I'm a hypochondriac

Hello! I'm new and glad to be here.

I've been so "in the closet" about my health anxiety that it is taking me some time to process the fact that lots of other people experience this and that there is actually a safe place to talk about it.

My health anxiety started very young. I remember on several occasions leaping out of bed and running to my mom in an absolute panic, thinking I was dying during the night. Around age 10, I became ill with an unidentifiable illness that was ultimately determined to be an auto-immune disorder. I was out of school for a number of weeks and immersed in the medical world....doctor after doctor, test after test. My medical anxiety became so extreme.....I was constantly thinking I was going to die and terrified of each new doctor visit and test. I feel so sad now thinking about that terrified little girl.

As an adult, I've somehow managed to appear mostly calm and level-headed. Yet inside I still go through periods of extreme health anxiety-related torment, especially in times of stress.

Unfortunately, about 10 years ago, I connected with a physician whose bedside manner and communication style are *not* a good match for me psychologically. I realize I need to change physicians and have a plan in place to do so. To briefly summarize, this physician errs on the side of extreme caution about every symptom and shares his concerns verbally as they arise. Over the past decade, he has suggested to me that inconclusive results from a thyroid nodule biopsy were in fact cancerous (they turned out not to be), that the numbness in my feet and hands may be due to MS (it turned out not to be), and....most recently....that a swollen lymph node under my jaw and in my armpit may be indicative of lymphoma. (After weeks of testing and mental torment, it turned out not to be anything serious at all.)

During the last scare, I took my significant other into the exam room. He has the opposite of health anxiety...he’s worried about nothing! He's been quite upset that the doctor even mentioned the word “lymphoma” after finding a simple swollen gland. He saw what I have gone through these past weeks with worry and fully promotes a switch in physicians.

This last scare about the lymphoma really took a lot out of me on all levels….I’ve been dealing with weeks of insomnia and fear...keeping it all inside and not wanting to tell anyone until I knew what was what. It’s amazing how much difference a physician can make in the way he or she communicates/uses discretion in sharing concerns with a patient. If this physician had simply said, “Let’s keep an eye on the gland…let me know if the swelling goes down.” Or, “It’s likely nothing, but just to be thorough, let’s get some lymph node mapping done of your neck…” etc…that could have spared me weeks of torment. Well, it's my responsibility now to find a compatible physician who understands my health anxiety and can be a helping force rather than a source of anxiety.

Apologies for the long ramble…. and thank you so much for listening.

Best wishes,
Oak Dweller

Hi Oak Dweller and welcome!

I am so sorry to hear of the events that led up to your health anxiety. It is certainly understandable how these things could add up and be triggers for your fears!

I am so glad that you are seeking another doctor! I wish you the best with this, and know that once you find the right one, that you will feel better in terms of the anxiety.

We also have a great Resource Guide here that you may find helpful in relieving some of the over all stress that contributes to anxiety issues. There are links to videos that teach relaxation and breathing exercises, as well as downloads for journal/anxiety worksheets and even on-line therapy.:)

We hope that you will continue to post with us. It is amazing to talk to others who understand what you are going through. We are here to listen and support!

Talk to you soon,

S.C.

Thank you so much for your compassionate and welcoming response, as well as the resource suggestions. It's so nice to be able to share and listen. Sending all my best wishes to everyone here.

Oak Dweller

Thank u crystalize, its true, and I try not to worry but lately my anxiety has really hit me and I worry about any little thing..can I ask u what helped u get through it?

I have a Social Anxiety Disorder but I have always been used to that.  I had drank an energy drink one night and I could not sleep, I am 16 years old by the way.  I had to wake my mom up because I was so scared.  I felt numb, pail and sick.  She said it was my very first panic anxiety attack.  Just thinking about it makes me feel scared.  After that panic attack I didn't feel like eating or socializing, it took me weeks to think normal again.  Then I have been looking up symptoms and they have been frightening me.  My mom says it is all in my head.  I worried my mom and she said there is nothing wrong with me.  I have just been feeling the symptoms because I was imagining them.  I still do.  Somedays I do, some days I don't.  I am so Hypochondriac.  I have been feeling twitching in my brain thinking it is a brain tumor.  It is actually from loud music and ear buds.  I also have a mild form aspergers syndrome which is a form of autism.  I am normal other wise.  I have hyper sensative hearing and my anxiety doesn't make things any easier.  Yeah, I want to think normal again.  I just have to see a doctor, insurence to expensive and have to wait until my mom gets her second job.  :(  Anyway,  I hear humor "laughing is the best medicine it alos pumps blood in your heart which is a good thing."  Keep on laughing.  It helped me.  You are not the only one I also think of having heart attack symptoms as in tightness in chest which cause me to panic.  Otherwise, relaxe and stay calm, love, live as though you have never lived before.  Keep laughing.  Be happy, don't waste your days worrying.  There are people out there who actually have serious health problems, they want to live there days before resting in peace.  It is just Hypochondria if nothing is wrong with you and if your still alive after weeks.  Your fine.  I amo also bi polar if you don't mind.

