Health Anxiety

[MDee]

Hi all. Been struggling with health anxiety for over a year now. Everything was heart related and was obsessed with “ is it a heart attack “ then it got out of hand when I went into my 1st AFIB episode, followed by 2nd and 3rd, done all the tests and the heart checks out without any issues. 3 months later, this headache struck for about 2 weeks and I was petrified of going to GP, I feared the worst. Headache went away and my gut went into this mode where I couldn’t stomach anything and the “Globus “ appeared and the whole thing hung around for about 2 months off and on. I ended up getting Endoscopy done and they found nothing. Headaches, dizziness, nausea feeling of complete disaster about to happen still appears every so often. 
Meds made things worst if anything , I have learned to breathe and remind my self of the good times and the feeling is temporary. 
Stay strong 

[Beeee]

Hello MDee,

I'm so sorry to hear of your experiences with health issues and health anxiety. It's normal to worry about your health and sometimes something small can snowball into fears of something much worse. It seems like you took the right path, seeing your GP and getting an endoscopy to make sure nothing was wrong. I hope this has helped.

I also want to thank you for sharing your story and advice. As someone who experiences health anxiety myself, I know I will be taking your advice on board. 

Best wishes,

Beeee

[christmastree]

It’s definitely not easy and it’s a difficult subject to even mention to your GP. It almost feels (for me) as if they will judge you for “overreacting”. I had a pretty difficult health year and it’s made me anxious about a few things concerning health. Like I feel like with every symptom I start diagnosing myself and overthinking.  For me what helped was definitely to not check web md and go online for medical advice. And also to do the medical tests and check ups. I find that doctors sometimes suggest tests and are not very assertive about them like they don’t say I think you should do this test but more like “do you want to do this test?” Honestly that whole question to me is so problematic because it shifts the focus from the doctor that has the medical knowledge and turns it to me. Which in turn makes me feel like if I don’t do the test I’ll keep thinking about it and if I say yes to it, the doctor might think that I’m overreacting and a hypochondriac. Doing the medical tests has given me a piece of mind. I know the result and even thought it’s not nothing but it is something manageable and mild has made me calmer. I no longer spend hours and hours thinking: What si wrong with me?. I hope you get through this. And thanks for the advice. I try to remind myself to breathe but I often forget. Have a lovely day. 

[MDee]

Hey Christmastree 

Been pretty good actually for about a week or so , even though I’ve been having headaches for about a month off and on , I have been listening to Anxious Truth on Spotify and this guy has made me realise how to overcome the 1st stage or health anxiety. Give it a listen , really worth it.

[therising]

Hi MDee

I feel for you as you face the stressful challenges of managing your health. I'm glad the endoscopy and heart check showed no serious problems. That process of elimination business, while offering relief, can still be somewhat disappointing when there are no outstanding results leading to obvious remedy.

A couple of not so obvious reasons for anxiety, on top of health anxiety

• 'Mood and Food'. Deakin Uni is one of the lead researchers in this area which is a fascinating area of study. A serious gut microbiome imbalance has been shown to lead to physical and mental health issues. Not only can such an imbalance be sickening at times in a number of ways but it can also be seriously anxiety inducing
• Another relates to migranes. I used to get 'silent migranes' (migrane without headache) that would set off my nervous system something shocking, leading to occasional heart palpitations. A lot of the other symptoms would resemble a stroke. One of the greatest miracles in my life involved me having a migrane while having a brain scan at the same time. One thing about migranes is...you can pick the part of the brain that's being impacted at any given time, based on the side effect. If the glitch is happening in the visual cortex, vision will be impacted. If it's in a part of the brain that relates to fight or flight you'll definitely feel it. My mum gets brain based glitches/electrical charges that last a few minutes at a time and she can feel her nervous system ramp up. She used to feel some of these brain based charges in her chest and therefor had extensive heart tests done. Everything was clear which is what led her to a neurologist and the meds she's on to manage what her brain does.

The gut-brain axis can tie gut imbalance in with migranes. While I imagine a really good dietician would be the last thing on your mind, wondering whether it could possibly be something worth considering (looking into gut health/balance). Whether they recommend pro and/or pre biotics is another thing. I know all this is so far outside the square but thought I'd just throw it out there. Don't want you to lose hope in the way of possible answers ❤️