I’ve had many different intrusive thoughts over the years, but I can’t seem to shake this obsession with my heart. I continually think it’s going to just stop or that it can’t handle being elevated. I don’t even have family history of heart disease or heart attack or anything of the sort. I keep myself healthy between exercise and diet. I’ve reassured myself a million ways from Sunday. I saw a cardiologist once, years ago, who reassured me that my heart palpitations were nothing to be afraid of. I try to look at every workout as an exposure, pushing myself to trust my heart and ignore the thoughts. But sometimes I just want to relax and enjoy dinner with my boyfriend or being out with my friends without ruminating over what would happen if I had a heart attack in the restaurant, the bar, where’s the nearest hospital, can I trust the people I’m with to know what to do, etc. It’s exhausting.

Anybody struggle with their heart health? I’m constantly worried about a heart attack. I keep feeling like my left arm hurts and I’ll continually press on it and think about the way it feels. I check my pulse constantly. Any slight feeling in my chest that isn’t “normal” freaks me out. I also keep thinking that I can’t breathe deep enough. I’ve started avoided eating because I don’t wanna eat foods with fat or something that could give me heart attack. I’m 18 and there’s no way I could be having a heart attack. What can I do to get over this?

I’ve been struggling with OCD since middle school. Over the years I’ve had many different obsessions such as POCD, Harm OCD, and now Health Concern OCD. For the last 6 months my newest obsession has been thinking that I am having a heart attack. I constantly body check, google symptoms, ask others for reassurance. I live at my university which is a little bit far from home. This causes me to have to call my mom in the middle of the night every time I have a panic attack over this. My roommates a nursing major so she always offers to take my blood pressure which helps, but still I don’t enjoy living like this. I always feel bad bothering others, and constantly feel like a nuisance. If anyone else with these worries and obsessions can let me know new ways to cope with it that would be amazing:) I just started my switch from lexapro to prozac for my OCD and I’m hopefully starting ERP/CBT soon but any tips on how to help this would be amazing.

7 years ago I was a raging drug addict. I took any and all kinds of drugs without second thought of consequences. When I had my first child it’s like a switch flipped in my brain. Within her first 6 months of life I had over 12 visits to the ER. I was (still am) constantly afraid of developing a life threatening disease / illness or having a sudden health event (stroke / heart attack / heart failure / brain tumor / cancer ) develop. I’ve seen over 10 Specialist from autoimmune, heart, eyes, neurology , stomach , skin, etc. I’ve got a seemingly well bill of health but I become so hyper aware of every small change within my body. It’s. Constant state of fear and anxiety. Headache = likely tumor / aneurysm , small pain in chest or arm = heart problems , mild cold = covid or some rare disease , etc. Lately, my heart has been my fixation. I was having tachycardia going to the ER 2x a week. EKGs normal, 24hr monitor normal, X-RAY normal. Shortly after I notice my resting heart rate went down as low as 50bpm. I looked through my history over the months and that seems pretty normal for me I just hadn’t noticed before. Now I’ve been worried about my heart for weeks even tho my dr says I’m okay. It’s exhausting to be afraid of sickness and death 24/7. When I get focused on these thoughts it pulls me away from my kids and husband and daily tasks. I either full blown panic or shut down in fear. Anyone else relate? What helps you? I don’t want to rely on medications as I have so many adverse reactions to the 10+ I’ve tried! - oh year here’s another one - I’m afraid of allergic reactions as well I CONSTANTLY fear I will have an allergic reaction to medications / foods or over dose on things like Tylenol and Ibuprofen or mix meds and have reactions.