I was really really pleased to find this site. I know that I am working myself up to a serious anxious state. My brother, just these past few days, passed away. I was only told the seriousness of his illness about a month ago (I live in another state). While I have been in constant contact with family, I was beginning to have all sorts of symptoms. I spend night after night on the net googling what could be the cause so to alleviate the concern. I would list symptoms as I thought I had them, but I read so many scary diagnoses. I went to the Doctors, then I went back again (this was not like the usual me). I found I had a pain in my jaw, The GP said it could be an infected tooth and gave me antibiotics, as soon as I could I had it removed. l thought that was that, then the pain came back. Then I started to think about uterine and ovarian cancer and started to get abdominal pains, I would get a headache, I must have brain cancer... . Well intended colleagues only make me feel worse, they all know someone who is my age that is dead or dying! Someone even gave me a book on whether or not to choose chemotherapy (I can't open it!). The net just leads me into more anxiety and I can spend hours on it. I woke my husband at 4am, I was having palpitations and jaw pain. I took me to the hospital (what a patient caring husband he is). After an ECG and blood tests and a check up they said they couldn't find anything. I know my problem started when my mum phoned me for support. While I gave her all the support I hoped would help, after each call she never knew I was becoming more and more anxious. I regularly can't sleep often totally preoccupied with what illness I have, and will it be caught it time. From one month ago till now I am different person from the happy confident person I was. I only go to sleep when I am absolutely exhausted, or take a herbal remedy to help me sleep so I don't have to lie there listening to my thoughts. I get about 3 hrs total sleep now each night. My husband tells me all this will cause my real health problems. It's hard to switch it off. Losing my younger brother was a shock, now I am anxious about my own mortality, how would my children cope. I do have a few real health concerns (asthma and rhumatoid arthritis) but my blood test results indicate I am being managed well.
I will go back and read every post again, maybe someone has written something that will just give me a little peace and rest, from myself.

Thank you for your response scaredy cat. That was thoughtful for someone to write back. Before I came on this site tonight, I couldn't help myself, I was back on the net, falling into the same trap - why does the word cancer jump off the page every time and it always lists my symptoms, one after the other, so clearly.
I value your advice about relaxation techniques. What I physically feel when I am at my worst state is my heart pounds, my blood goes cold, I feel cold, I shiver. I'm shivering now. Tomorrow I have a doctors appointment I will ask for definitive tests up until now the GP has given me only a minimal check over on areas I feel pain in - but I am so terrified of what the results will be. I will post back. thanks again.

I also have major health anxiety. Since I was a little child I'd often visit many doctors and every time my father would walk into the examination room he'd ask to speak to the doctor in private. I later found out he was telling them I was a Hypochondriac. That's when I really stopped believing the doctors diagnosis and was convinced that I was dying. And yes I have been to the emergency room because I thought I was dying after getting shocked from putting a knife into the toaster (two weeks prior). I never grew out of it. Now that I'm approaching my 30's, I check myself all the time for tumors. I'm aware of every scratch, bruise, and bump on my body. I've also been too scared to sleep because sometimes I think I'm having a heart attack.. but all the symptoms seem to disappear when I go to the Doctors and find out it's 'just stress'. One thing I noticed is I tend to have more anxiety when I'm a little depressed or stressed at work. When I'm on vacation, I'm as healthy as can be!

Thank you all for sharing your stories.

Quotes about Hypochondria

Lisa Marie Presley: "I'm a hypochondriac. Yesterday it was brain damage from the vodka the night before. Today, heart attack - my arm and chest started hurting at the same time."

Kate Beckinsale: "I'm a hypochondriac, so the idea of botulism scares me. I'd probably be the one person who'd end up paralysed by Botox from the neck down."

Goodman Ace: "The best cure for hypochondria is to forget about your body and get interested in someone else's."

Caskie Stinnett: "The trouble with being a hypochondriac these days is that antibiotics have cured all the good diseases."

Mason Cooley: "All the powers of imagination combine in hypochondria."

Unattributed: The hypochondriac's epitaph: "NOW will you believe me?"

