r/HealthAnxiety

I am getting routine lab work because I am currently on PrEP/DoxyPEP. This will be at least every 3-6 months. I have to get a blood panel that includes an STI panel and other basic labs (CBC, liver panel, kidneys, etc). My heart starts racing when I see notifications of lab results in my email. How am I going to cope with anxiety? This is horrible. I spiraled from my last results, which were two weeks ago. Honestly, I would have been fine if I didn't get a false positive result for one test. But anything like that sets me off... How do you cope with this?

Problem: I noticed after eating banana twice a day, i have a hard poop that is kinda darker than some of my poop but some of my soft poops were normal in color, its just the hard part that is different.

Context: I ate banana twice a day cause i wanted to try something new, and it says it helps to have a good sleep. I have a terrible health anxiety. Please give me insights about this. I just started living alone, and i already am suffering with my health anxiety and panic attacks. I also take stresstabs (morning) and probiotics capsule (evening) I have a terrible health anxiety. Please give me insights about this.

Previous attempt: i havent done anything, i might stop eating banana.

Just now, my mom just told me to monitor my blood pressure every other day because she doesn't want it to read over 150 or any crazy numbers.

The thing is, I do check my blood pressure every other day. I already have been doing that. It's in normal range.

The only time my blood pressure was over 140 is at the doctor, I get SUPER nervous there. Doctor visits always spike my anxiety so high. A bad case of white coat. But at home, it's normal. Average is around 108/60.

My mom thought I had AFIB because my two uncles have it and I was having the same symptoms as them. I had a holter monitor for 7 days...lo and behold...no AFIB! It was clean. (Btw the symptoms I had were because of iron deficiency) But even after the results, she was still implying that I had AFIB which made me second guess. She was just kinda adamant about it.

I had an echo recently done and before the follow up, when we just had only the results, my mom thought that my left ventricle was shrinking and that was the cause of symptoms. She was basically diasogning me with an issue I don't have. At the follow up, the doctor says it turns my left venti was small because, 1, I had a small build, or 2, I was in tachycardia during the echo...(I was nervous during it). She wasn't concerned and said my heart was pumping beautifully and agreed that my symptoms are from my iron deficiency and even ordered an iron panel for me to take in the next 3 months.

After the follow up, Mom is still implying there is something wrong with my heart and wants to monitor me...thus taking blood pressure everyday.

(I will say, that on my dad's side, the men had heart issues. But they were chain smokers and didn't take care of their health. So it's most likely the heart issues started from the smoking. I am 21, female, and have absolutely no desire to smoke or even drink)

So I think that's where my mom's fear is stimming from. My dad's side, the men dying from heart issues. I also have health anxiety myself, but I think my mom does as well but in denial of it. She is starting to make me anxious.

She also gave me a tablet to write down my symptoms so she can monitor me. She keeps talking about monitoring me more and more.

Hello everyone,

there was a period of time in my past where for around 5 years, I desperately sought answers to why I was feeling anxious and depressed, thinking it must be due to a physical cause.

During this time I went to doctors for many different possible causes around 10 times a year. I did pay out of pocket (so much money wasted…). During this time I also had issues with behavioral addictions.

So, now that I’ve mostly gotten rid of the problematic doctor-visits and have began to find the real reasons for my issues (mental, pushing myself too much, insanely high standards, too much need for control, perfectionism, anxious and sensitive temperament, not eating enough, not resting enough), I feel a lot of shame and embarrassment over my past behavior. Especially feels embarrassing to meet with doctors now, due to the past ”insanity”.

What have your experiences been? How has current or past hypochondria/ health-anxiety affected you? How fo you deal with current or past health-anxiety?

Yeah I need to be stopped because I'm so terrified. Neck-Jaw-Back-Back of Arm. 3 Locations in which I felt issues with recently. I decided to Dr Google, and it tells me the worst case scenario. Now i'm thinking I need to go to the hospital because i'm about to die. Now I'm hyperfocused on my heart health more severely now. Watching Tiktok made it worse and watching other people's experiences. Let's discuss everyone's experience with Dr Google.

Hi! I'm in some deep need of advise.

