Health Anxiety and Googling Symptoms

[is_sandi]

Hi All, I have had severe health anxiety for a few years, stemming from GAD which I have been medicated for years. Its crippling at times and I visit the GP very regularity, it drives me crazy because its such a horrible cycle. I am now pregnant and the last few months have been horrible with all the changed in my body.

I can spend HOURS googling symptoms, its insane and it sends me down a horrible rabbit hole. It can and is taking over my life - do other HA sufferers get this?

To someone who doesn't have HA, you would probably say "just dont google" and it makes so much sense. In all other aspects of my life I am so rational, but when it comes to my HA everything goes out the window.

I am desperate to stop googling symptoms, I even tried deleting the safari app off my phone (turns out you cant!) I know it sounds so silly, but its like an addiction.

Can you tell me, has anyone successfully done this? or do you have any advise on how i can do this?

Thank you.

[geoff]

Hello is_sandi, and welcome to the forums.

Trying to find out by googling what you believe you have is common and I'm no saint when that happens because it's so tempting to ask Google for answers and when you keep obsessing over your health, as you tend to focus on the worst case scenario rather than any good news.

By googling your symptoms will cause you more anxiety and worsen what symptoms you may have by focusing your mind on the negative.

Now that your pregnant your body will be changing and I only know this from when my wife had 2 sons, wait until the baby starts kicking, that's so exciting and to actually feel it, no googling will be able to tell you how it feels.

A psychologist can help you by CBT as an effective treatment for any form of anxiety including health related anxiety, so I hope this helps you.

Best wishes.

Geoff.

[romantic_thi3f]

Hi is_sandi,

Thank you for your post and for sharing - congratulations on your pregnancy!

You are in great company here with lots of other people dealing with health anxiety - highly encourage you to search it up the top and look at all the other threads or join in - sometimes for people it's minor and for others it seems to take over their life.

Telling yourself not to google is like telling yourself not to think of a pink elephant - it's just going to happen, and the more that you don't want to think of a pink elephant - the more that it crosses your mind!

While you cannot delete safari, you can disable it so it doesn't show on your home screen - but then there's the question of if you'd find another way.

Geoff mentioned seeing a psychologist which is a great idea - being able to get to the core of this anxiety is important. They can also help challenge some of those thoughts about things potentially being concerning (that's just normal pregnancy) and helping you to find better ways to cope/distract yourself.

Here's a link to look at CBT approaches if that interests you: https://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/Resources/Looking-After-Yourself/Health-Anxiety

Finally, I wonder if it might be worth finding some resources on understanding what happens during pregnancy? Things like apps/books can outline some of the things to expect and provide reassurance knowing that what you're feeling is normal and to be expected.

RT