Hi everyone! I am new to this forum, I stumbled upon this minutes ago as I have become really upset with myself for my weird thoughts.
Forgive me if this may seem lengthy, but reading all your posts made me emotional, as I felt that I am not alone.
Now that I think about it, I have been a hypochondriac since I was a little girl, if a muscle felt sore, I would immediately think I was gonna die. Some nights I would lay in bed willing myself not to fall asleep for fear of not waking up. I can't recall any other significant childhood experience that would warrant such scary emotions. That was just the way I was and the only source of relief was prayer.
I am now 33 years old, a stay-at-home mom to my toddler. Since coming back from a very long vacation at my parents place, I have been increasingly anxious about sensations in my body. This all started three months ago and I spend most of my time googling symptoms. MS, ALS, Bells Palsy, throat cancer, lung cancer, melanoma, brain tumor, the list goes on. It's always the serious ones that I fixate on. Weeks ago, I went to visit the doctor complaining of chest pains. Well, I was given prescription for propranolol PRN since I do have mitral valve prolapse but have been weaned off medication since I got pregnant years ago. After I got the lab results that all my levels were fine, that's when I started having twitches (which led to the MS and ALS fears, among many). So I ate bananas regularly and took magnesium supplement. As soon as the muscle twitches resolved, my throat has been feeling scratchy so I have been obsessing about cancers, constantly viewing my mouth and throat with a flashlight. Muscle aches I attribute to different kinds of malignancy and so on and so forth. It's driving me nuts, my husband now rolls his eyes whenever I mention my symptoms. He is a health professional, by the way.
It's sad that I am not able to enjoy my daughter as much, I get very irritable when I am in the middle of using the internet to search for what could be wrong with me and she asks for attention.
It doesn't help that the weather is getting colder by the day. I grew up in a tropical place so I find it really difficult to deal with the cold. I am at a loss as to how to deal with this. But I am glad I came upon this forum.

Hello Everyone,

This is my first post as I just joined HealingWell, and I can very much sympathize, I myself suffer from Hypochondria along with a few other issues. The very word Hypochondria invokes fear in myself as well as all who suffer from it, the what if's, the various sensations throughout your body telling you something is wrong when it has been proven medically you are healthy. I was diagnosed with OCD when I was 25 and over the years I have worried to the point of incapacitating myself. In the time since then I have also been diagnosed with Anxiety both situational and Generalized, my therapists believes the Anxiety and Hypochondria may have been brought on by caring for my mom as she fought CHF. I have had medical tests run just like many of you and afterwards I feel some relief, yet it still returns. I have taken several types of medications for my OCD and Anxiety but in the end they generally stop working. Most recently Celexa and Luvox both SSRIs with some nasty side effects for me, needless to say they did not last long before I had my doctor take me off of them.

Remember you are never truly alone!

Thank you Scaredy Cat for the welcome and advice!

Today I had followup with my cardiologist and sometimes our Hypochondria fears turn out to be valid. about 2 weeks ago I wore what is called a Holter monitor for a 24 hour ekg, it turns out that my heart at times will fire 4 rapid beats which explains the fluttering in my chest along with an increased heart rate up to 130bpm. At the same time the monitor recorded several 2 second pauses where my heart would stop, my doctor assured me that I am in no life threatening danger at this time. I was point blank in asking if I need to restrict my activities, I walk about for 40 minutes a day for cardiovascular health and of course we live fairly close to Disneyland and I like to ride with my kids when we go. He said I had no restrictions but with the anxiety and Hypochondria its kind of difficult to let go of the worry. He has ordered a few more tests to be done, first is the treadmill followed by if I remember right an ultrasound immediately afterward. The second test is a sleep study due to the fact that I tend to hold my breath sometimes when I am asleep. And of course now that it is confirmed that I have an irregular heart beat it seems like it goes on all the time. He also stated that a patient in the middle of an anxiety attack can misinterpret time as in how long the actual symptoms last, and he gave me several examples without given patients names. He has also requested that I write down anything that may happen to trigger an anxiety attack. I don't know if he thinks the two are related or not, I know he has got to be at the top of his game he has had 32 papers published in medical journals. My wife is working on getting me into a therapist because she like you Scaredy cat thinks some form of therapy will help.
Thanks for letting me ramble on about this, I had never tried a support group before but it actually helps to write things down it helps put it in a new perspective that as an individual we may miss.

Remember you are never truly alone!

hey all, hope that everyone is doing alright, i am a big hypochondriac, when i was first diagnosed with acid reflux and panic attacks, i was convinced i had a tumor because of the way my head used to feel, then it was cancer because my stomach burned so bad from the acid reflux, now it is my heart, every day i think i am getting a heart attack, did an ekg and the only thing my doc said was that it was beating fast, and that was because i was frightened. one question though is it normal to hear like buzzing sounds coming from your heart? it happens to me sometimes and when it does i burp a lot, and lately i feel slight pain in the area, and when this happens i also burp a lot and then the pain goes. sometimes i am afraid to sleep, i look for every little sign, every little pain gives me a panic attack, i have been a little better at controlling my panic attacks, but they are still scary. health anxiety is the worse i just want it to go away so i can feel normal again