Do you have any tips on how to deal with anxiety when there are actual symptoms that’s obviously not caused by the anxiety? I have a doctor's appointment in two weeks for a symptom I know isn’t caused by my anxiety. It’s something I can see with my eyes. Having to wait two weeks for a doctor to look at it is killing me, I'm so afraid the symptoms will get worse and kill me before I can get any help :(

How do you accept that just because something is off and maybe even slightly wrong with your body, that doesn’t mean it’s something seriou or that you will die?

I have been doing pretty good for a long time in regards to health anxiety. Each time a new thought would pop up, I could easily dismiss it and not engage with the ''what if'' questions. But it is slowly peeping its way back into my life again, and I find myself obsessing and checking my body every day.

We (me and my family) lost both our cats that we've had for 14 years this year. Our first one in january, the other one this april. We have been absolutely heartbroken and I still cry about it. At the moment I am really overwhelmed with exams as well. Can't help but think there must be a connection between these things.

Have you experienced something like this yourself, where stress in other areas of your life makes your HA worse?

Since being with my boyfriend (since July last year), my HA is worse because I think I have more to lose now! Like any negative health news would be so much worse because now I’m happier in every other sense. It’s stressful tbh. He’s great at reassuring me and helping me see the anxiety as a separate thing to physical symptoms.. he’s just too wonderful. Sorry if this sounds like bragging, I am so glad to have him and his support but it does cause me heartache sometimes.

I struggle with health anxiety and any “normal” body sensation or thing makes me draw the worst case scenario. So how do you differentiate if you should get checked out or if its just you making it up. Since i do this all the time and its always something different, and it cant be all of those things. My biggest fear is being disregarded because of my anxiety when it is not anxiety. So any tips?

Throughout my life I have been dealing with health anxiety. I have seen specialist after specialist chasing a diagnosis of some sort of incurable death sentence of a disease. Every time I try, I fail at getting a diagnosis. As it turns out there isn’t anything physically wrong with me. I have however been diagnosed by multiple mental healthcare specialists as some that has OCD, GAD and Depression. For years I ignored what I was truly diagnosed with so I could keep chasing the next scary thing.

I’m sharing this because I think a lot of people can relate. As scary as that sensation might be, that doesn’t make it true. It is probably the thing that you are diagnosed with, anxiety. Anxiety can scare us, make us feel like we are dying or going insane. But it cannot acutely kill us. It has many tricks up its sleeve, however we can become wiser and put it back in its place.

I know we all struggle with this mean son of a bitch but we can overcome it. I hope everyone is doing well. Having setbacks doesn’t mean any of us are failures. Yall are doing great.

Hello!

How do you cope with health anxiety?

And having some physical health issues. I'm just 41 and never expected to have some halth issues so early.

I developed a terrible habit of googling symptoms, illnesses. With doctors diagnoses it's sometimes drives me mad.

How to cope with it?

Are you this kind of hypochondriac who postpone tests, i.e. having bloodwork done, because you are fraught with fear of getting the results, or the other kind that can't wait having tests done because you feel that once you have the results you will feel better?

I have to repeat bloodwork in a month but I trully don't know how I am going to survive this month waiting for that.

I've been having bowel issues for the past month. I thought it was amitriptyline withdrawal but no longer believe that. Went into a health anxiety spiral. Seeing a dr this morning to ask for colonoscopy referral.

Also struggled with urinary symptoms since the start of the year which made me depressed and anxious. No physician has helped me with them yet.

Worst part is I have plans to go abroad this Friday and if I cancel, I'll lose tons of money. My friend is also fed up with me constantly changing my mind. But I don't think I can go out of fear of having bowel issues. I can't sleep and I was trembling out of fear last night.

I hate my life.

(32/f) How do you deal with your anxiety symptoms that lasts more than a month or even more months? Ive been to 2 doctors, got some tests done and they told im fine.I have a pretty common one that alot of people with anxiety and stress has. My muscles are dancing lol.. I had scares before but this one kinda messed me up in my head and im not the same as I was before the panick attacks because of this symptom. Is still going on ( so far it's been better in the last days) and I just cant deal with it. Drives me nuts and I cant stop thinking about all the worst case scenarios. 🥲🥲🥲🥲

I had a traumatic experience with prior acquaintances, and have been voluntarily undergoing Drug and STD Panels, since that prior time, many years ago, and during it, and my experience of health anxiety has increased in recent time, against my comfort, enjoyment, health, long-term goals and wants, in particular as I was forced into homelessness, several months in excess of two summer season's time ago, prior time. I do not have any STD's and I prefer not to, for lack of better phrasing.

