Health Anxiety Support is Here!

[[Vm...]]

Hello Everyone,

 

I wanted to start a support section for people who suffer from health anxiety. I myself suffered from health anxiety for over a year and it took a big toll on my life, which is why I wound up on the medications I am currently on. It has been quite a horror for me worrying about illnesses anywhere from multiple sclerosis to heart failure to lymes disease and probably every thing you can think of.

 

What I have learned through this whole experience is that physical symptoms of anxiety can take quite a toll on your body and make you think you have something when you really don't. One example is my MS "scare" where I was getting tingling/numbness all over my body, electric shock feelings, adrenaline rushes, pricking on my skin and so forth. (all very common symptoms of anxiety). My next adventure was I "had heart failure and would have a sudden death at any moment". What really happened was I was getting severe palpitations and skipped heart beats from worrying about my health in general. I learned after time it was just my anxiety and these skipped beats would kick up whenever I was very stressed out, mainly in the morning because I suffered from terrible morning anxiety (when the most cortisol is released). Once I realized what my triggers were, these skipped beats and fast heart rate would subside.

 

I found a very useful website that explains in detail all of the physical symptoms of anxiety and what effect they have on your body (not in a harmful way). I really hope it helps some of you out there that are suffering from health anxiety.

 

For the most part, I am 90% recovered from my health anxiety worries. The only concern as far as health is merely benzo related because I am afraid of having a seizure coming off klonopin but even that too is subsiding.

 

Please post your concerns. I will try and help and members of BB can help each other.

 

Here's the link I metioned:

 

[nobbc]http://www.anxietycentre.com/anxiety-symptoms.shtml[/nobbc]

 

Edit: commercial link deactivated

 

 

[[Co...]]

What a great idea....So many people in benzoyl w/d suffer terrible health fear. I am 31 months off and health fear is my only remaining sx. Having said that, it is a persistent and intense sx. I didn't develop it until well into the second year . I have read so many posts of people needing to go to er ( I went twice in acute. ...month 4 and month 6. I will be following this thread. I think it will pick up a lot of followers.

...glad to hear that your health fear calmed....

                    cooperten

[[an...]]

I have really struggled with this since coming off. It started to go away until last week when I got a really bad migraine with aura and I thought I was having a stroke. It was the scariest thing that has happened to me in a very long time. I even called 911 and went to the hospital. It was the worst migraine I've ever had and the aura / pre-aura were very stroke=like.

 

Now I keep worrying about the next time I have one and whether it will be worse than this one.

 

I have to go work in a garden outside in the sun today for school and I'm worrying that heat will do it to me again.

 

I'm scared I won't be able to control my anxiety next time either. I got very panicked because of it, but you are right a lot of my symptoms during the aura were from anxiety- not from the migraine itself. I made it so much worse by freaking out but I didn't know what was happening.

 

It also brought back a lot of my w/d chemical anxiety that I thought was gone.

 

I'm gonna face my fear and go work in the heat for 1 hour. I'll be proud of myself for facing that fear head on today, when I finish.

 

Great thread idea. 

[[Gr...]]

Great thread idea thanks Vmalone

 

I have had this utterly debilitating symptom on and off in taper and withdrawal. When I c/t'd in 2007-2008 I had it for nearly the whole year and then again this time. It is like a psychosis when I am it apart from I still have whispers of awareness that I am behaving irrationally but I try SO HARD to act rational. And even convince myself sometimes.

I just wrote out what my latest illnesses that can float about when I'm in fear and what they are and why but you know what, I think that will be too triggering to whoever reads this, cos lets face it we are an incredibly sensitive bunch. And I know how it would effect me.

I could go on to say how painful it is when that symptom is fully blown. It's usually at the height of a big wave as thats when the sensations are so prominent, and then the fixation and the searching and worrying and wondering just feeds the whole thing which feeds the sensations.

I was in A&E in the last 3 weeks after I woke at 3am with this electric cortisol surge and oesphageal spasms. I was sure that my time was up, that this was it. I lay there telling myself to give into it, that fighting it was pointless. Frightened to close my eyes as it might be the end of my days.

When I left the house in the morning it felt like I wasn't coming back. A sense of dread, that my life was ending. It totally engulfed me. I was confused and getting words mixed up.

I tried my best to sound so rational, when the test results came back and they didn't find anything acute I asked them to do more tests and was in tears.

They let me go and I was on the bus home and sobbed all the way home.

I felt so ashamed and that everything felt like such a mess.

When I was praying to universal love the next day I had an intrusive thought that the illness I thought it was wasn't and it was actually another illness. I got a shot of hot fear and could see in that moment that this was linked to intrusive thought and not some deeper psychic intrusive knowing that I thought my body was telling me. I chose to see it like it was coming from fear but understood it was on some levels a protective thing where my body wants to alert my mind to danger because my body did not feel right. That makes it sound like it makes sense and it kind of does but it doesn't take it away.

