Somatic OCD

Anyone else struggle with somatic OCD and any pain/feeling slightly different is so noticeable and you feel like you’re just going to collapse or something? Like my ocd always convinces me that any sort of pain is related to some kind of illness that can cause a bad outcome or even death. If so, please share your tips of how to improve with this type of ocd 😭

Hi I’m new to this group. I’ve had ocd and very bad anxiety disorder since I was a kid and only got progressively worse as I grew up. I’m 26 now. I had some somatic/sensorimotor ocd while growing up and feeling or worrying about health concerns that aren’t actually there… anyway about 5 weeks ago I randomly started feeling like I had to go pee all the time? I don’t have any pain or anything just the horrible constant feeling like I need to go pee. I’ve gotten checked for a uti multiple times. My pcp suspects it could be being exacerbated by the anxiety because it’s so distressing to me it’s almost all I think about. My ocd has convinced myself that I now have some chronic bladder problem. I notice it’s not as bad at night when I’m relaxed (thanks to medication) and about to fall asleep. I just am so scared that it’s never going to go away and I’m going to have to deal with this for the rest of my life and I can’t do that…. Was just wondering if anyone else ever dealt with this symptom? I know our brains are powerful but sometimes it just feels so real. 😣😣

You can laugh at the title if you want, it’s objectively pretty funny. Hi guys, this is my first time on this app and I mostly just wanted to see if anyone out there is in the same boat as me or works in health care and is dealing with this. I haven’t told anyone what’s going on. I’m in my 4th year of medical school and In the past year I’ve developed what I think is pretty bad health OCD. Now health anxiety is a really common thing for medical students to have, I know that. It wasn’t until recently that I realized that the constant lymph node checking, self diagnosing & examining and reassurance seeking could have definitely had crossed the line into compulsions. Both my parents are cancer survivors which is what originally made me want to become a doctor but now every single physical sensation I have sends me into hours or days of rumination that I or someone I love has stage 4 terminal cancer. I spent an entire vacation with my boyfriend having a silent panic attack and convincing myself that he was dying of pancreatic cancer when he just had food poisoning and was fine days later. I had a complete mental breakdown and told myself I had lymphoma for weeks when I realized I could feel some of my own perfectly normal lymph nodes in my neck. My logical brain knows this is completely ridiculous but the emotional brain will not shut the hell up. It seems cruel that I made it this far only to feel like my own damn brain is betraying my ability to think through health situations clearly. I’m determined to get my symptoms under control before I graduate in a year as I don’t want this to affect patient care. Just wanted to get this off my chest and see if anyone else out there in health care is struggling too.