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health anxiety

999 replies

hopeliss · 14/10/2013 11:18

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.

OP posts:
choclab · 03/12/2013 21:03

hello everyone ..and warm welcome to dontwanna ..and Ephiny ... Smile

sorry to hear your feeling so worried , dontwanna ....this health anx is truly awful ....but as treacle has said feel free to off load here as we all understand how if can be ...hopefully your appointment will come through very soon ....and can put your mind at rest ...

if you'v had chance to read back you will see how bad i have been the past weeks ..i am in a slightly better place today ..Hmm

how rings with you treacle today ?

choclab · 03/12/2013 21:03

*things

treaclesoda · 03/12/2013 21:46

Today has been not too bad, thanks choc.

Ephiny yes, I've had the focus on someone else thing. In fact, I had that quite badly before my focus shifted to myself. This almost sounds funny, but it nearly drove me to the edge of reason. Shortly after my first child was born, I became convinced that my dh had a cancerous growth on one side of his head. He wears his hair very very short as he is almost bald. With hindsight, all I was seeing was the fact that no one has a symmetrical head Blush , there wasn't even a lump or anything. But for months I used to only stand to his left, as I couldn't bear to see the left side of his head. I remember almost being physically sick when I had to stand behind him in a queue because I could see 'it'. I got to the stage where I dreaded him coming home from work because it meant I spent the evening looking at it, convinced this imaginary growth was bigger each day.

choclab · 04/12/2013 16:04

how is everybody today ?

FloopyFox · 04/12/2013 16:47

Hi, I'm new. I'm not sure if my health anxiety is health anxiety. I constantly worry about my mental health. I have suffered with depression in the past and suffer from seasonal affective disorder. But I also x

FloopyFox · 04/12/2013 16:49

Sorry, pressed enter by mistake
I also convince myself that on my low days it's just depression, but when I have a good day it must be because I am bipolar. I am recovering from surgery at the moment and am in pain, but I'm not sure if the pain is real or if I have convinced myself I must be in pain... Does this make any sense?

strawberryswing · 04/12/2013 18:12

Hi guys :)
Hope you don't mind me joining in, I suffer from terrible health anxiety :( It genuinely is ruining my entire life , as I spend my whole day just waiting for my brain to haemorrhage.

It sounds completely crazy but when I was 4 years out I had a violent headache and passed out. No tests were done on me at all and was just diagnosed with a migraine. However I'm terrified it was something more severe and that was just totally missed.

Now I'm 22 and I have been having daily head/eye pains for 2 months. They start when I wake up and carry on intermittently for the rest of the day. Every single day, no breaks. I'm now even more convinced that it is an AVM/aneurysm and that I'm going to die leaving my young daughter.

Because of my health anxiety the doctors will no longer believe me, and I'm at a total loss bevause I'm crippled with fear that my brain is going to bleed. Sorry to bring down the tone but I needed to get tat off my chest!

phlebas · 04/12/2013 22:41

Ephiny my health anxiety (i'm on sertraline which has reduced the intensity of panic & my physical symptoms though I'm still living a half life) is primarily focused on my children. Sometimes I think it would be good to die in a accident because the agony I feel watching the children for signs that they are going to die is unbearable. I'm an ex-HCP and have ishoos from fairly horrid previous medical stuff (have some PTSD symptoms) ... I have four children & every time I feel like I get on top of the anxiety something else happens.

Yesterday I had a pelvic scan for weird gynae stuff (all okay) and was feeling relatively calm but today dh had a drs appointment for a mole check & psa testing ... that primed me & the this evening my 2yo woke up crying/gagging/burping but wasn't sick - dh thinks he has a cold & post nasal drip, I'm running through brain tumour symptoms (? raised intra cranial pressure from lying down causing nausea). Last month it was neuroblastoma, or leukaemia. It is always something & I just want it to stop.

phlebas · 04/12/2013 22:46

& oh yes to adverts leaflets, charity campaigns, fb stuff, news articles etc ... they are all signs that something bad will happen soon.

Argh my bloody brain makes me so unhappy :(

treaclesoda · 04/12/2013 22:53

Floopy what you're saying makes perfect sense to me. When my anxiety is bad, I don't trust myself or my judgement. I torture myself thinking 'is this pain real, or have I convinced myself it's real?' and I end up not knowing if I'm coming or going.

treaclesoda · 04/12/2013 22:56

also, hello to phlebas and strawberry.

Although I hate the thought of you all suffering the misery of anxiety, I can't tell you just how much comfort I feel in knowing that there are so many of us, when for years I've felt so isolated with this.

phlebas · 04/12/2013 23:14

When my anxiety is bad, I don't trust myself or my judgement. I torture myself thinking 'is this pain real, or have I convinced myself it's real?' and I end up not knowing if I'm coming or going.

yes me too - when I'm bad I don't trust my perceptions at all. It is so exhausting.

FloopyFox · 05/12/2013 16:30

Thank you phlebas and treacle. I find that reassuring that I'm not alone.

choclab · 06/12/2013 07:27

hi all and welcome to all new people Smile
how is everyone ?

you are not alone this and is areal comfort to know that ...

