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.

What are common ERP exercises for Health OCD? I just feel exhausted and I know I need help... My compulsion is going to an urgent care. I also google my symptoms. Going to the urgent care all the time cost so much money. :( And of course google makes things so much worse because everything is deadly according to google. This past month I’ve convinced myself I had pancreatic cancer, brain cancer, Parkinson’s disease, ALS, and colon cancer. I’m exhausted and just want this to stop.

Can someone tell me how to stop constantly googling every single thing that feels wrong. In the last three days I’ve convinced myself I had MS, I could be having a stroke (multiple times), I have a autoimmune disease and overall something’s wrong with my health. I made a appt to go see my doctor next week to get bloodwork done, which I know is almost like a compulsion because I need assurance that I’m okay, or if I’m not to figure out what’s wrong. My anxiety has made me have so many physical symptoms that I don’t know what’s a problem and what is my anxious brain. Every time something feels wrong I go to dr. Google and then I automatically have some life ending disease. My brain is so tired, I just can’t keep living like this where my mind races and greats new issues everyday. One week it’s health, the next it’s something else, the themes keep changing to keep it interesting and I fear that the mental/physical toll and stress of this is actually going to inevitably harm me. Can someone please give me some advice as to not lose my mind

I’ve struggled with health anxiety for about 11 years, and it’s been horrible the last 3 years. Health related stuff wasn’t my first theme though. It started out with contamination OCD and magical thinking, and then I was diagnosed in 2015 after being hospitalized. Throughout the last 5 years or so, I’ve been hospitalized a few times for debilitating health anxiety OCD, been on countless meds and struggled to find an OCD specialist. I just want this nightmare to be over. I’ve been convinced of having breast cancer, lymphoma, bladder cancer, brain tumors, ovarian cancer, skin cancer, cervical cancer, and many other health issues. I’ve been to the doctors multiple times, I’ve demanded tests, I’ve compulsively gone to the ER and urgent care to “check” for reassurance, I’ve been convinced that doctors aren’t looking good enough or are lying to me. I do a lot of body scanning, and reading and rereading doctors note for reassurance. I also call the doctors office a lot. Again, I just need this to end but I don’t know what to do because I am so burned out.