Health anxiety

[Don79]

About 10 years ago I had an issue where I was up in the middle of the night and I felt sort of like an electrical impulse shoot through my head. I immediately thought I was dying and that then set off my thoughts and anxiety around dying.

Probably for the next seven or so years I visited numerous doctors and emergency departments thinking I was dying, with no results identified. After nil issues identified over this period of time I eventually just gave up and put it down to anxiety. They put me on anxiety medication but that is not really working that well anymore, and deep down I am constantly questioning myself and convincing myself that I am dying.

Each time I will become focused on a particular body part and then my mind will convince me that I am dying from issues with that. At present my whole body is sore, especially my kidney, so I am constantly thinking that some form of cancer has spread to my kidney. I feel like even if I am not dying from a disease, anxiety is killing me.

The big issue is that my weight has now ballooned out of control and now I have a pregnant wife and a little boy who both mean the world to me. I want to be around to look after my family and play with my kids, but just feel like it is all a lost cause because I may be dying anyway. I just don't know what to do anymore.

[Forest_Critter]

Hi Don, welcome to the forums.

Just briefly: regarding your previous treatment / diagnoses, have you had any recent treatment for your anxiety, or any ongoing treatment for your health anxiety?

It seems as though the last decade has been quite rough, and that you have less reason to trust treatment than some. However I'd encourage you to keep trying, as often the case is that there is a psychologist who will take your problems and offer something completely different to previous treatments. So I recommend you keep looking for help, even though it may not have been successful so far.

Regarding what you've written here, specifically, general soreness of the body sounds like a symptom of anxiety, unless you can relate it to an activity you were recently involved in. Typically, the body doesn't get sore before it drops dead without cause. The same would go for the kidney, I wouldn't assume soreness or cramps in the area indicate cancer. In fact cancer is less likely to show symptoms of soreness in an organ such as the kidney, a more likely explanation is something like a kidney stone, in which death is highly unlikely.

In both cases of body soreness and kidney pain, and given what you've described about your tendency to fret over physiological discomforts, this fits well with physical manifestations of anxiety.

From this I'd recommend seeing a psychologist to focus on a form of treatment that isn't reliant on medication. Often with health anxiety, the fixation on physical discomforts is just the expression of one's anxiety, and once the source of the anxiety is dealt with, it becomes easier to cope with these physical discomforts.

My apologies if I've been a bit blunt. What I mean to convey is that I still think there is something to gain, and little to lose, from giving treatment from a psychologist another shot.

I'm truly sorry about how you feel. The discomfort and confusion drives me up the wall as well, but more in terms of frustration of not knowing, as opposed to anxiety about the worst possible cause.

If you'd like to share anything more, I'd love to listen and help if I can. Otherwise I wish you the very best Don.

- FC

[Dreb100]

Thanks for the response. I too have suffered health anxiety or in old terms hypochondria for so many years - I am sick of it, my family is sick of it. At the moment I am certain I yet again have cancer - back pain and a sore neck - the fact that these are also symptomatic of so many things - including stress and anxiety is irrelevant to me at the moment. I guess for me the real question is how do you know when to go to the Dr for the tests? My psychologist dissuaded me from seeing the GP this time around because she is concerned it is in fact becoming a positive reinforcement and feeds the cycle -w high I understand. Usually time resolves it. I am going overseas in a few days and moving cities - so when all that is done and I am settled - if the symptoms persist - I will see a doctor. In the meantime tough I am becoming obsessed by my health and back pain....again - catch 22. Pain killers not doin much good either - sensible me says because it is stress related. Obsessive me thinks because the cancer is too far gone. Husband is sick of this treadmill as am I. Just dont know how to get off.

[Shellz__22]

Hi Don

It is great that you have recognised that you need some extra help on this, so thank you for speaking up.

I have a condition where my body reacts to being overwhelmed by feelings (especially anxiety) by releasing those feeling as neurological symptoms. This was a very hard diagnosis to accept that the reason that I had a tremor, wasn't that I had a brain tumor or MS it was that I was anxious. I felt like people thought it meant that I was just making it up, but they didn't.

This didn't mean that it was easy to accept but I also did not start seeing improvements until I started to accept it. Because it is okay to be anxious about your health but we cannot let it impact our lives.

I recommend writing down your thoughts and feelings for the day and seeing if you can find a pattern. For example, you were really anxious about your health the week your baby had croup. This is then where you can deploy coping strategies such as acknowledging that you have had a stressful week and so chalk it up to that but it is still there in a month you will have it checked out.

Also, seeing a psychiatrist once a month has really helped me, but each to their own.

Just because you have anxiety related to your health does not mean you cant get sick, so if there is something that is really bothering you or out of the pattern, you should get it checked out by a doctor.

S.