoms can be brought on and worsened by anxiety. So it is a vicious circle. If you must google your symptoms, try googling the symptom + anxiety. Most times it will be a cause, and that can help you mentally feel better, which in turn reduces the symptoms and makes you feel even better. If that makes sense!

Totally agree!

My biggest hurdle is the fact I've always been a huge fan of medical documentaries

I used to suffer with awful health anxiety for years, including panic attacks, constantly visiting the doctors.
It became less acute once I realised it was anxiety, and learnt to recognise it. Mine occurs is a symptom of a wider issue (I first experienced it when working in a very high stress new job - the anxiety lasted for years, then again after the sudden breakdown of a relationship, then after childbirth - but each time has been less acute cos I recognise more when it’s the anxiety creeping in).
Meditation and exercise helped, and staying off google (if you’re worried ask someone close to you that you trust to look up your symptoms and they can act as a filter).

The book overcoming health anxiety.

Sertraline.

I think if I had known how common health anxiety was when I was suffering from it that would have helped. I don’t think I even recognised it as that. It took up a huge part of my 20s - it was crippling.

Sertraline 100%.
My health anxiety was crippling.
My anxiety convinced me that I had pain in certain parts of my body. I even had mri scans repeatedly over a year as I was in constant pain.
I would spend hours a day googling what the pains could be.
Started sertraline a year ago and all the pains magically disappeared.
The mind is a powerful thing.

I always thought I was a very rational person.
I had abdo pain for a year solid. I was so angry that no-one believed me. I genuinely thought I was dying.
MRI's didn't show anything alarming, I believed they had done the scan wrong.
I had all sorts of symptoms, parts of my body kept going numb, I kept getting pins and needles, shakes, panic attacks.
I wouldn't wish health anxiety on anyone.

Ex-h had very severe health anxiety, to the extent that at one point he spent the best part of a year in bed only getting up for medical appointments and the loo. Nothing worked at all: CBT, counselling, mindfulness training, constantly paying for private referrals. Literally the only thing that made any difference was a combination of antidepressants and sedatives, and he had to try about 6 of those before he found one he would stick with. Part of the problem was that he would never acknowledge that it was health anxiety and to this day remains convinced that he genuinely had that series of conditions. From having lived with him through it for years, I'd say that what would have really helped was:
a) open mindedness about things like CBT and actually do all the exercises set
b) willingness to accept expert medical advice
c) willingness to stick with medication long enough for it to start working and put up with side effects.

I know it's an awful condition to live with and I do feel very sorry for those of you going through it. This is just my perspective as a semi-outsider.

Health Anxiety is a well-recognised type of OCD- the obsession is with illness and the compulsions are things like googling, checking yourself for symptoms etc.

So:

• Avoid or reduce compulsions as far as possible; which in this case includes googling or researching illnesses and their symptoms.

• Have worry time each day (e.g. 30 minutes dedicated to worrying) and try to distract yourself from worrying outside of this time slot. Remember worrying is a behaviour and not something that just happens to you (for some reason my therapist telling me that really helped me)

• Keep an obsession/obsessive thoughts log because that way you'll be able to see the trends and notice that nothing came of previous health obsessions:

e.g. 29th September: Absolutely terrified that I have a brain tumour as I have headache, nausea and my left leg feels odd. 1st October: Think I have M.S.- definitely have something neurological. Over time you will see that your Health OCD is shifting and that it is just a worry.

• Remember that common things are common and rare things are rare. So a headache is much more likely to be a stress headache, a migraine etc. than a brain tumour; palpitations are much more likely to be due to anxiety than an arrhythmia; your legs going numb after sitting for too long is nearly always a normal thing and not a sign of M.S. etc.

• Medication helps some people.

@Flaunch

Divorcing Dr Google is the best thing you can do for yourself. I was absolutely crippled by health anxiety a few years ago and NEVER googling is the main thing that helped. I’ve been ‘better’ ten years and I still don’t consult google for anything health related. Also, sertraline.

I didn't expect so many of you to also suffer with it, I really sympathise with all of you

I am pretty good at not Googling things, but my career is in medical research so I know lots about all different kinds of diseases, particularly cancer... I get so much anxiety when showering or applying body lotion as I am on edge thinking I am going to feel a lump or discover a dodgy mole or something. I definitely need to stop reading the Daily Mail though, they are probably the number one source of my "disease of the day" worries.

I also rarely go to the GP. Whenever I read up on health anxiety it seems most sufferers seek reassurance from the GP or their loved ones but I keep it all bottled up and put off going to the GP unless I know it is something that really needs looking at. The strange thing is when I do go to the GP I am immediately calm because I feel like the onus is on them to figure out whether something is wrong and it is no longer my responsibility anymore.

I don't know what the core belief I have that causes this. When I was a child I spent a lot of time visiting grandparents in hospitals including ICU and I think that may be what has made me terrified of getting unwell.

I think I will ask for a telephone appointment with my GP. However I feel embarrassed as I know what I am worrying about is illogical or caused by me hyper fixating on body sensations and yet it doesn't stop the panic attacks.

I take citalopram so that pretty much addresses it most of the time. I still get anxious about unusual pains. Particularly in my legs! Always think it's dvt. It never is. I take a few medications and use the bnf app to check for interactions and side effects. So I'm not googling around it and coming up the random horror stories. Just getting the facts.

I also think some cbt for anxiety or a course on anxiety or worry would help. I've done a one to one anxiety cbt course. They don't really address the specifics of each worry its more about dealing with worry and anxiety. As the specifics aren't particularly relevant as of it wasn't on etching it would be another.

I get how it can spoil things though. For me it's also related to a bit of a health scare a few treatments. Plus an early death in the family (not that unexpected he was an alcoholic) but still shock to the system. So looking at why you are worried something will happen to you on therapy is a good idea too.

Same as @AmericanAdventure but I have a 10 day rule - if the symptom is still there after 10 days if not googling or obsessing about it, I can go to the doctor.

www.amazon.co.uk/Overcoming-Health-Anxiety-David-Veale/dp/1845298241?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

I'm a cbt therapist and /love/ treating health anxiety. Get some free evidence based cbt on the NHS :)