I’m really done with obsessively googling health shit

[MrsMikeHeck]

For 44 years, I was laid back/bordering on cavalier about my health. Literally couldn’t give a shit. Felt good or bad or whatever but never thought much about it.

The last 18 months I am just obsessively thinking there is something wrong with me but I’m also convinced I am making it up.

I feel awful but it’s just so linked to my mental health and I feel like my body is doing weird gas lightly shit to me. Just done reading and rereading old blood test results, and fucking cancer symptom check lists. Want to go to sleep.

I saw gp today about breast swelling and thankfully have breast clinic appointment on Friday. I really know it’s fine, but I’ve had a couple of weeks where I haven’t been ill and so I’m just annoyed to be back in this place again. The doctors appointment has of course triggered a whole loads of other physical symptoms which are very much not real ones.

I could have written this myself. It's fucking shit and I don't know what to do about it. I read that sometimes medication can help with health anxiety but I'm sure how effective it is. I was considering paying for some kind of therapy. I guess I'll add it to the myriad of other things I want to speak to a Dr about.

I hope your appt goes well and you manage to stop the thoughts and Googling.

It’s great you’ve been referred but yeah, I’m the same and it’s awful.

I’ve been out on a 4 week check on some weird thing under my breast, but now I’m obsessively worrying about this wart thing on my thumb that i am convinced is something bad.

I’ve booked a gp appointment today for anxiety because I’ve had cbt before and it’s honestly not done anything. It’s getting in the way of just day to day things now.

does anything help you? Because like you there is some logic there that ‘it’s fine’

Also desperate to sleep I was up most of the night (went to bed 5.30am to get up for work an hour later…) and thinking I need to do something to knock myself out and get some sleep tonight

Huge sympathy @MrsMikeHeck (great username too 😍), I was you 12 months ago. My husband was close to getting psychiatric intervention for me as my health anxiety was so bad, and days and nights were spent googling symptoms, poring over cancer forums and waiting in hospitals and GP surgeries in abject terror. I spent over £1000 on private scans and appointments to alleviate the guilt I felt burdening the NHS, and also just to try and get some relief from the untenable anxiety. Mine was triggered by the untimely loss of a friend and having a very ill child requiring hospital treatment (thankfully short term).

I had some therapy for a few months and it did help to get it all out and analyse why this was happening, but honestly the real turning point was starting Sertraline, I take half a 50g tablet a day and go running twice a week, and that produces enough serotonin to keep the health anxiety at bay. I was reluctant to take SSRIs for years and now I look back and wonder why I never took the plunge before. The first two weeks were very shaky and then it was like a light switched on overnight. I would say I’ve been 90% cured for almost a year now and I’m like a different person!

Given your age, I wonder if this might be a symptom of perimenopause. Anxiety can be a symptom.

Yes my first thought was maybe perimenopause.

@MrsMikeHeck i totally hear you, googling stuff, figuring it all out myself 🤦‍♀️ i gotta leave it to the docs and not google 😏
Hope everything is ok x

Sorry for all those going through this too. @DasAlteLeid i also spent loads on private scans. At one point in August I walked out of work to go to a breast ultrasound cause I’d managed to get a same day appointment and was convinced I had cancer.

I’m post menopause, and on hrt (or at least was til this year when I stopped cause of health worries. Yes - the anxiety in peri was awful. Top of roller coaster dread at all times but worst as I woke up each morning.

Thanks everyone for your messages. I fell asleep shortly after posting. Still feel shit today but my strategy is just to be healthier. I have so much low level stuff and I think maybe I can tackle my general well being that might stop me feeling slightly ill all the time which would in turn stop the panics

Health anxiety sufferer here too.

Gynecological cancers are my go to worries. I had pre cancerous cells removed about 6 years ago and almost every day I worry I've got vulval, cervical or ovarian cancer. It's bloody exhausting!!

I was in thr bath tonight checking my lymph nodes (again) and just thought to myself "you probably will get diagnosed with cancer at some point in your life and just imagine how much you'll regret wasting all this time worrying about a cancer you haven't got" and then I cried 🤣

Can I join in!

Mine is since I had the first covid, I was busy being normal before that. It was just awful, I really thought I was going to die.

And ever since it's been non stop surgeons, appointments, scans, a&e trips.. it's ongoing now, chest pains, ringing in ears. I've spent thousands..

But I saw a patch on my face a few weeks ago, it was instantly skin cancer, it was in fact where my sun glasses had rubbed, but I'd already googled skin cancer by this point.

I thought great I'll try HRT, turns out I'm allergic and had a reaction to the oestrogen, so you can only imagine the spiral I'm in now..

How can we/I stop this as I know it's not normal, and it's driving me bonkers.

The worst thing is that I do feel slightly unwell all the time. Glands swollen, infections, viruses - I don’t feel like I get a run of more than a week before I feel shit again. And then I just get into this mad place trying to figure out why I feel so bad. But then also convinced it’s just mental health.

I am the same. Anytime I feel anything, a twinge or unusual ache I go running to Google to find the worst case scenario.

Every time I forget something I think I have a neurological disorder.

I’ve just downloaded an audiobook called “The Need to Know” which is about CBT and how to use it to help the persistent need to gain reassurance.

Perfect I'll give that a go, I feel like I'm a bit mad googling "how to get rid of health anxiety"

Another sufferer here too, it really is shit! I feel like I feel ill all the time, but I think I'm so anxious and stressed and looking for signs and symptoms all the time that it starts to feel real. I'm on citalopram, but I think I need a higher dose, as its not doing much to help.

Since new year I've been trying to really get a grip on it, really trying hard not to Google, I've contacted a counsellor, signed up for yoga class, doing meditation and listening to the Headspace app and it is helping, but it's always there in the background and I'm exhausted by it.

I listened to an interesting podcast about it the other day called Health Anxiety with Dr Kirren and now follow Drkirren on Instagram, she posts lots of helpful advice and recommends EMDR therapy so I'm going to look into accessing that. I'm just so fed up now, I want to feel better

Health anxiety here too.

Just had a scare for breast cancer. Had to go to the breast centre last week and thankfully all was ok but I'm still worrying about it. Constantly want to check my breasts. It's so draining especially when they were checked Thursday.