I'm going through another worry .. Sad seems just get over one fear and another presents itself ...

so feeling veyr anx today i was diagnosed with IBS some years back and cut long tory short had various tests ...saw various doctors to confirm this ...

i keep getting left hand side pain just under left rib ...i sometimes am in agony but passes with a little (wind) but lately this has ben happening a lot ...most weeks .....and yesterday a lot longer than normal .... and not as much wind (stmi sorry ) im now worried may be C ....and pancreatic ....like Haley has on coronation street ....
this is the kind of trigger that will set me off .....and now its fixed in my mind that when i get this pain that is what it is ....

considering making an appt with consultant again then can poss get answers or forward to another scan .....
holding off the google search if i can .....but this cloud is over me now and finding it hard to feel happy or shift it ....

treaclesoda · 06/12/2013 08:51

oh choc I'm so sorry that another panic has come just as the old one seemed to ease Sad

Don't google, whatever you do, but then you know that already.

The best I can offer is some virtual handholding, will that do?

galaxydefender82 · 06/12/2013 15:22

Hi all.

I have suffered with health anxiety for about 7 or 8 years and have been prescribed Prozac, then Citalopram 10mg and now on Citalopram 20mg. Anxiety is a little better but have only been on meds for a month or two.

I often worry about any pain in my chest and can make myself physically sick worrying. It's exhausting and depressing. Hope all is well

choclab · 06/12/2013 16:32

thanks treacle , being able to sound off on here and get support is really appreciated ....as iv told /tell no one ....as other really don't understand ...think I'm mad , attention seeking etc ....dont understand how this anx can map you feel ....
I'm going to keep a record of the pain over the next week or so ...my period is due so anx to the highest at the moment so will see ...but has been dull pain today but trying not to focus on it .....

how are things with you treacle and your DH blemish on face ?
hope everyone els ok , if not get typing and we can support one another ..

WasWats · 07/12/2013 19:02

Okay, one thing you have to all remember.

You do NOT have cancer, you have anxiety. You can bet your life, pardon the pun, that if there was anything terminalally wrong with us, we would have found it.

They are just thoughts, we are creating them.

XXX

choclab · 07/12/2013 19:15

love to feel that positive waswats ....but don't ...but i understand your thinking ...

phlebas · 07/12/2013 23:21

choclab I'm sorry you've got a new 'thing' to worry about :( I have IBS too & get all sorts of weird pains/bloating etc.

I had a couple of good days (felt longer actually - the relief of not actively worrying all the time) but back down again this evening - I had lots of intrusive thoughts about ds2 having a brain tumour & then dd2 had leg pain (she had synovitis 2 years ago which did't really resolve - she ended up having tests for leukaemia/bone cancer etc but was eventually just put down to 'we don't know' - it was v. traumatic & triggered my health anxiety) which woke her up ... that is a massive trigger & I'm very close to a panic attack.

Light headed, blurred vision, sweaty & shaky, whooshing feeling in my brain & burning in my face & scalp. I need a plan about the leg pain - if it were something serious she would get it again, it would get more frequent or severe ... if it happens again in the next couple of days I'll take her back to the doctor.

WasWats · 08/12/2013 00:21

I dont feel that positive either but have been trying to but into here!!!

choclab · 08/12/2013 09:15

sorry your feeling like this to phlebas ,hope your little better today , must have been such a worrying time with your DD2 and those tests ...they say health anx has a trigger.
the anx will def make you feel light headed , shaky etc ....i get this a lot specially in supermarkets ....i often abandon my trolly and have to get back in can to calm myself down ...

waswats hope your ok x

violator · 08/12/2013 09:24

Sympathy to all suffering here.

I can offer what I learned during a hospital-based anxiety programme.

Anxiety is anxiety. It is a persistent bugger and will latch on to whatever your 'weak' spot is. For you guys, it's health. Not surprising, given the constant stream of adverts, leaflets and warnings about illnesses we get bombarded with!

Anxiety is a lie. It's a pure lie. It starts with a thought. That thought then takes off into a spinning circle and all you need to do is stop that circle spinning and it'll stop.
Sounds so easy eh? It's not, but it does work.

CBT is fantastic for anxiety. It helps identify what the thought was that triggered the anxious cycle.

The only way around anxiety is through it. Feel it. It's unpleasant but it's just a physical reaction to what you're thinking. It can't hurt you, it's just anxiety. For some it's tight chest, others a dicky belly, some have headaches and fuzziness. Just physical reactions. They're not harmful.

Did you know your body reacts exactly the sane way when you're excited?! So a bloke watching his team win the match is feeling a dodgy belly and shaky. But he doesn't chalk it down as 'bad' or run from those feelings because he's not associating them with a bad thing. He's excited, so those feelings are ok. You're anxious, those feelings are ok too.

Pixiedust49 · 08/12/2013 19:56

Just discovered this thread. I am obsessed with DDs health. She succumbs to every bug going and I have convinced myself that something far more sinister is going on. I rarely worry about my own health. I'm really struggling to lead a normal life because of it.....

Sallystyle · 08/12/2013 23:30

Hi guys.

I haven't been here on this thread for a while.

My ex husband, we have three children together, only have days/ a couple of weeks to live, so things here have been awful.

My HA is through the roof.

It started when he was diagnosed with cancer but now it is terminal I am even more scared of leaving my children behind.

I still think I have mouth cancer. Dentist wasn't too concerned about my painless mouth sore thing as it has been there almost a year, not grown or bleeding but I am seeing my GP again about it tomorrow.

I just can't have cancer now my kids are about to lose their father. Well, three of them are, I have two with my 'new' husband.