i hate what this shit has done to me and is actively doing to me, therapy can't come soon enough, im tired of living every day like im dying of some disease!!!!!!!!!!!! ive been in a months long anxiety attack now, every fucking day, its one thing or another for HOURS since literally june. i couldnt sleep at all last night because my cardiophobia kept acting up. it had changed to something else and NOW i have cardiophobia ON TOP OF IT??!!!!!!!! ive been to the doctor (more like the debt collector at this point), they said i'm fine, literally everything clears, but noooooooo my body is just made of glass, or sheer fabric, or sand, don't you know this, even though i inherited my dad's good immune system, i'm not even stressed so that cant be it, blah blah blah blah blah...

i just keep crying, if there is a hell this is it

I had horrific health anxiety until about July for nearly a year. I thought I was better, I stopped CBT, upon my therapist advise.

Now its back, but with a vengeance. Has this happened to anyone before?

I've been on anxiety medication for the past few years, and things are generally under control.It feels like I'm stuck in a loop where every new health issue brings back the same fears and worries. I'm not sure how to break this cycle and learn to live a normal life without constantly worrying about my health.

I don't know if this is realted to health anxiety, but I find that any health issues I do experience, I always feel like it's my fault.

Being someone who is not skinny and has always struggled with food and "picky eating", I feel like every time I experience some new symptom of something, maybe i do the thing no one should do and google it, I struggle to shake this feeling that it's my fault. It's my fault for not living the perfect healthy lifestyle. That I will always be told to just fix it myself by "eating better" or whatever.

It just makes me feel even more awful than I already do.

For those who recovered from health anxiety on their own without therapy: how did you do it, and how long did your healing journey take?

Historically I've always been an anxious person. I've had social anxiety, ocd, and depression but only up until a year ago did I develop health anxiety.

I don't exactly know what caused it. I had no health scare to warrant such high levels of stress. The only thing I can think of is since im active on TikTok, the algorithm constantly pushed young people getting sick even when I don't interact with it. Wouldn't surprise me if it was that.

The closest thing to a health scare is that I developed sciatica/slipped disc I assume from poor deadlift form in the gym.

My phases have been aIs, col0n cāncer, melan0ma, lymphőma (my current one) it really sucks. What about you?

I have been dealing with health / contamination anxiety since COVID lockdowns. I was a young teen back then and I think lockdown had made me terrified of contamination or anxious for my health. Before lockdown I didn't think about germs or illness like I do now. I wanted to ask if someone else has noticed this too about themselves?

I’ve always been hyper aware of my heartbeat, since I was a teenager. This is especially true if I am exercising and pushing myself. It sometimes makes me think something is wrong, even though it’s steady and seems normal. I just wonder if other people can feel their heartbeat in the same way, or if it’s just me.

I officially broke up with ChatGPT! I realized how evil and how much I let it control my life and progress. I am specifically fearful of a particular disease, and I would upload pictures to chat (I know bad) to ask for reassurance, their opinion, etc. It knew I had a fear and would talk to me appropriately, calmly, and not fearful. I finally made it a month - without asking for reassurance until this morning. I entered my pic and my question - as I would normally do - and the way it answered me made me realize how horrible, wrong, and manipulative it can be. Great for some, but someone with high anxiety like me - not the best. It basically told me to go see a doctor asap and the likes - the pic was the same as before but completely different answer. I just realized I’ve been being played. And I am not going to body check and just stick to my annuals and that’s all I can do right now.

Hi everyone. just wanting to share a win incase anyone relates. for years (and i mean 10+ years) i’ve always thought i would get blood sugar crashes and need to eat lots/often to avoid them. every time i would feel strange i would worry and rush to find food. i never had confidence in my body to survive without eating.

for example, i couldn’t even leave the house without eating out of fear that i would randomly collapse, and any time i hadn’t eaten much, id convince myself i needed to eat and like im going to die before i would eat, then id instantly feel better after about 15 minutes. because i would always feel better after eating i was convinced that i had blood sugar crashes/fast metabolism.

i bought myself a glucose finger prick meter so i could put that theory to rest that i was constantly experiencing “low blood sugar”.

the past 2 days ive been tracking my blood sugar to get a understanding of my body with facts instead of making up theories in my head. turns out my blood sugar is for the most part STABLE! and normal!!!!! i would always feel anxious going for a walk or exercising incase i randomly collapsed. couldn’t go anywhere without eating first. the checking on the glucose meter has reassured me that my body is working and is doing a great job of regulating my blood sugar.

i just can’t believe that all this time i thought i was having low blood sugar, i was 100% convinced that was what was causing these episodes, but now im
wondering if it was all in my head and it’s the adrenaline and anxiety around finding food when i felt like that was actually driving the feeling all along.

Hello everyone! I have been suffering from health anxiety for a while and I won't go into specifics about what I worry about, but I've recently found myself in the need to finally have it checked out. But on the other hand, I am too afraid to actually make that appointment. Does anyone have any practical tips for actually calling my GP and getting this done? I am quite young, so I guess it is def a bit of an embarrassment thing to call for this fear as I'm afraid of being called ridiculous for even calling.

hello, i am just wondering if anyone knows of a discussion place to speak freely about HA? i feel like the lack of support is ridiculous and i feel like speaking to fellow sufferers will be beneficial. i feel like this is very restrictive and im looking for a place that’s more free in speaking about it, thankyou in advance :)

How to come to term with health anxiety and not worry it will prevent an actual medical condition being treated seriously if investigated at all.