What can I do to be normal again, for lack of better phrasing?

Mind you, that while I have been voluntarily undergoing Drug and STD Panels, many years time, I have not been sexually active, or used drugs or narcotics during that prior time, besides one instance of sexual activity that resulted in me being raped, against my comfort, enjoyment and want.

Those behaviors of mention are due to health anxiety and unwanted peer and social pressures, and not sexual repression or similar, rather due to fear, and valuing my health.

Please do provide constructive advices, at your earliest convenience.

Hey all, 24F. I have been dealing with health anxiety, mostly about my heart for about 1,5 years. The last few months i have been slowly doing better but now the last few days i feel like i am back at square one. I have been worrying so much, to the point of symptoms getting mimiced. I almost wanted to call the ER earlier but i slept it off and i am still alive so that reassures me. I have had a huge fight with my mother last week which turned physical, that was the first time it had ever turned physical. It was my birthday 2 days ago which was a huge disappointment to me, and had a huge fight with my fiancee, we are long distance. He even wanted to break up with me for a bit.

I can still go outside and not get anxiety so i am not completely back at square one, it is mostly when i am inside my home but it feels so devastating.. I do also have this intense fear of falling and passing out again

Is it normal to relapse AFTER stressful events have happened? I feel like all my progress was fake or for nothing and i will never get better..

Hey everybody, new post coming in with a renewed and unfortunately more intense bout of HA in regards to melanoma. First ever skin check + biopsy done yesterday after the initial spiral of noticing something funny looking, derm lopped off 4 moles total (one on ear, one on finger, two on back), and the experience was overall not my favorite. NP came in and felt rushed and dismissive, which was funny, because she had a student who seemed to be way more thorough with her analysis. Ear and finger spots were immediately flagged as suspicious and were the main concerns I had, and I had to argue with her to get the ones on the back too, since they were pretty new and I figured I may as well while I was here. Overall stressful and negative experience, and I may do my followups at a different provider going forward.

Walked out of the appointment feeling relatively okay, and I rode the high of pulling up my big boy pants and taking care of business. But then the dread of awaiting the results kicked in hard, arguably more than the initial HA I had. Went home and cried my eyes out for several minutes and that seemed to help quite a bit, but then when I went to bed I quickly woke up a few hours later with my heart pounding, a recurring trend the past couple days.

Office said they'll get the results back in 7-10 days, and the anticipation is driving me up the wall. Luckily no family history overall of melanoma, and moles are a hallmark feature of our family, but I can't help but spiral on Google/Reddit/other forums again, and the anxiety's made it difficult for me to eat, sleep, or try to do anything else without lurking at the forefront of my mind. It's been a week since the spiral started and I am so exhausted.

PCP appointment is still a month out and she's a new doctor for me, so all this flurry of stuff will be at her desk by the time of our visit, and I don't want this to overpower other concerns I want to have addressed.

Anyone every get anxiety about their tongue working correctly? It feels larger and like I’m speaking with marbles in my mouth. Occasional tingle but not much. For constant worry I’m saying things correctly and feeling my tongue.

Just wonder if anyone has gone thru that?

I'm a hot mess. Have some GI issues and it's still unknown what's going on, but I'm so incredibly anxious. I won't know much until next week. How do you all cope with the waiting? Sometimes I feel I'm doing ok then others I freak out again out of nowhere. I hate having health anxiety so much 😞.

Today my dr confirmed to me an issue I was seeing them about was actually not what I thought it was and I just don’t believe her!

When left the appointment i felt such relief and happiness but in the hours following the “she wasn’t looking properly, she’s obviously never seen this before and shes made a mistake”.

She’s a consultant in her field and sees this stuff all day long, why is my brain trying to convince me that she’s incompetent?

It’s so upsetting.