How do I live with health anxiety?

My mind keeps telling me “something is wrong with you. the weird feeling you are feeling or the weird tingling you are feeling or there is a weird mark on your body. Those are actually a severe symptom and by ignoring it you could die!” Or especially the constant, “go to the emergency room because this impending doom you are feeling, yeah that’s because your gonna die shortly” It doesn’t help whenever people say “well if something was wrong your body would tell you” because my mind keeps telling me that what I’m feeling is proof something is wrong and I need to get it checked out. That I actually am severely sick and that I need to get it checked out as soon as possible, that if I get one more test than I’ll be okay because it will prove nothing is wrong. How do I tell my mind that it’s just anxiety whenever my mind keeps telling me “well if you keep saying that you could be ignoring something more serious.” Or “the doctors are just brushing you off..something is wrong with you” It’s hard to live with my thoughts whenever they are constantly coming up with ways to challenge me and challenge logic. New reasons on why I need to get this checked out because “I’m just being ignored” or “no one is listening to me so I’ll just end up dying” My symptoms range from weak and shaking legs and body to dizzy and unbalanced and dissociated. Recently I’ve been getting this tingling feeling inside my head and on the back of my neck. And my temples have pressure on them. My body keeps coming up with new symptoms I need to worry about, whenever most of them are probably caused by severe and constant anxiety. So severe I can’t even leave the house because I constantly worry about whether this is severe and something will happen if I leave the house. I need immediate ways to start fixing this because it’s especially horrible whenever my period comes around and my anxiety/depression is already higher than usual. I’ve even started considering taking medication (Zoloft, 25mg) which is another trigger for me, I worry about the symptoms I might get from taking it. That’s how you know it’s gotten pretty bad whenever I’ve come to taking something that I’ve been actively avoiding. What are your thoughts? Do I take the medication? What are ways I can deal with my symptoms that seem so severe in the moment but pass by once I’m not anxious? What are ways my thoughts can ease and I stop taking every symptom as something serious, because at the end of the day my anxiety is most likely the reason I have these horrible symptoms. I’ve always been extremely healthy and everytime I go to the doctors they express how healthy I am with all the tests I’ve had.

Username: Chris985Chris985

Date posted: 9w ago

I totally understand this. I made MANY hospital ER visits due to feeling this way. The Dr's we see typically don't help and it's probably because they won't make money if we stopped "having" to see them. I know how hard it can be when you feel like you can not do anything except worry about your condition. Remember you are on a journey and to be nice to yourself. Think of it as a journey. You need to start realizing the lies in your head when you think them. You can not control what thoughts pop up but you can choose not to dwell on them which takes practice so like I said be kind to yourself in your thoughts. You are NOT alone and many face this battle. You are not going crazy even though you feel like you are. Feeding the obsessed thoughts by trying to "fix" them only reinforces the brain to continue thinking them. There is so much to say about this i could type forever lol. But you are OK. The thoughts and symptoms are lies.

Username: ArsandersArsanders

Date posted: 9w ago

@Chris985 Thank you so much for the support and understanding 🫶 I often find dwelling on my symptoms only make them worse, I need to figure out how to think about them, dwell, but then let it go.

Username: mila.3296mila.3296

Date posted: 9w ago

I understand you so well!! i had this small dot/mark that appeared in my finger and i got anxious thinking i had an illness or something 😭

Username: ArsandersArsanders

Date posted: 9w ago

@CC.090715 I know right..every little thing I see or feel is something that I feel is a serious concern. It’s hard to let go of those thoughts

Username: Billie Ray is the dogBillie Ray i...

User type: OCD Conqueror

Date posted: 5w ago

I understand your struggles with health OCD. When I was younger, this was something that I struggled with, too - especially as a kid, when my dad told me to tell him if I ever felt any pain or uncomfortable sensations in my body, so I did this all the time. My best piece of advice would be, try to sit with the discomfort that you are feeling. Instead of trying to push it away or get reassurance from others, allow yourself to feel anxious and learn that you can handle it. You will learn that you're stronger than you think, and your body will slowly learn to stop sending you these faulty alarms.

