Hello and help with Health Anxiety

[JJ_Bell]

Hello out there,

I have come here because for the last 6 months I have been suffering from the worst anxiety I have ever had in my life.

I have previously been diagnosed with PTSD after a traumatic incident 5 years ago. After seeing a psychologist I was able to recover from this, and felt much better for about 2 years.

But since December, I have struggled with health anxiety. It all started when I become unwell with a virus that made me dizzy. The Dr ordered an MRI of my brain to confirm it was nothing more serious and that came back clear. However, I worked myself up so much, I convinced myself I had MS. I have seen a neurologist who told me, I do not have MS and my brain is healthy. Even after hearing this, I still worry there is something seriously wrong with me. I am getting pins and needles and cold flashes. My heart feels like it's racing. My doctor has told me it's my anxiety, but I can't help worrying I am dying.

I have recently been on holidays and had none of the symptoms I listed above, so I guess it is anxiety, but now I'm worried why I can't cope with my everyday life. I am seeing a psychologist, which helps for a time, but I feel like I would need to see her everyday just to cope.

I do not want to go on medication as my husband and I are trying for a baby, which also is not working... 😞

Has anyone else felt like this? Other than seeing a psychologist, what can I do? I don't want to feel like this anymore.

Thanks

[Quercus]

Hi JJ Bell and welcome to the forums,

You mentioned medications are something you feel very reluctant about but I just wanted to say there are a lot of medicines out there which are safe for use in pregnancy and breastfeeding.

Sometimes it is a matter of being open to at least considering medications if your symptoms are becoming out of control.

Have you have tried all the usual recommendations from your psychologist? ... Reducing stressors, managing sleep and diet, exercising, meditation or mindfulness excercises, challenging unhelpful thoughts... The list goes on.

If you can honestly say to yourself you have given all of the alternatives to medicine a go and there is little change why is the idea of medication so frightening?

Like a physical illness sometimes we require medication first for the other techniques to help. I know for myself I tried everything before accepting I needed help. Medication is not a fix all. It is an aide to get you to a point where your other therapies are able to help.

If you are trying for a baby I do think a realistic conversation with your doctor is needed. As a new Mum I had so much anxiety about the safety of my baby. At one point I remember sleeping on the floor by the cot because I had to be sure he was breathing. The monitor even could not reassure me. I'm sure you can see this is not a healthy behaviour. I was exhausted.

Plus anxiety has a huge impact on falling pregnant too. Look at how many people try actively with no luck and then take a break from trying then find out they are pregnant. Anxiety has a huge physical impact.

I hope you feel able to speak to your doctor about this. But you are very welcome to chat here too. There are a lot of existing threads about health anxiety I hope you can find some information that helps you.

Nat

[romantic_thi3f]

Hi JJ_Bell,

Welcome to the forums and thanks for being here!

I’m sorry to hear that you’re struggling with this but at the same time it sounds like you are doing all the right things to take care of yourself and get some help with your anxiety.

Can you tell us a bit about what happens in the appointments with the psychologist? Depending on your psychologist, it would be interesting whether or not they’re giving you strategies, reassurance or what it is that’s making it helpful.

With in between appointments though, there’s a couple of things that I can think of -

Use an app. There is two that I like to use for my anxiety - one is called Worry Watch. The aim of this one is to enter your worry i.e ’my pins and needles mean that this is happening’ and then to check back later and see if it came true. The majority of the time it won’t - and this is the beauty of the app because you can see time and time again the majority of worries are just that - worries.

The other app that I find helpful is called MoodNotes. While it’s designed for mood specifically, it can be helpful for anxiety because it lists different ways of negative thought patterns - i.e. are you falling into that trap where you think it’s MS again?

Even if you decide not to use an app, just the simple act of tracking can be incredibly useful. Overtime you’ll probably see that when your anxiety peaks - you’ll notice more symptoms, but when it’s less intense (like on holidays) you don’t notice it at all.

The other thing that might be helpful is this pack here - http://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/resources/infopax.cfm?Info_ID=53

It’s got a lot of self-help related guides which are all free! The module 3 page 9 I think is the best takeaway from it.

Hopefully this helps!

[JJ_Bell]

Thank you so much for replying to my post. I did not know I could take medication while pregnant/trying so that is a relief. I am seeing my doctor tomorrow so I will ask about that. And yes another thing I worry about is if I do have a baby how I will be able to cope. I believe I will probably constantly worry about them as well.

I have tried some of the recommendations from my psychologist, and put in an action plan for when I'm feeling anxious. But we haven't been focusing on health anxiety and now we are. I hope this will help, although last night I convinced myself I have bowel cancer. I had to take the day off today, as I had no sleep at all.

Thanks again for your response. It is nice to know I'm not the only person who has gone through this.

[Quercus]

Hi JJ Bell and thanks for writing back.

I'm glad to hear you found some use out of my reply. Did you have a look at the info RThief mentioned about the CCI? A lot of the worksheets I did in group therapy were from there. Totally agree they're worth looking into.

Good luck with the doctor tomorrow. If you are still concerned at the risk to baby from meds you can always go talk to your pharmacist. Mine took the time to explain the rating system B, C, D, X class and also gave me the contact details for a hospital who were doing a study on pregnant women taking the medication I had no choice but to take. As a Mum it is easy to feel bub comes first even if you're falling apart but your baby needs a healthy safe Mum.

I hope you can write and let us know how you went (no med names of course re forum rules).

Nat