health anxiety

[hopeliss]

has anybody ever found a cure for health anxiety. it has plagued my life for 7 years and don't see an end to it. awful day today.
ps never been on mumsnet before. sorry if this is the wrong place to raise this.

Hello - please could I join too? I have suffered on & off for last 10 yrs since birth of my children. Constantly worrying that every little ache & pain is something much worse. Not helped by being menopausal, also a MIL in last stages of terminal cancer, who was fit & well - we thought -5 months ago. Now I'm worrying that I have something awful too & don't know about it.
My usual way of coping is to make a Drs appt for a few weeks time then cancel it a few days before if I've managed to convince myself that I'm really ok. I have just done that as am hoping that MN will be just as effective a support as she is !!
Thanks

Hello Miranda , mine too started after I had my third child , and got worse and worse since I care for terminally ill people which often triggers it off. I've had bad back and abdominal pain this am which has set me off again , I like your appointment idea I think I'm going to try this too :)

That's terrible MrsDeVere, I really hope it happens for you soon and you get the support you need.
I have had mine since I had my dc, and used to be able to tell myself not to worry so much, that nothing was going to happen, that it was all in my head, but then we were involved in an RTA which put my ds in intensive care (he made a full recovery, thank God) but it shattered my confidence that my worries were unfounded.
I am finding this thread a great support though, and finding it really helpful to read your stories as well as posting my own. Anytime of the day or night!

When hopelis started this thread back in October, it was to ask if anyone had been 'cured' of it - does anyone know if this is really possible? Or can you just learn techniques to manage it?

I'm certainly not cured, but I'm not in the terrible place i used to me. I don't pace the house shaking, I don't feel sick with panic at the first sign of a sniffle in one of my children or whatever. I do still panic, but it's not on the scale where I totally can't function because its all that I can concentrate on. Although I do have wobbles, as I can see for myself if i read back through my posts on this thread over the past couple of months.

I'm not sure I'll ever be cured, but a combination of CBT and medication have definitely allowed me to be a more coherent and functioning individual.

It does help to know that there are others though, I used to feel so alone.

MrsDeVere I've seen you on other threads and was aware of the fact that you have lost your daughter. I'm so sorry, that is a special kind of hell that I couldn't begin to understand.

treaclesoda can you give us some of the CBT techniques? I have to pay for CBT here and it is about 90 per session, so that ain't happening :(

waswats I'm not at the computer at the moment but when I next am, I'll post a link to a book I've found helpful and I'll try to explain how cbt worked for me. With the disclaimer that I'm not a therapist myself of course, so can only pass on a few tips, I'm not a cbt expert by any stretch of the imagination.

Would you mind me joining you?

I used to on a long running health anx thread on here a few years ago, the support was brilliant and got me through some tough times,along with some counselling. I've been on top of my HA for a good while now but these past few weeks it's reared it's ugly head again.

I've been back and forth to the dr for a few months now with pain in my left side and lower abdomen, I've had blood tests which came back ok and an ultrasound after the dr said she could feel a fullness during an internal examination, this also came back clear. They are now treating it as IBS and trying me on meds for that.

But the pain is still there and I have convinced myself I either have cancer or an aneurysm. I'm barely sleeping and the constant feeling of dread is back with avengence

I'm sorry you are all living with these horrible, often debilitating feelings. I hope you are all doing ok today.

Treacle that would be fantastic thanks!

Blissa pull up a chair.

I am sure you are fine, IBS can cause dreadful pain, I had it years ago, my goodness it was horrible. Waves of pain. If you had cancer or an aneurysm they would have found evidence of it by now. I promise.

Ok, firstly the book that I recommend is this

What my therapist did with me was to identify the 'errors' in my thinking, and work with me to try to overcome them. To take one example, she identified that I had a tendency to catastrophise, to always see every problem as the most serious thing it could be. So, for example, I had abdominal cramps. The 'normal' reaction to that would be 'ok, I've got a stomach bug' and to see how it goes. But in my case I jumped straight to 'bowel changes can be a sign of cancer, I'm ill, I'll never see my children grow up' etc. As I'm sure everyone on this thread can identify with, I could go straight from having a mild pain to planning my own funeral, imagining how I would explain to my children that I wouldn't be there for them, wondering how my elderly parents would cope when I died first etc. What CBT taught me was that these are thinking 'errors' and that I need to stand back and think of alternative explanations. So, on the one hand it might be a symptom of bowel cancer, but on the other hand, it might be a stomach upset, food poisoning, IBS and dozens of other conditions that are unpleasant but in no way life threatening. When I first started doing it I thought 'this will never work' but to my surprise, I did find that it helped.

She used to have me keep a diary, where I would identify on a scale of one to ten what my symptom was and how worried I was about it. Then I would have to think of alternative explanations and think again about where I was on the scale.