Username: patrickstar2000

Date posted: 24w ago

hypochondria / hypochondriac

what helps you guys cope with thinking you’re sick and you’re going to die any second? i can’t help but look something up on my phone when i feel something slightly unusual. once i see some condition or whatever, i stick with it until i experience something new, and the cycle goes on. i’ve always felt that if there was something wrong with me i wouldn’t want to know and would rather die. i’m not suicidal but i don’t want to live in a world where im sick or feel doom because there’s nothing to do about it. i’ve gone to the doctor plenty of times and i recently got a lot of blood tests. they said nothing was wrong with me other than the fact i have depression and anxiety. so every time i feel worried about something, i just refer back to that and tell myself im healthy, which i am. at the moment, i keep getting worried im going to have a stroke. although i am a teenager, it’s still possible. just now i felt left sided pain in my jaw that went to the rest of my face so i started to get anxious which made everything seem more intense. then i reminded myself that i have impacted wisdom teeth that are growing in which could cause that type of pain. last night my leg cramped up and it felt painful to move. it felt exactly like when your leg falls asleep and you get that paralyzed feeling (if that makes sense). then i figured that happened because i just had a week of band camp and my leg muscles were pretty sore, especially that leg. my family doesn’t have any history of health issues which doesn’t mean that im invincible but it also reduces the risk. all of this really picked up after band camp from last year (2023) im guessing its my body having enough of it being overworked.

Username: Jlinds

Date posted: 24w ago

Exhausting

I recently went to my PCP for routine bloodwork, that I wanted, just to ease my mind and make sure there weren't any issues that needed attention. When they called with the results, I couldn't answer the phone. I felt an immediate sense of doom, my hands got tingley, and I just couldn't answer. It took 45 mins of crying, pacing around, and convincing myself that everything was going to be alright, to finally be able to call back. I had this done on my own, I requested this so I could try to stay on top of my health, I had NO real reason to be scared of any results.. My health anxiety seems to be different than the majority of fellow sufferers. Most people will run to the Dr for any and everything. I am the opposite. I don't want to know. I'm terrified. I've been this way since I was a kid.... I want to know that I'm healthy, but actually going to the appointments and having the tests that can tell me that...is like a nightmare for me. Does anyone else have this type of health anxiety? Has anyone found a way to ease the fear? My logical brain tells me that if there ever is something wrong, I'd want to know as soon as possible, so I could get treatment immediately. But my panicky, overthinking brain, is more powerful and won't let me do that in peace. It's exhausting wanting to be healthy and keep on top of things when you can't muster up the courage to go to the doctor like a normal adult. UGH

Username: scast23

User type: OCD Conqueror

Date posted: 18w ago

Anyone going through the same thing?

So anxiety wise I had been doing so well. I wasn’t as bad as I had been in the past. My ocd stems from the fear of going crazy or developing schizophrenia. About 2 weeks ago I had something odd happen where I woke up and was getting ready for work and I had been seeing this zig zag thing in my eyes and then I couldn’t talk or type anything everything was jumbled. My boyfriend realized and I was able to tell him we need to go to the hospital. In the car on the way to the hospital I started feeling tingling in my right arm that spread to my fingertips. The whole time this has been happening I have a headache that I would score 2/10 nothing crazy. At the time I wasn’t sure if I had insurance or not but was under the impression I didn’t because I had just quit my part time job and was working PRN, I got stroke alerted at the hospital and they did a CTA and EKG and everything came back negative. The doctors told me they recommended an MRI to rule out a TIA but they didn’t think that it was one due to my age etc. due to the fact that I thought I didn’t have insurance I turned it down. The following day I was able to get my PCP to order me one and figured out my insurance situation and got the MRI done which also came back negative. My anxiety now is that what if I did have a TIA (mini stroke) and it’s just not showing on a scan because they self resolve so sometimes they don’t show up. What is worrying me is I’m not taking anything because they don’t think it was a TIA and they believe it was a complex migraine. I’m so anxious all the time hyper aware of every symptom I have. It’s been almost 2 weeks and I’m just so scared all the time.

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How do I live with health anxiety?

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