I’m so afraid of getting cancer. I’ve been to the doctor so many times for false alarms, it’s starting to cost so much money. I hate this subtype of OCD. I’m hyper-focused on small pains in my body and I always make them out to be much more than they are. Literally the past few days I had a pressure headache and I was convinced it was brain cancer. This is ridiculous. I don’t know where to begin with ERP for this type of OCD. My compulsion is going to the doctor and that’s becoming a very expensive compulsion... My other compulsion is googling my symptoms, which always freaks me out cause every symptom means “cancer” according to google.

I have this too. I always over analyze every pain I feel

Your Exposure are your thoughs therefore the response prevention would be not doing compulsions. So no googling, no doctors Be brave I know it’s freaking hard. I’ve been there and slowly getting out of it

This is me 100%. I'm working through it in therapy.

You probably need help from a therapist. Maybe call the nOCD? You can start out with writing down all the things you do to calm your self abd diminish the anxiety: googling, going to the doctor, ruminate and so pn. These are your compulsions. Compulsions feed your OCD, you probably know this. You can make a plan to stop these compulsions. Your goal has to be no more googling for answers. I know people speak out with their doctors and they give them guidelines when to search for health care, and everything beyond this is OCD.

I understand, I’m going through this subtype right now. But i started seeing a nOCD therapist and the greater goal has been getting rid of the compulsions while understanding when it is reasonable to call the doctor. We just started but the whole process already feels really hopeful and promising. Also my regular CBT therapist I see for anxiety hasn’t really helped in this regard, and I heard it could make it worse. Def reach out to a nocd therapist or at least someone who specializes in ocd!

I've been dealing with a similar situation. I'm sorry that you're going through it too bc I know how much it sucks. I've gone to a few doctors and gotten a few tests done but it never "feels right" when they tell me that I'm ok. It's like I'm looking for a problem or something... my therapist recommended that I do get fully checked out before we start ERP because on the off chance there is something wrong he'd take to make me think there isn't. I got checked out head to toe, got a few tests done, and now I know that I'm ok and anything that follows is just OCD