Health anxiety taking over my life

[Miki22]

Hi,

Im new to forums so not too sure how this all works however I feel the need to express my feelings and see if anyone else is feeling the same.
for the past few months I’ve developed general anxiety which I thought was just a common thing. However, in the past month I seem to be constantly worrying about my health, constantly going into google and self diagnosing myself with diseases and cancer. I get anxiety when I wake up in the morning with heart palpitations, sweating, a sense of fear, and the fear of a panic attack coming on and losing control of reality. I went to the hospital last week - my ECG was fine, my blood test and blood pressure came back fine although I am still booking visits to the cardiologist to see if there is an underlying issue as well as seeing my GP to run chest x rays and other tests. I also get this sharp pain in my heart throughout the day recently- it feels as if someone is piercing my heart with a knife and I start to panic if I have blood clots or blocked blood vessels or if this is actually normal considering my heart results came back ok?

Is the heart pain normal? Could I have an underlying medical problem such as blood clots?
Any help please !!!!! It is taking over my life to the point where I’m scared to get into my car and go to work because I’m scared of a panic attack coming on or feeling the heart pulls.

[Jessten]

I'm glad you felt comfortable explaining your fears. I can't answer if the chest pain is normal however what I can tell you from my experiences Health anxiety is extremely difficult and can feel like its controlling your life.

In my case I feel like I live at the doctors and have had every test done under the sun.

My muscles constantly think anything is a threat and tighten up or the minute I'm in pain I freak out and Google everything. Doctors should listen to you and do investigations.

one thing I haveBeen told by my psychologist is if your having thoughts about how your feeling Is to look around your surroundings and ask yourself if your safe. If you are then remind yourself your safe and breathe.

I'm not sure if that answers your question but I hope it helps you knowing your not alone and I hope you get answers soon

[Dan97]

Hey

If you’re young and healthy and don’t have a family history of heart problems then it’s unlikely to be anything serious. You had a thorough examination and it came back normal so I’d say it’s just panic. I went through a very similar experience myself a few years ago. I went to the emergency department believing I had something wrong with my heart but every test came back normal. I suffer from pretty debilitating health anxiety and panic disorder. There are a few things you can do, personally medication has helped me substantially. Maybe ask your gp about considering starting an SSRI as they are effective at managing health anxiety and health obsessions and also effective at helping with panic disorder. Try as hard as you can to refrain from googling symptoms and diseases. As people like myself with health anxiety are very suggestible, reading about symptoms and diseases will make you believe you have them. I’ve thought I’ve had hundreds of different diseases over the years but I’ve never actually had anything serious. What I had was health anxiety. Psychologists using cbt can really help with anxiety. A trick I’ve utilised when I believe I’ve had a disease is to wait two weeks. Almost every time the thoughts will go away on their own. Hope this helps.

Take care

Dan