How do you guys deal with health OCD? It’s been eating away at me lately and I’ve just been nervous about something bad happening to me, even after visiting the ER a couple of times about chest pressure/feeling like I’m going to have shortness of breath. And they always seem to find nothing wrong. What do you guys think ?
Same here. It’s so difficult. When you are convinced of something but they tell you there is nothing wrong. Or even if something is wrong it’s minor and not as serious as it seems to you. Been struggling with health OCD for a while. It can get costly too with all the visits. Just know that you are not alone. I have just been focused on getting tests/checked for symptoms I have and once I’ve been checked I’m trying to just live with the results. If there is a problem treat it. If there is no problem live with it.
Thank you guys for all of your responses. It’s very appreciated and it’s been helpful to me. Makes me feel less alone.
It sounds like you went to the ER to rule out any medical diagnosis. From there, if it is health OCD, I'd recommend taking an ERP approach. Expose to yourself to the fear and resist the rituals surrounding it. You can also reach out to NOCD to get matched with a ERP specialist who can help you through this journey.
I have been there (and am still there). I have convinced myself I have food allergies, terminal illness, ect. My advice is Try to stay off Google!!! and sit with the uncertainty… “maybe I have x y z disease, maybe I don’t”
I’ve been there, after having been assesses by various doc and having tests and was told I check out fine that its likely anxiety which at the time I didn’t have clear signs of anxiety so it seemed like the wrong diagnosis but I said okay I guess if it’s something else it will become obvious, and so I let it be. I made peace with the fact I did my best to take care by getting checked and stopped trying to control negative outcomes. May not work if ocd has latched on but for me it was enough.
I’ve been struggling with OCD since middle school. Over the years I’ve had many different obsessions such as POCD, Harm OCD, and now Health Concern OCD. For the last 6 months my newest obsession has been thinking that I am having a heart attack. I constantly body check, google symptoms, ask others for reassurance. I live at my university which is a little bit far from home. This causes me to have to call my mom in the middle of the night every time I have a panic attack over this. My roommates a nursing major so she always offers to take my blood pressure which helps, but still I don’t enjoy living like this. I always feel bad bothering others, and constantly feel like a nuisance. If anyone else with these worries and obsessions can let me know new ways to cope with it that would be amazing:) I just started my switch from lexapro to prozac for my OCD and I’m hopefully starting ERP/CBT soon but any tips on how to help this would be amazing.
Hi, im relatively new to the community. I’m hoping I can reach out and hear from some people who have health ocd. I used to have perfectionism, or “everything right” ocd, but ever since an incident involving a health issue last year, it’s manifested into health ocd. It may have exacerbated by the death of someone close to me, as it was cancer-related, and that’s what my intrusive thoughts seem to be about most of the time lately. How do you deal with it, especially when you ARE someone that’s prone to health issues?
I feel like throughout my life my ocd has taken on different forms and I feel like every time I have issues it’s actually my ocd just getting bad again. Like someone reveals the scooby doo villain and surprise it’s just friggin ocd again . My main “flavor” that I have struggled with ever since the end of 2019 has been severe health ocd . So badly that I have had countless dr visits , hospital visits ranging from panic attacks to lingering anxiety that builds up after weeks of obsessing and loosing sleep . Is there anyone here with some tips to get through this kinda of thing? I’m in therapy and that has helped a lot but I still feel like I pops up and wrecks my life every 4 months or so
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