It comes back and drifts about but I'm not in such a strong wave since and have been able to rationalise for the moment. Although at some point every day I get a point of crisis where I think 'I can't do this' and it feels awful and I feel awful. Like today when I woke up from an afternoon toxic nap and felt really bad for a few hours.

fear fear fear fear fear ...

 

 

[[Er...]]

I have had severe health anxiety during taper and post taper. By far it is my worst symptom! Sadly, I probably won't look at this club much because even looking at what issues other people "think" they have can throw me into a wave of bad anxiety and make me think I have what was being talked about.

 

However, this is a great thread for those that can handle it and I wish you all the best of luck!!

[[co...]]

I did make a same topic 2 months ago, but it was not promoted nicely. I am glad, I found this one. 

My health anxiety get worsen since last year on August till now. Had many different episode from A to Z.

[[Ch...]]

Thank you for starting this thread. "Health anxiety." I didn't even realize that I had it, but now that I see it verbalized, I realize that that is my most enduring and frustrating symptom. I feel close to nothing from the Klonopin taper, and am almost symptom-free after TBI (post-concussion syndrome), so when I do feel symptomatic at all again, I too often have an inner freak-out thinking that I'm headed in some terrible doom-and-gloom direction, and that I am permanently disabled. And I just can't have that! I have to heal! I can't lose faith in the healing process!

 

I'm finding that visualizing a healing flow, especially in my head (brain), seems to actually help. It's a process...that's for sure.

 

Cheery

[[co...]]

IMO. The worst thing from health anxiety is our tendency to check any symptom to dr.

It works fine when I still work and covered by an insurance. When I moved to my current place the insurance is so expensive and I cannot afford any med check. So I back off from going to dr for almost 1 year. Now I quite scare with any medical action. I need to take a general med checkup next semester for job seeking activity. I wonder how can I deal with it.

[[co...]]

Hi All.

How have you been? I hope everything going well. 

 

I have a very big curiosity at this moment. I wonder about how much your health anxiety degree is ? Is it quite strong enough to make your day unproductive, or it is just a very short temptation.

 

I realise that my degree of health anxiety was so severe. This is the only reason I got benzo for the first time. Exactly last year, my degree of health anxiety flare up which able to trigger a panic again. Until now, I can let my mind free from it even for one day. It is silly enough, after episode A, another "sign" will come afterward. I always tell my wife how come my health can be this poor, but I understand that even-though I am healthy enough, eventually I find any situation with make a ghost sickness.

 

For now, what helps me only two. The fact that human body is not that fragile which have the ability to fix itself and meditation. But off course sometimes I need a quick cool down method or else it flare my panic again. This is so frustrating.

[[Te...]]

Thanks for this, VMalone!!

 

Yes, I have suffered from terrible health anxiety. What makes it so intense is that it keeps on going. It ratchets up beyond rational thought. I imagine all kinds of things, terrible things. I've become a hypochondriac.

 

I find that walking helps clear my head and gives me the added benefit of getting exercise and being out in the fresh air. I have to get out of my condo. Staring at the walls and thinking of all the things that could happen to me is too much to bear. Plus when these feelings come on, sometimes I don't do anything but worry. I can't function normally. This didn't happen at all before benzos. I'm just about 28 months out.

 

 

[[li...]]

I never head health anxiety until taper and bam, suddenly I had everything in the book.  here's what I had(in my mind later confirmed by a doctor as nothing )

skin cancer

ketoacidosis

breast cancer

gum disease

fast dental decay

colon cancer

hypoglycemia

ulcerative colitis

Fear of Growing a beard (I'm a girl)

 

i laugh now because I really thought I had these

 

 

The secret to beating health anxiety:

never Google your symptoms- or if you absolutely must - add in anxiety or benzo withdrawl with the symptom

 

For example Breast pain anxiety  or Breast pain benzo withdrawl

 

If you just google breast pain, guess what comes up. Yes the Big C. Suddenly you have breast cancer when in actuality all you have is benzo breasts.

 

Also- I found anxietycentre dot com to be an excellent help . There are so many physical symptoms of anxiety - its amazing how much stuff is just anxiety - and believe me they can all be very unpleasant.

 

Good luck. I still get the H.A. , but I'm worlds away from where I was.

[[Ao...]]

Hi everyone

 

Thanks vmalone for this post. It's hard to admit that I have health anxiety but I do.

 

I also never had health anxiety until I started to taper xanax and lamictal , and many other meds beforehand.  I developed physical pain and odd sensations - twitching , burning , pinprick sensation , vibrations and painful electric shocks. I still have these but I am tapering seroquel now. ( the last one ). I'm really hoping when I'm off this and in time it will lessen.

 

Thankfully BB has really helped me understand that many others are going and have gone through similar situations and have healed . I dearly hope I'll be one of them.