Crippling health anxiety

Can someone help me tonight? I've been sliding the past few weeks into such a dark place - this time, not for the first time, strongly accompanied by unbearable anxiety about my health.

I got the usual report from the doctor after an exam and some tests: 'You're healthy as a horse.' But I feel so unwell, and my gut - the devil in my gut - keeps telling me it's not stress-related but is a real, physiological, hard-to-diagnose, devastating and probably terminal illness.

My head tells me all the right, soothing, reasonable things, but I'm unable to hold onto those things because I'm in the middle of being tormented by the anxiety. The anxiety is stronger than my reason at the moment.

Can anyone relate? Can anyone help? Even a kind word would go a long way tonight. I'm afraid to go to sleep.

I'm sorry, I've never felt that anxiety--it sounds horrible. Seems like your reason is with you, just, as you said, overwhelmed by the anxiety. Most of my tricks for feeling better deal with rationalization, so they are out. Won't work for you right now. You might try just breathing in and out, listening to your breathing, trying not to think of anything, but just listen to your breathing. You can do that. Just breathe in and out. That may relax you and help you feel better.

Or you could go in a chat group and talk to some people online. or go to the arcade and occupy yourself with some mindless games to pass the time while you are anxious.

My best to you--remember, we're here and pulling for you to get through your dark night.

Thank you, online. The advice to breathe is good. Breathing is good. It's a crazy world where we have to be reminded to do it!

It helped a little just to write my initial cry in the dark, too. I'm grateful you heard it. Thanks -

I can certainly relate to this, I was recommended to seek help from mental health professionals in the emergency room, I told my friend and he also recommended it. It didn't feel like anything was wrong upstairs, but I guess all my emotional pain was being internalized into my body and it hurt really bad. I couldn't wear a seat belt, I couldn't wear pants, I couldn't relax at all. I was being hurt by excruciating nerve pain in my abdominal external oblique muscles and plagued by indigestion and heart burn. Lately its been my blood pressure, hyper tension, I know they are stress related but I'm also worried about my health frequently. It doesn't help that they actually do find stuff wrong with me, then give me a very vague diagnosis. Besides having the doctors say I am fine, it also helps to do the deep breathing exercises and watch guided meditation videos on you tube.

Oh yes, I can so relate to this.

I had MASSIVE anxiety issues between 1998-2006, I couldn't even walk past a hospital or doctors surgery without being overcome with fear. I was rushed to hospital twice with suspected heart attack only to be told my heart was fine, once I even went into shock.

In the end I stopped running from it and actually faced it. Everytime it crept up on me I just turned and faced it and said, OK, give me a heart attack, I don;t give a ****. It worked after about a year of doing that, amazingly!

I didn't let it get me up from where I was and just let the adrenaline run free around my body and I get thinking to myself "do what you like, I know your wrong, kill me if you want" and it worked!

Good luck

I developed BFS (or so I think) last fall and suffered all sorts of crazy symptoms that had me fearful of ALS or MS among other things. I had dysphagia (trouble swallowing), muscle twitches all over, tremors, fatigue, numbness in half my face and tongue, RLS, aching, numbness, cramping and pain in my arms and legs... I could go on. At every turn a new symptom popped up. And the lack of sleep was the most debilitating. I called the crisis hotline twice because I simply had no answers and there was no one to talk to who could understand and ease my mind. I think a stressful time I had a few months earlier must have set off an autoimmune dysfunction and hormones and neurotransmitters in my body went haywire. It even led to the first panic attack of my life in which I admitted myself to the ER. I still don't have a diagnosis, but I am pretty much over thinking I have a sinister disease. I still twitch but am 90% better than where I was back in the winter. Each case of health anxiety is different but the only thing that helped me was time and getting back to doing things that took my mind off what I was feeling, like exercise. Just know that we can have health anxiety when there is a more serious health issue and sometimes when there isn't. But the anxiety can kind of feed off how we feel physically and make things seem bigger than they really are. And the anxiety causes other chemicals like adrenaline and cortisol to be released in our bloodstream which cause their own crazy symptoms. The natural response in our mind is to become hypervigilant and highly sensitive to any signs of danger (symptoms of illness in this case). Believe me, I know how hard this vicious cycle can be to overcome. But again, find whatever means you can to take your mind off things. Exercise, meditation, yoga, massage, calming herbs, projects around the home, etc... Benzos or anti anxiety meds can help in the short term.

