Childs health anxiety ruling everything

[Wintersnuggles10]

Hi, looking for advice on how best to deal with health anxiety?
Bit of background. My son is ten. We have had years of worry and stress with various issues. School thought possible asd/adhd when younger, referred to cahms, and he also had counselling. They made a diagnosis of anxiety.
Over the years and as he has matured we've been able to notice patterns and things that spark his anxiety off. Used to be meltdowns when he was younger but this doesn't happen anymore. Then it was friendship issues as he didn't seem to fit in very well. This isn't an issue at the moment as he has a secure group of friends.
When covid started, his anxiety spiralled out of control into health anxiety. At one point it was so bad he would have panic attacks in supermarkets etc. Again this has eased off at the moment which we are super happy about. But the general health anxiety remains. He has stomach issues which I think are related very much to his high levels to anxiety.
He catastrosizes everything. A small cut, his arms falling off. A headache, it's a brain tumour. His chest hearts, must be a heart attack.
When he wakes each morning his first words are telling me what's wrong with him. During each day on average he will probably tell me of ten different ailments he supposedly has.
Weve had him checked over and he's got a clean bill of health.

I suffer from anxiety myself and I do understand, but it is very difficult to deal with sometimes. I have other children to look after aswell, but he's the one who's constantly attention seeking with this. (that's how my husband sees it)
Should we ignore the ailments we come up with and try to distract him, or reassure him that he's OK? Or tell him to stop???
I usually reassure and try to move on, but he is relentless with it.
I have to admit this morning I have just lost my temper with him because he didn't even say good morning, it was straight into stomach pains and head pains. I told him it's not possible to have those many things wrong so often and he's making it up. Now I feel incredibly guilty and have cried about it. It's really tough to deal with sometimes and I feel so incredibly sorry for him aswell that he feels this way

Also to add, at the beginning of covid, he stopped eating because he couldn't swallow. He said he could feel a lump in his throat. Doctor said its something called hysterical throat. Luckily after about 6 weeks this eased off but that was the worst experience I've ever had. At one point he couldn't swallow his own saliva.

He needs some support/counselling.
I would go back to the gp with regard to his anxiety.

I think he needs some professional help. I don't know enough about it, but I would be looking for medical intervention for his anxiety at this point.

In the meantime, I think being sympathetic is the only option. Could it be managed into specific times? So maybe you ask him every morning how he's feeling, he can tell you everything and then that's it until lunch when you will check in with him again? Maybe if he knows he has regular points to get it off his chest he'll be better able to get on with stuff in between?

Get a book called "What to do when you worry too much" by Dawn Huebner - brilliant. Read it cover to cover on your own (and make sure co-parent has read it and is on board), then work with him through the book. You need to stop the reassurance (hard!) as that is not helping in the long run. (I have been there and this book helped us massively... Ds now left home for Uni and is incredibly good at managing his anxiety) Good luck!

I've no advice but wanted to send you a huge amount of sympathy. Dd is 11 and over the last few months has developed health anxiety. She has a few conditions anyway which I've always felt she's coped with really well but recently she obsesses over everything. Normal symptoms for her become hugely worrying and her pain is massively increased I suspect because of the anxiety. She has stomach problems now which GP thinks is stress related but she panics it's appendicitis. Today she's been asking me to look at her wee as she thinks it's got a greeny tinge, it hasn't. Rashes she worries are cancer, pain could be cancer, her first thought about everything is a devastating diagnosis. Even a f2f appointment with her paediatrician going through all of her worries and being reassured, only helped for a few hours and then she was panicking again. I'm very sympathetic but exhausted by it.

I think he needs some help through cams. My DS is like this he has ASD and is 20 now and suffers from health anxiety. The worst being having to take him for an echo twice as he was insistent he was having continuous chest pains which we said was anxiety but then you have a gnawing feeling like what if it is something and it gets missed because you have dismissed it. It can be hard and exhausting but I have found that after a while it does pass. By that I meant whatever the ailment is that day or week. I just nod along now and remind him not to Google symptoms. Mostly these days its covid. So every day or week he will have a cold or a sore throat or bis ear hurts, does he feel hot. I just say take your temperature and do an LFT which he hates but it puts his mind at rest and he carries on. When he was at secondary that was probably his worst ever time so I would start now at trying to get some help.