Health Anxiety is a form of OCD. I’ve had OCD since my early teens, and over the years it has gradually mutated into HA but the symptoms are basically the same. In OCD, you get an obsession that you know is ridiculous but still can’t control (eg if I don’t check the lights twelve times someone in my family will die), a compulsion (must check the lights, must check the lights...) and distressing and intrusive thoughts (did I check them? Need to check again. What if dd dies?) etc, etc. It’s a horrible cycle.
HA is the same. You perceive a symptom - a cough, a spot, a pain, a lump (real or one you convince yourself is there). You google it. This inevitably tells you it could be cancer (note: google will never, ever tell you “your cough is not cancer”, because how can it? Its function is to show all the available possibilities, not to diagnose you). This fuels your anxiety. You check again, and think about it some more, and google some more, and check again....and the cycle continues.
The key thing is the things which you think will help you - googling, seeing a doctor or checking your body - actually make things worse. Eg my main HA focus is my lymph nodes. It doesn’t help that I have naturally prominent ones in my neck which I can feel easily. When I get a bad flare-up of HA, I feel the compulsion (which is an OCD compulsion) to check them. So I feel them. They don’t feel any bigger than last time I checked. That makes me feel better, but the relief is temporary. Soon I get the obsessive thoughts: what if I didn’t check them properly? What if I missed one? So I check them again. And the cycle continues. And all the prodding will probably make them inflamed so they feel bigger anyway. Ultimately I might go to that doctor and ask them to check (I’ve done this many times) and they tell me they feel fine. This provides relief for a while, but again, at some point I’ll feel the need to check them again and start it off again.
The thing is, every time you check yourself, google or seek reassurance from others, you’re feeding your brain with the idea that your fear is logical, there is something to be afraid of and you need answers. It ultimately makes things worse. If I feel the need to feel my neck now, I tell myself “this is my silly OCD talking” and make myself go and do something like make a cup of tea or do some cleaning (doing something with your hands is good). I tell myself “I don’t need to check this today”, which works too. I also have dh, and if I’m having a bad time I will tell him and his role isn’t to feel my neck for me and tell me it feels fine (as ultimately this provides temporary relief but fuels the anxiety in the longer term), but to tell me I don’t need to check and nothing bad will happen if I don’t.
I also stay away from social media as I find it makes things worse - there are always tragic stories about young women dying from incredibly rare cancers. The more you see these, the more you forget about the millions of women who don’t have these cancers, because they’re so rare. I convinced myself a couple of years ago I had Ewing’s sarcoma because I saw a story of a woman who died from it at the same time as having a bulgy muscle in my leg. To an outsider, that’s ridiculous, but in my head it made sense at the time.
I guess what I’m saying is the only way I have found to deal with this, after living with it for most of my life, is to not let yourself get drawn into the cycle of checking for reassurance. It doesn’t mean you don’t keep a sensible eye on your health - but any cancer you might have is likely to present with more obvious symptoms (a lymph node will noticeably enlarge; a breast lump feels noticeably different to normal tissue and you’re likely to find it in the shower or when moisturising - anything you have to go really poking around for to convince you it’s there is unlikely to be cancer). If I’m worried now about a new symptom, I ask dh or my mum about it and ask them if it is something they would be worried about. They have both promised to be honest with me. If they say yes, I give it a week and if it’s still there, I’ll make a dr’s appointment (this has happened once in two years) and if they say no, I make myself follow the steps above.
I’ll never get rid of HA/OCD, but I am much better at controlling it. I used to lose entire days googling symptoms of rare cancers and convincing myself I had them. I honestly don’t think I would do that now, because as soon as I feel the urge I tell myself firmly “this is my silly OCD talking” and make myself do something else. Don’t even let yourself google something you think will make you feel better, like survival stories. It all just feeds your fear in the end.