Posting for traffic - has anyone been helped by antidepressants for health anxiety ?

[letgu]

I am just done with feeling this way. I fixate on different issues continuously and it makes me so unhappy. I’m crying a lot and I have dark thoughts about me getting ill / dying and leaving my kids behind or them doing the same.

it is exhausting. Whenever I need to wait for a test result, I’m beside myself with worry and cannot relax. Every cough every sneeze my kids have, is super serious. Any sensation I feel in my body, is cancer.

I don’t want to have therapy. I honestly just can’t be bothered to talk about it. I’ve had therapy before. I tried better help last year and they just wanted to dig out more and more problems in my life.

my life is fine. I’m luckier than so many people. It’s my brain that’s torturing me, constantly scanning for danger, constantly analysing and storing information and constantly thinking about the what ifs.

I feel consumed by these thoughts of illness/ death / darkness.

has anyone else been like this and got better with antidepressants ? The GP dished it out to me, with no plan, no explanation, no face to face appointment.

ADs can help, however if you can't be 'bothered' to explore what lies beneath the irrational schema, I fear that you will stay stuck.

For me they were life-changing. It's nothing at all about being "bothered" - if your mind is stuck in a cycle of anxiety sometimes you cannot do anything to explore yourself out of the issue. The medication in those cases can be life changing

But I’ve done it all before. For fucking years. I just don’t see the point anymore to talk to some stranger about things. It doesn’t really help anymore. I’ve tried a couple of times over the last few years and found it pointless and frustrating.

please ignore that first poster - they are talking nonsense

At a particularly low point when other issues were coming up on top of the health anxiety I started on ADs and they did help, however I have always found talking therapies the best for this particular problem. It is so rooted in your subconscious reacting irrationally that you need to work out what's really going on and address that.

Hi OP, sympathies - I referred myself to Talking Therapies for the same issue (massive health anxiety for my children / parent, not myself though). I have been told I have generalised anxiety disorder, and fluctuate from mild to moderate with it. Have a look online and see if you can refer yourself in your local area. I also have diazepam which helps calm me when I'm in a real panic. Sympathies, as it is awful to feel this way

I have done so much therapy guys since my early twenties on and off. I’m not against it. I’ve done CBT. Read all the books. I did psychoanalytic therapy for 3 years or so too. I can analyse the shit out of myself and why I react how I do. Yes I have trauma and don’t always feel safe etc so my brain does this.

the last few years I have tried therapy again and I found it so patronising and just stuff I could have worked out / worked out myself ages ago anyway. It didn’t help. Then one therapist has such a condescending tone- ‘ did you do your homework? ‘ kind of vibe. It’s just not what I need or want right now. At all.

So sorry you are struggling so much, OP. I sympathise too, as I had dreadful health anxiety when much younger, mostly about CJD and neurological conditions.

Ironically enough. I actually now do have a sodding neurological involuntary movement disorder called tardive dyskinesia that was caused by some prescribed off label antipsychotic after a head injury 😳 So, I wasn't lucky unfortunately 💔

Sorry to make this about me..! I think you need to try the antidepressants, and see if they calm your mind and worries a bit. I've always heard good things about CBT too, although I know you said you didn't want therapy.

Hope you can find something to help you.❤️

I would definitely suggest taking the meds and seeing what happened. For me, the meds basically fixed the issue. I am still a worrier, but the all-consuming panic has totally gone

You won’t have done it all though. If you’re going to dismiss treatment, then you can’t expect to get better. If you don’t get better, it will start to impact you all more than it already is.

Have you had CBT? You don’t need to be delving into your past, you need to be changing the obsessive nature in your brain, gaining strategies to let go of intrusive thoughts. It’s similar to OCD.

Massively. I'm on fluoxecylin (Prozac).
One of the better drugs to help with anxiety. It has really helped although I sometimes get so overwhelmed I can hardly move. But so much better than I was. I actually find it hard to cry so much now.

Sorry to hear you have that. I have multiple sclerosis. So I guess that’s also not great and could also be a factor in the sense that it came out or nowhere.

I just have this thought all the time that at any second something awful could happen and you don’t even know and I find it hard to accept that and to stop thinking about it.

I've not got health anxiety but other types of anxiety and antidepressants have helped me a lot. They take my anxiety down to much more manageable levels where I'm able to challenge it and go about my daily life. I'd say something has to change for you, it sounds like you're struggling and you don't want to pass your anxiety on to your children. If you have tried therapy and don't want to give that another go, medication is your only route.

I have prozak on my counter. Just waiting for some test results for my son to come back and then I think I’ll start. The test results have consumed my every waking moment since they did the blood draw. My son possibly being sick has consumed my entire being for the last few months. It’s just awful. If it’s not that, it’s that my boob hurts. If it’s not my boob it’s that I have a weird feeling in my stomach. Is it pain or not ? Is it stomach cancer ? Is it my MS ? It’s so tiring. It ruins everything.

Yes, I am on ADs for health anxiety and yes, they massively help.
They slow my brain down generally. I have less thoughts in general and more “blankness” in my mind.
It comes with negative side effects (fatigue, poor concentration) but for me it’s worth it on balance.
I have done CBT in the past. It only works when I’m medicated and already in a reasonably good mental state. Other talking therapy made it worse.

My health anxiety kicked off with CJD.
It was in all of the news when I was a kid and that’s when it all started for me.
So sorry to hear you have TD. I used to get psychomotor restlessness from an antipsychotic. It went away after I came off but it was one of the most awful things I’ve ever felt. I had it for about ten years.

Definitely take the AD’s! They are a lifechanger and really help calm the noise in your brain. I find it doesn’t stop it but you’re better able to objectively push it away and not stress about it. I wouldn’t wait for the test results to come back if you already have it. Honestly, you won’t look back if the drugs are a right fit. Good luck xx

its worth taking the ADs but I would use them with CBT or other therapy. They aren’t a magic bullet. It takes work to recover.