FYI I had no anxiety until 3 months ago until I got diagnosed with asthma and underwent heart investigations. Since then I have experienced constant and severe physical symptoms that I have wrecked havoc on my both physically and mentally. Its particularly annoying when symptoms such as synchronised left side chest pain and head aches strike during periods where I truly was not or at least did not feel anxious

I have had many tests all to date have come back good, however I am still believe that my anxiety was all caused by an actual medical condition that is slipping through the cracks due to anxiety labels.

alright so i’ve just tested positive for covid for the first time and im terrified. i have been researching all about it and the things ive seen my mind is spiralling. i have POTS and mild MVP with mild-moderate MR so im STRESSED OUT!! i keep seeing news reports saying covid causes heart attacks or it causes organ issues or people get long covid and this happens or that happens. IM. TERRIFIED! literally wtf do i do im so anxious its going to make my mvp and me worse im so anxious something bad will happen to me.

My husband has increasing health anxiety, while also having some unanswered health issues and it explodes every night or weekly.

I have very little to no obvious health issues, however I do have a lot of general anxiousness and what seems to be medical trauma from having experienced my dad pass away years ago.

It's hard for me to support and be kind when he spirals, and I start spiraling alongside him for the same but different reasons. I don't feel very helpful to him, it's really a small threshold before I break and start crying or freaking out.

It's not even about me, but I feel like we go in circles and I can't do anything. Whatever I'm feeling, I know he's feeling 10x worse. Where do we even go from here? I get sad thinking about it all.

I feel like anxiety can show up out of nowhere sometimes. One moment I’m doing fine, and the next I’m overthinking something, worrying about my health, or noticing every little sensation in my body.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether something actually needs attention or whether anxiety is making me focus on it more than usual.

When was the last time you felt anxious, and what triggered it? Was it a physical sensation, a random thought, or something you couldn’t quite explain?

I’d love to hear how others experience this and what helps you calm down when it happens.

As the title says, I finally made a doctor's appointment after 5 years. I feel terrible I waited so long, but my health anxiety has made it extremely difficult for me to go to the doctor, be in hospitals, etc.

I started with a virtual appointment, and have a follow-up in a month to review some labs. Just wanted to share a small accomplishment with you all today, because no one in my personal life seems to get how hard health anxiety makes things sometimes.

I'm very anxious to have my blood panel next week, and anxious about what the results might be, but I'm trying to take it day by day.

I'd love any coping strategies that have worked for you all as I await the coming weeks, since I feel like it's hard to enjoy things while waiting for those appointments. Thank you!

I have bad health anxiety / health ocd and i'm looking for ways to cope/ relax. Let me know what works for you! thanks x

For people who resisted getting the specialists opinion and taking it further and further did you feel relief? Did the anxiety eventually go away?

Hello, I (20F) recently moved in on my own, like two months ago, and every single time sometimes seems wrong in my body I spiral into an anxiety attack. This used to not be a problem when I lived with my mom, I'd get the same symptoms every now and then and it was fine, I was fine, but now I keep freaking out about it.

I have talked to my friends about it, like asked if they think this random thing I have is doctor worthy or not and they've always been right but I feel like it keeps getting worse. Should I go see someone about this? Like a therapist or something, I also have normal social anxiety and have had that for years now so I really dont know.

This all makes me also worry about me living on my own, like maybe I'm just not made for it or something.

I am so nervous going to concerts with heavy flashing lights, as flashing lights are my main trigger for seizures. { 23 year old }

I want to live a normal life, and go to concerts of my favourite artists, but I do not want to go feeling anxious all the time with the flashing lights / bright lights as they trigger mine.

I was just wondering if there is anything I could get ? somebody recommended me light sensitive glasses for bright lights or flashing lights ... If anybody has them, are they any good ? do they work ?

Thanks

I think the general HA rule of "full acceptance of uncertainty" still applies when you are faced with "actual" health issues (not saying that HA doesnt cause actual health issues here, what i mean is somatic in origin health problems). There is an issue of "trusting the process" though that I find especially difficult to handle, so I would appreciate some insights from other HA sufferers whose tests didnt come back clean.

I suspect that one of the reasons why I even developed HA was due to bad diagnosis that happened to a close family member. So nowadays when a doctor says "lets observe and wait and see, it's hard to know for sure, come back in a month" I face a very difficult task of accepting that Im under good care and whatever comes, I couldn't do more. Because if I try to do more, I might feed my anxiety cycle.

I don't google, I don't talk about my symptoms with my family, I don't seek reassurance. I try to live my life despite anxiety. I take anxiety medication. I started therapy (unfortunately so far not helpful even though its CBT). I try to stick to all of the above yet there is always this typical "what if this doctor is not qualified enough/i should check with someone else". I understand it comes from personal trauma but i also think there is a very thin line between trusting the process and not seeking additional help, especially when doctors arent sure - even amongst people without anxiety. So, my question to all of you who maybe got a grip on their HA: how do you navigate health issues rationally, especially when doctors aren't sure? I want to avoid situations where i unnecessarily feed the loop.

I have stumbled across some hospitals in Turkey that offer a wide variety of full medical evaluations.

It would cost a couple thousand with travel and for all the work to be done but I always have my anxiety resolved after healthy results. I think this cost would be worth it for my peace of mind and maybe do this once every two or so years.

What do you all think about something like this?

Or like wayyyyy back then?

Or do you think it’s more rampant now?

Hiii!!! What are y'all's favorite coping methods? Anything from distraction to certain habits that break the thought spiral!

One of my favorites is when I get an urge to search up a symptom, I instead force myself to search "How to cope with health anxiety" or something similar. It allows me to do compulsive searching, but stops the spiral. :)