Is this health anxiety?

[mumtorobbie]

I was on the general health board earlier further fueling my anxiety and I came across a post regarding health anxiety and I'm wondering if this is something I need to consider.

For the last 20 years or so I've felt very anxious over my family's health - never my own.

I never particularly worry about myself perhaps because I am in control of my health to some extent but I worry incessantly about my family, especially my parents and DCs.

A good example of this is my DF has a nasty cough at the moment. He has seen his GP and had a chest xray yesterday. All very routine.

The minute he said he was going to the GP I spent hours Googling coughs etc with predictably lung cancer coming up time and time again. I have worked myself into such a state that I almost didn't make it into work this morning. A week ago I was actually sick with worry about it.

I have been like this as long as I can remember. When I saw a thread about health anxiety I suddenly felt an enormous sense of relief.

I'm not too bad with my DCs and DH at the moment because I suppose in my mind I think they're young so they won't get ill. I definitely associate ill health with getting older.

Is this health anxiety and if it is, what can I do about it? I can't spend my life worrying so much.

I dont know if is health anxiety or not, I dont know enough about it.

But at one point, my husband and my mum told me I should throw out any health books I had around, because I was spending too much time looking at them.

They were right. And when I really did have something, I managed to self diagnose myself incorrectly.
So I realised that they were even more right!

I learnt from that, and no longer properly look at health stuff, because the last thing I want to do is misdiagnose me or anyone else.