That is obviously a very brief explanation, and there was a lot more to it than that, as there were loads of 'thinking errors' to cover, but I just wanted to give a wee example of how it worked for me. That book that I linked to explains it all quite well though, you might find it helpful.

Book ordered treacle, thanks so much...I am finding this thread a great source of comfort and support and honestly have been feeling better (read 'good days' as I know it will be back) I think it's because it is the first time I have really acknowledged I have a problem, and facing it is helping to minimise it some how. How is everyone else doing?

I have ordered it too, thanks so much.

I could have written your post Treacle word for word. IOf I get a twinge under my arm, it is breast cancer. Shit I have cancer. I have to face telling the kids. They will be in bits. How will they cope at my funeral? Who will cuddle them the night I am gone. Etc etc etc etc etc . I can make a 'drama' out of anything and I think that is one of the massive problems. I have kept it inside me for so long because people label me as dramatic. So I don't want to make a show of myself and say nothing, dying inside, pardon the pun!

I am finding Lexapro helpful, I am more at ease but need to learn how to change my way of thinking.

Crocked, I hope seeing that there are so many of us helps. Hopefully when one of us is having a meltdown another will come in with a rational head and talk rationally.

Have ordered the book too, thank you treacle.

What you say about catastrophising (is that a word?!) rings very true. I fear the worst and get scared so easily. I am terrified of leaving my dc, and run through all the senarios you have all mentioned.

I can't find the post I read earlier,was it yours treacle? that said about how we think and changing your focus to counting coloured objects when you're thinking bad thoughts. This struck a chord and made me realise that the way I think isn't 'normal'. Checking your pulse several times a day isn't 'normal' behaviour is it?

Crocked, I think that chatting with other people who are going through the same thing really helps. I've found that no one can understand anxiety unless they have experienced it themselves, how can they? It's so irrational.

I worry that I may ignore a something that does need checking because I am anxious about my health. Current worry, I feel as if I have a lump or a growth on the left side under my rib cage. I can't physically feel anything when I dig around, its more of a sensation. Crazy?! I can almost imagine it growing. I've had this about 8 months and have so far resisted going to the dr as wouldn't really know how to describe it to them. In the past have "had" numerous different cancers and a heart attack!!! Also worry like mad about my children. Is exhausting.

hemel07 it is so so weird that you should say that because I have exactly the same sensation! Only in my case it is under my ribs on my right. I've had it for ages, and I can only conclude that if it was a 'growth' it would by now have grown to the point that it would be visible/touchable. (About 15 years ago I had a very severe chest infection and was lying on my side in bed when I took a coughing fit, and felt something 'snap' in that area, and tbh it has never felt quite right since. But that was before I had health anxiety, so at that stage it didn't bother me )

When I tried to stop taking my anti anxiety medication the 'sensation' got much worse, to the extent that I felt like it was crushing my lungs and I couldn't breathe. It was terrifying.

I did have a lump in the exact spot about 6yrs ago, it was my gall bladder which was subsequently removed, so maybe just "remembering" the feeling, or perhaps some scar tissue, or most probably some horrible cancer. I am also concluding that would have developed other symptoms by now (but what if am ignoring when really should be pushing for an MRI scan?).

hemel

You would have other symptoms. You do not have cancer, you have health anxiety.

If I think enough about any part of my body I become aware of it. Think of your right hip. Really sit quietly and just 'feel' it in your head. The chances are it might twitch or make itself known to you. Like with yoga, you will feel little aches and pains that you never had before.

Our minds are wonderfully powerful instruments, ours are just playing the wrong tune.

Thankyou WasWats, you speak so much sense.

That is a great book. I have read it so many times.

I am still waiting for my appointment about my mouth. It has been over 3 weeks so I guess they have marked it as non-urgent which is a good thing I guess and it hasn't changed at all.

I am trying to keep busy but now the kids have gone back to school it is getting more difficult.

We are obviously still grieving so things are difficult enough so I have to get a handle on this.

hemel, WasWats is spot on :)

Does anyone else find their anxiety has lessened somewhat since Christmas is over? I think what happens with me is I feel anxiety, like everyone does. But then I distort it. So for example, Christmas. Everyone feels stress. But I don;t feel the stress about Christmas, oh no. I decide that because it is Christmas something terrible will happen. I will die. I will die on Christmas morning and my kids will find me. Throw me an Oscar ;) But seriously, it is as if my brain goes, shit there is a bit of anxiety here, must be a health thing. Now wats, go ad find a lump and get nuts over it.

And so the cycle starts. Check, check again, Check in different lights. Check at different times of the day, in different rooms and multiply it by a million!!!!
God no wonder I am always knackered.

I go through phases of making my husband wake me up when he leaves in the morning (5am!) just to make sure I haven't died in the night.

Oh hemel-I used to do that too!

Its amazing that so many people can have the exact same thought processes.