Thank you all so much! Having your support and reading your stories has been very helpful.

I had a rough few days (by rough I mean horrible and life-destroying) but I'm starting to feel lighter tonight. I went to two GPs for checkups, which was not very helpful. I also saw my therapist, who was a great help, as always.

I'm really grateful to you all for your concern and for sharing your experiences and coping strategies. It's helping me climb down from that horrible place.

Thank you!

Hello So Hopefull, Anxiety is crippling as you know all too well. I am so glad to hear that you are felling better. Was it the therapist that made you feel better? Take care of yourself. Best wishes.

Thanks, Pierro. Maybe I spoke too soon. I'm still in the grip of the anxiety, but felt the first glimmer of lightening last night and somewhat today. I do feel ill, as though with the flu? (flu tests negative), so I rested in bed all day and treated myself as though I had a cold.

Unfortunately my mind isn't doing what it used to do. Instead of saying "Maybe I have a cold", it's saying "It doesn't feel like a cold. Maybe I have cancer, gangrene, [fill in the blank]." If it's deadly, I've imagined - fully imagined and terrorized myself - that that's what I have. The fact that the doctors don't find anything but also don't test for the wilder things I ask them to test for is hard to deal with. Then I fear I'm being brushed off as a hysteric and that what might be a serious ailment is not being taken seriously.

I feel well adjusted enough to recognize that I'm in an anxiety spiral, and also that the above thoughts are obviously a vicious cycle. But I'm still suffering from fear and panic - and then all the physical symptoms that causes. It's hard to loosen the chokehold of anxiety once it's started.

Still, it is lighter than the day I first wrote. The sweaty panic and morbidity alternates with moments of calm. Yes, seeing my therapist was a huge help. I always benefit from his great caring and wisdom. When I'm feeling this bad, though, I can find it hard to carry those feelings much beyond the session. I'm so relieved when I'm in his presence, and feel light, peaceful and reasonable for some hours afterwards, but the next day can find myself feeling lost again. I try to find things to do and think between sessions to keep my courage, but in bad times am not good at it.

This time my therapist gave me something to read at home, which helped extend the peaceful, connected feeling of the session. The reading itself was also very tender and insightful, so that helped too.

It also helps a great deal that you and others responded to my message. Sympathetic listening is an amazing balm. And hearing about similar experiences helps keep my focus on the anxiety, which I can do something about, rather than on potential illnesses and the scrabble for diagnosis that feels out of my control.

Other things that are helping a bit are reading about health anxiety (reading about my real or perceived bodily symptoms does not help); meditating (especially guided meditations, since my mind is too anxious in a crisis period to guide itself. This obviously helps others who replied - thank you all for reminding me to do this); being out among people (though today it rained all day); and watching goofy sitcoms on my laptop. I even caught myself laughing...

I feel that my reason for depression is health anxiety. I had some health scares in the past and I feel like I have never got over them. I have some check ups coming up so I'm always thinking the worst. If the appointment have not come yet, I feel like I'm very sure that I got bad news. It's like I can hear the doctor very loud and clear that it's bad news. It drives me nuts.

Will, I'm so sorry to hear about your health anxiety. I'd had little twinges of it in the past, but nothing like I've been experiencing lately. It's a shock how painful and paralyzing it is - I'm really sorry you go through that.

One thing I read recently that's been helping is that managing health anxiety is not about finding the diagnosis of the health trouble you feel certain you're having, but about reducing the anxiety. For some reason that really touched me. It made me feel like I might be capable of doing that; it made the issue about anxiety (manageable) rather than about dying (ultimately not manageable). When I don't feel well but I'm not experiencing such anxiety, I just take normal, sane steps towards finding out what's wrong and getting myself better. What makes those moments different from this moment is not necessarily that I'm more sick, but that I'm more anxious.

It's helping to talk about it too. I hope it helps you.

It sounds like you need some serious help with anxiety that strong. Maybe you should visit a psychologist or someone that you can talk to about your fears and anxiety, try to get it all off of your chest and open up to someone.

I also find that meditation greatly helps with anxiety. There are a lot of free guides out there about meditating to specifically treat anxiety and it can really help people. Just have a search on the internet and try meditating everyday for at least 3 weeks, hopefully you should notice your anxiety alleviating and if you continue it will hopefully go away.

I hope this helps, cheers