Does anyone else deal with health anxiety? Over the past few months I have had some serious health anxiety. Recently I have had thoughts that I had breast cancer, I got an ultrasound everything was normal. Now I am experiencing achy underarms here and there and I am super anxious and worried anyone have any ways that helps them cope or can relate? I’m only 23 years old and just started dealing with anxiety this summer!

Really hope so. I feel like health anxiety has taken over my life I have a constant worry I’m constantly examining myself checking for things searching the web.

I dealt with this for 4 years. You have to resist the compulsion to check and reassure. Anxiety can bring on a lot of physical symptoms from dizziness to vertigo to tingling and numbing sensations and even when all the tests were clear I was convinced something was wrong. I thought I had MS and at one point other symptoms made me believe I had ovarian cancer. My primary fear was heart disease or stroke and my compulsion was checking my blood pressure to reduce anxiety. At one point I took it 15 times in a day and wrote down every reading. I am now free from these anxieties and can’t believe how much better I feel physically and how much was actually caused by the worry. You can do it. Just figure out what your compulsions are and resist. Don’t go to google. My dad is a doctor and my friend is a nurse and I’ve learned that if your symptoms are serious enough they will become obvious but I know it can be hard to know the difference. Our bodies do crazy weird stuff and are uncomfortable all the time. That is normal and part of being human. With OCD we think worst case scenario but those are lies our minds are telling us.

@anjuli omg yeah I totally make myself get physical symptoms all the time. It’s scary and crazy what OCD and anxiety can do.

I get horrible health anxiety that my IUD is perforating my uterus or that I have an ovarian cyst or my uterus is prolapsing, and I get it around other stuff too sometimes. It can be hard to resist going to the doctor when it’s free at my college and next to my house, and especially because I have had so many weird health problems I think “well if it would happen to anyone it would be me.” I find I have to just realize that any big problem would be found at a checkup OR if it were something sudden it would get worse fast, and it never does. And worst case if these things happen- you get treated and it’s not exactly fun but you move on. I think a compromise you can make with yourself is maybe getting checkups more regularly and not going other than that, and slowly get less and less frequent checkups.

I’ve been dealing with it for five years now. I used to always think I’m dying of some disease. It’s awful, but going to the doctor will only make your health OCD get worse and worse as time goes on. The more you ignore it the better it gets I promise

Don’t worry, you are not alone. It honestly has taken over my life several times and sometimes I don’t even want to wake up, but there is hope!!! The more you check the worse it gets. You have to resist checking the internet and going to the doctor. If you are actually concerned tell a loved one to see if you should get it checked out. If they say no then you need to try your best to ignore it. I promise if you ignore it it’ll get better

I sometimes wonder if my underarms are aching because my body is under stress from the anxiety it’s bad recently I just cry and it’s like I am trying to deal with it but I’m just waiting for it to get better I have a toddler and I try to not interfere with my parenting but it’s bad I look at her and cry and worry I won’t be here for her growth because drs are missing this illness I think I have

Oh man. I’m so sorry. I’ve been there. I remember laying in bed at night thinking I had ovarian cancer and I was going to die and leave my toddlers without a mother. I was convinced. Every symptoms on google matched mine. It ended up being nothing and now I kick myself. At one point I had extreme vertigo/brain fog for ten days and it was terrifying. I couldn’t see straight or focus on anything. I even had an MRI done and it was totally clear. The feeling went away and it was either stress/anxiety or an inner ear infection. I got so tired of thinking every ache and pain was a life altering illness. Like I said before, weird stuff happens to our bodies all the time that isn’t serious and eventually goes away. My husband has had a hundred weird scary symptoms that I would have had checked out and he’s always been totally fine.

All the time! This used to be my worst anxiety and Ive gotten way past it. Have you been doing google searches? Because that really makes it worse- if you search long enough you’re going to diagnose yourself with every disease. What ended up working for me is staying offline and after a while my brain quit having those concerns.

For one thing I forced myself for a week to put my blood pressure cuff away and not take it and I had the worst anxiety during those days. May as well have thought I was dying. I was dizzy and chest tightness and pressure in my head. But it got better and I stopped worrying about my blood pressure all the time. That was an easy one because it was a direct compulsion(still hard to do). Still sometimes when I’m in a store I get dizzy and anxious and worry my blood pressure is up and what if I faint and etc but I try to ignore it and say so what. And it goes away. The point I think is to feel the anxiety and not reassure yourself. I can’t imagine there being something wrong with your underarms and that alone doesn’t seem to be a symptom that could mean anything serious. But I’m not a doctor. Our body does cause a lot of symptoms from anxiety. If you are in a lot of pain get it checked out but if the doctor isn’t concerned don’t let yourself check it anymore. I know this is hard. I’ve been there. But you aren’t dying, your OCD is just latching onto something that will turn out to be nothing.

Unless you are dealing with health anxiety, trying to explain to someone who doesn’t have it is so hard. My fiancé just thinks I’m crazy after having a break down last night. I increased my lexapro dosage as said to do by the doctor but I hope it helps me sooner then later. My body is so achy and I have a feeling it’s because of anxiety

https://www.bekahferguson.com/diary-of-a-former-hypochondriac/

How did you cope with it

I have head breast ultrasound everything was perfect, I had blood work in August everything was perfect had a underarm exam by my dr yesterday she said it was normal but it’s just me trying to grasp reality and realize that I am ok. The anxiety makes me feel like they are missing something

I have had really bad health anxiety for a long time. My coping mechanisms are to tell myself that if I did have something, it would either be much worse or that it could be there and I need to accept that. I also google and I have to force myself not to. What I found helps me a lot is to keep myself distracted from thinking about symptoms and when I do, I just tell myself that I’m still breathing and everything just fine and accept the unknown. If it were something serious, I would be in worse pain or whatever and my blood work would have showed something!

This helped me. It is from a Christian perspective FYI.