Has anyone with health anxiety/OCD had a rough day today, lol…? I was out today, and it’s just been one thing after the other! First, we had to SPRINT to catch the train because we had gone to the wrong station (it was a whole ordeal) and had to basically run through a city in under 5 minutes - it was stressful, and my heart was POUNDING. I started to get a pain where my ‘heart’ is… (of course, it probably wasn’t my heart, but - health anxiety 😊) and (thank GOD) we managed to get on the train, and it was extremely crowded. I don’t usually mind crowds at all, but a combination of me ruminating on this pain in my ‘heart’ and being squashed amongst people in a boiling hot train, led to me having a panic attack. My mind was saying, ‘what if you have a heart attack and nobody can help you because it’s so crowded?’ etc. I know that’s stupid, but like OCD, health anxiety creates so much physical emotion that it’s incredibly hard to think straight, and you go into fight or flight. I didn’t tell my friends, so I just stood there, trying to do deep breathing, terrified that I was going to collapse all over a slight pain that was likely just a stitch, lmaooo. And then (the plot thickens) I was waiting with my friends for my other friend because she was getting her eyebrows waxed. We were sat in the waiting room, and I suddenly started to feel my ear crunching - I don’t know how to describe it with any other words… I adjusted my jaw and was waiting for it to go back to normal, and then I started to taste blood, and my anxiety was like… ‘This is it… you’re going to curl over and pass away in the waiting room of a waxing parlour’ I was panicking so much but didn’t wanna embarrass myself…. Hopefully (if anyone’s anything like me) you’ll feel less alone after reading that, and I’ll be really interested to see if anyone else has had any weird dramatic health anxiety stories recently…

Hi everyone! I’m feeling better today. I had a really bad flare yesterday, my husband really helped me calm down and fall asleep. However, if you have health OCD I feel like you probably shouldn’t read this post unless you are in a good head space. I do not have health OCD. So, I’ve been dealing with a lot of symptoms and health issues that have led me to alot of doctors visits, I have several different doctors that specialize in specific things and now go to an internal medicine doctor. My doctor thinks I have an autoimmune disease, so I’m running alot of tests for several different autoimmune conditions. My OCD has been dormant for a while. I would still deal with it sometimes, but it was way easier to manage. I’m not medicated for OCD. However, I do use arthritis cream and was prescribed muscle relaxers, I have not yet taken the muscle relaxers. So I had a really bad OCD flare last night, specifically Relationship OCD. My husband has just seen parole and I’m super excited for him to come home, but my OCD was trying to convince me otherwise. I also have a new nephew that was born on the 22nd. So I am out of state and was watching my niece for my sister in law. A lot of exciting things happening at once. I’m assuming that triggered my OCD. But I’ve been swelling in my face and dealing with a little bit of body pain as well. Autoimmune diseases come in flares like OCD. I have done some research on autoimmune diseases so I can know what I need to do in order to keep it under control if that’s what I do get diagnosed with. I learned that some autoimmune diseases are linked to OCD, or can even cause OCD because of inflammation in the brain. & It gave me a glimmer of hope honestly. Could my OCD have started because of an autoimmune disease? Could I get better by treating it? My OCD didn’t kick start until I was about 19. I am now 23. I did have symptoms of OCD at 17 though, I went through a period of time where I was compulsively praying and in a cycle of intense anxiety. So I probably had it since I was 17, but I don’t know. My symptoms of autoimmune disease didn’t start until about a year ago, but it could’ve been longer. I couldn’t get rid of a UTI I had for MONTHS & didn’t know why. I had to see a urologist, I was 21 when I kept getting UTI’s. I had to get a procedure done, I had pus build up in my urethra that was almost completely blocking off my urethra. I do not know how the infection got that severe.. especially because I took antibiotic after antibiotic. I felt like I’d get better for a few days, then boom…UTI symptoms once again. So.. that could’ve been the start of autoimmune symptoms. With an autoimmune disease, your immune system is pretty trash. You don’t fight off infections or illness as easy as others. I remember how I’d get sick after everyone else in the house would get sick, but I’d get it so much worse and have the illness for much longer than everyone else. Surprisingly enough, I never got COVID. My whole family had it & I didn’t get it. Unless I did and just didn’t have symptoms. Anyways, I never thought I would say this.. but I hope I do have an autoimmune disease that caused OCD so that I can treat the autoimmune disease and keep my OCD dormant for as long as possible. I forgot what it was like to deal with OCD.. it was so bad lastnight, I remember feeling that type of anxiety and it’s the worst.. 💔 If you took the time to read, thank you! I seem like a charity case lol.. I never thought by 23 years old I’d be like this.

You can laugh at the title if you want, it’s objectively pretty funny. Hi guys, this is my first time on this app and I mostly just wanted to see if anyone out there is in the same boat as me or works in health care and is dealing with this. I haven’t told anyone what’s going on. I’m in my 4th year of medical school and In the past year I’ve developed what I think is pretty bad health OCD. Now health anxiety is a really common thing for medical students to have, I know that. It wasn’t until recently that I realized that the constant lymph node checking, self diagnosing & examining and reassurance seeking could have definitely had crossed the line into compulsions. Both my parents are cancer survivors which is what originally made me want to become a doctor but now every single physical sensation I have sends me into hours or days of rumination that I or someone I love has stage 4 terminal cancer. I spent an entire vacation with my boyfriend having a silent panic attack and convincing myself that he was dying of pancreatic cancer when he just had food poisoning and was fine days later. I had a complete mental breakdown and told myself I had lymphoma for weeks when I realized I could feel some of my own perfectly normal lymph nodes in my neck. My logical brain knows this is completely ridiculous but the emotional brain will not shut the hell up. It seems cruel that I made it this far only to feel like my own damn brain is betraying my ability to think through health situations clearly. I’m determined to get my symptoms under control before I graduate in a year as I don’t want this to affect patient care. Just wanted to get this off my chest and see if anyone else out there in health care is struggling too.

Hey! I’m new to all of this. I’ve been diagnosed with OCD since I was 10 years old, I’m 22 now. It’s had its ups and downs, but this year it has gotten worse since my mom was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. They said it’s not hereditary…but it activated my health anxiety. I’ve worried about every cancer in the book. I’ve had blood work done 10 times this year, hormones ran, autoimmune disease panel, mri of my knee, colonoscopy, head to toe ct scan, inward ultrasound, 4-5 clinical breast exams…it’s been nuts. I stop worrying about one worry and I move on to another. I’ve been trying so hard to stay afloat, but I’m struggling. I just had a clinical breast exam two weeks ago, they said everything was good, which is awesome. However, my OCD has convinced me that I have a lump again. I know realistically they said there is nothing there, but I’m having a hard time convincing my mind. Has anything helped anyone retraining their mind or maybe stopping compulsions of constantly checking?