Health OCD: I suffer with health OCD. I’m constantly worried about getting sick and I always convince myself that the smallest hint of something could be cancer. That being said, when something really does go wrong, I completely spiral. Something has gone wrong: I have had an irregular period and intense abdomen pain for over a month. I went to various OBGYNs who failed to diagnose me with anything. I felt like either the doctors were wrong or I was blowing it out of proportion, but my gut told me I needed to figure it out because of how bad the pain was. Yesterday morning I went to a new obgyn who told me I probably had a pelvic infection. He was angered that no one has diagnosed me and I’d gone over a month with it. He put me on antibiotics and asked me to take them immediately. I am waiting on test results. My biggest fear is infertility. I’m terrified that I will either be diagnosed with cancer or that the infection has made me infertile. I can’t stop googling and reading about how pelvic infections can cause infertility. My obsessions are out of control and my fiancé doesn’t know how to react to my panic attacks. I feel very alone and would appreciate some advice on how to handle this. Thank you

I have been struggling with OCD for as long as I can remember and I have lost count of how many therapists I have been to. But the main one that has really stuck with me is contamination OCD. but it branches off like if there is a red smudge on paper or somewhere I’ll automatically think it’s blood and have immediate anxiety. But the OCD fear that I have allowed to control my life is the fear of getting pregnant from someone not washing their hands after going to the bathroom or if they did (who knows what) and didn’t wash their hands or shower, or even if they touch their phone (since nowadays we all have ours connected to us at all times)or something before washing their hands and then the sperm could of transferred onto that or anything and then they touch something that I then touch and then if I got pregnant (or even the thought of those “germs/sperm” being on my body at all) my boyfriend would breakup with me and we have been together for over 5 years and I love him with my whole heart so my fear is loosing him. Now I know it’s pretty much impossible to get pregnant like that but my OCD brain is saying well what if it happens to you and your the first person ever. So I literally don’t touch anything after anyone or at least directly without washing my hands right after. I was my hands probably at least 50 times a day and use Lysol wipes on EVERYTHING! I have sanitized my phone 3 times already today. I am in therapy but I feel like talking to others who also suffer and can relate helps too I know this is a strange OCD fear, I guess I’m wondering if anyone has ever had this fear as well?

On Satuday afternoon, I noticed bruises all over my legs and a weak feeling and although I was obsessing that I was going to die, I still went to the hospital. When they checked my blood, they found out that my platelets were very low. (Platelets are in charge of blood clotting and also its one of the three things made in bone marrow with White Blood Cells and Red Blood Cells being the other two). Luckily RBC and WBC count were of normal range. After staying for two days and being on edge the whole time thinking I was going to hear I was going to die, I was released (since they saw my platelets were going up and the rest of lab results were good except some things relating to iron). I still have a follow up appointment with the Hematologist to discuss the results and I am terrified. I have gotten all sorts of reassurances from two doctors, nurses, my mother in law who is a nurse, and literally everyone else but I am having this dreadful feeling that this is a sign I am going to die that my time is up. The most likely scenario I think was that my platelets went down with a combination of vitamin deficiencies (iron) and another combination like infection. But I went to the hospital the next day after my release because I felt weak again and panicking and they did my blood work and everything came up good (Finding out my platelets are continuing to go up). However, my OCD says if I think I am ok then it is not going to be ok so I need to be stuck in this loop of torture. Like what if I have something and I will never find out, what if I have something and find it too late? I have been crying non stop since Saturday evening, my head feels like a bowling ball which makes me think "oh maybe its a brain tumor." I google low platelets and one of the things of the list is Leukemia which I was already tested for Leukocytes and it was normal range but that was not enough because I googled nonstop and it said that they also do a bone marrow test to see for sure Leukemia and that freaked me out because I did not do that test. Then my thoughts changed to "my lymph node is swollen and now I have Lymphatic cancer" and it causes me to touch all parts of my body (even though I was tested for Lymphocytes on blood test and it was fine but again continued googling). Because of the bruising, I have trauma and I can't look at my own skin. I am afraid something new might come up. Now, its "oh I have a brain tumor because I am not feeling like myself, sometimes I stumble on my words, and my head feels congested and pressured. In fact ever since I had COVID, my head congestion never really went away so thats a sign. Actually anyone else has that? I remember my mom told me once that I was given an MRI when I was 8ish 9 for something in my brain and she said I had something and God healed it. Now, I am freaking out and thinking "this is it" I feel weak because I had it this whole time and it has grown and I am going to die. My mom - who has a chronic and untreated paranoid schizophrenia, would always tells me growing up that God was going to kill me and I was going to die young. I have been having panic attacks, crying almost every 30 minutes since Saturday, my head is more congested than ever. This past month was the hardest month of my life. Two of my loved ones passed away. I had a scare with my daughter because two weeks ago, my daughter had a fever that came and went away and then a day later it went back and I freaked out, had a panic attack and took her to the only hospital in the middle of the night and thinking she was going to die, turns out she had an ear infection. A day later I had ear pain and I went to the doctor but they didn't find an infection and that freaked me out. Ear still hurts now from time to time but not as frequent. And now I am obsesssing and saying "well I was right about going in on Saturday for my bruises, what makes this time not be right for me to have cancer or something deadly" or "my mom was right, I am going to die young and I will never see my daughter grow or grow old with my husband - that is the most terrifying part. To make matters worse two weeks ago, I changed my prescription from 75mg - 50mg, and now two weeks later (because I had extreme mom guilt on breastfeeding Kaia while taking medication). And the nurse practicioner told me that he doesn't usually do babies because most of the people he treats are older people and because moms choose to not take medication because they don't want to harm their babies. I feel like I am going insane. I have been shaking, losing hunger, not eating, having panic attacks almost hourly, lost 10+ pounds in a matter of four weeks (which I never know whether it is me about to die or a combination of chronic anxiety and OCD or all of it together). I am scared, I am in a constant state of over analyzing on what goes on inside my body. Every little discomfort, pain, itch, or anything else, I am googling and thinking this is my time. I am scared of eating because I am afraid of throwing up and that it is a sign that I am going to die. I am scared of sleeping because what if I never wake up again. If you took the time of your day to read this - I know it was long - but thank you, seriously thank you.

Hey everyone, I’m not sure if this is super OCD related, but I figured I’d post just to maybe feel less alone. I’m always worried in the back of my mind that I might have cancer, and it’s not for nothing, I have had two types of cancer before I was 10 years old. The fear doesn’t take over my life, but it’s definitely there. I recently got sent to check a large lump that appeared on my thyroid, and all diagnostics coming back so far are ruling out the easy non-cancer options. I’m worried, it’s not an unfounded worry, but it’s starting to interfere with my life in a way that feels like OCD. I’m scared, and if I’m completely honest, I’m extremely sad. The last thing I want to do is get life changing bad news in the middle of an OCD spiral. Anyway, thank you for reading, I think I just needed to get that off my chest ❤️‍🩹