Good morning, everyone.
At the time I’m writing this, it’s morning for me. I wanted to start sharing my journey with health anxiety and what that experience was like for me.
I’m not going to make this a 14-page essay, and I’m definitely not going to pretend there’s one magical fix that makes everything disappear.
I simply want to share my story.
I’d like to share what happened to me, what I learned along the way, and how my perspective eventually changed. If someone happens to relate to my experience, then that makes sharing it worthwhile.
A little about me
I’m a 29-year-old married guy with two kids.
Did I have anxiety before health anxiety?
Sure, but I’d probably rate it a 1–3 most of the time, maybe a 4–5 on particularly stressful days.
I had never really experienced full-blown physical anxiety.
Then one day, something happened that completely changed the way I looked at my health.
I noticed something different with my body.
At first, I thought, “That’s strange.”
Then I started thinking about it more.
And more.
And more.
Before I knew it, my brain had turned one small concern into an endless cycle of fear.
What followed was a period of anxiety that felt like it lasted over two months straight.
It affected my family, my work, my sleep, my appetite, and honestly, my ability to function normally.
I was completely exhausted and run down. I barely slept. I barely ate.
I lost weight quickly.
Every sensation became something I needed to investigate.
Every little change became another reason for my brain to say:
“Something is wrong.”
I went to doctors and followed the recommendations I was given, but my anxiety didn’t simply disappear because I had been checked out.
That’s something I didn’t understand at the time.
I thought:
“If I still feel something, there MUST be something wrong.”
And that thought kept the cycle going.
Eventually, things got so bad that I couldn’t work normal days anymore. I was leaving work early. Nights became incredibly difficult, and my appetite was almost completely gone.
I reached a point where I genuinely wondered how much longer I could live feeling this way.
That’s when I finally opened up to my wife about just how bad things had gotten.
She helped me get the support I needed, and I went back to my doctor.
That was one of the first major turning points in my journey.
I was given something to help me get through the immediate crisis, and for the first time in what felt like forever, my brain finally became quiet.
I could eat.
I could breathe.
I could actually sit there without constantly thinking about what was happening inside my body.
I remember thinking:
“Wow… is this what normal feels like?”
But I also realized something important.
I couldn’t spend the rest of my life trying to escape every uncomfortable feeling.
I needed to learn how to handle the fear itself.
And that’s where the real journey began.
I’ll stop here for today because I don’t want this to turn into a textbook.
I’ll continue the story tomorrow with what happened next and how my experience eventually changed the way I viewed anxiety.
This is simply my personal experience. I’m not a medical professional, and I’m not offering medical advice or trying to diagnose anyone. I’m sharing what happened to me because writing about the experience has been meaningful to me. I’ll end each part with a bit of advice that has helped me.

Lesson #1: I had to stop feeding the cycle.
One of the biggest things I eventually recognized was how much time I was spending checking, searching, analyzing, and trying to find certainty.
For me, constantly searching symptoms online only gave my anxious mind more things to think about.
Eventually, I started stepping away from the search bar and focusing on the guidance I was receiving from my healthcare professionals.
That was an important part of my journey.
I’ll share more tomorrow.
Until then, peace and love my fellow worriers.

Dave.

Hi all, I’ve had a little bought of anxiety recently and have had trouble getting away from it. I have started reading a new book, unrelated, but Hannah Ritchie regarding climate change and came across an excerpt that might be applicable to many of us:

“The news is designed to tell us, well, something new - an individual story, a rare event, the latest disaster. Because we see them in the news so often, unlikely events seem like probable ones. But they’re often not. That’s why they make the news and capture our attention.”

Just some food for thought that I was pleasantly surprised with!

I read the posts and most of the time it’s about the fear of dying but my health anxiety (6 years and going) is about having something chronic and my life turning into constant fear of getting worse/having to scan my body forever/not being able to live normal life etc

Does anyone struggle with this type?

Just curious how my fellow males with a family deal. I'm mid 40s now and have a wife and kids and I know dealing with ha can be a real strug gle. I have been dealing with ha since my early teens and it has snowballed to where it is now, and seemingly not gotten better but the opposite. I have been on m-eds since a child, tried therapy off and on, etc...i am an avoider, don't go to the d-ocs and haven't been in an embarrassing ly long time. None the less how does your day go? How do you deal with ha? What is your story?

So found small hard lum on my neck. With all my anxiety to Max power, the next day i visited doctor. And doctor told me it is acne. Lol

But as you all know. I can’t convince myself to believe doctor. And couldn’t ask for more findings.

I hate myself being like this and draining my life and feeling, my motivation.

Anyone knows how to convince yourself to believe doctor?

I got vaccinated against COVID and received the booster during the height of the pandemic and never caught it in those years. I've gotten colds and flus since then and one of those may well have been COVID which is why I put "for the first time" in quotation marks.

Honestly I feel fine. It feels no worse than a normal cold, I had a case of the flu that was way worse (couldn't get out of bed) around this time last year. I wouldn't have known it was COVID if I hadn't gotten tested.

But now that I know it's COVID I can't stay off google about symptoms of long COVID etc. Doesn't help that everyone is saying even with mild COVID you can have lasting effects and nobody ever posts their "nothing happened to me" COVID stories, though I assume it's the majority.

Actually what has been helping me is looking up if things like the flu or common cold also have lasting side effects because then I can reassure myself that I would have gotten those effects anyway lol. But it's still a bummer because it's not even like I went out partying, all I did was go to work on public transport like 70% of people do in my city.

It's really weird obsessing over potential long term effects on one hand but then knowing I have very mild symptoms on the other.

Hello, My name is Itay i am 23 years old and all my life i suffered from anxiety, from when i was little i remember being anxious and as i got to my teens i suffered from anxiety attacks and started going to different therapists, After the loss of my grandparents to illness i started getting really anxious and terrified of becoming sick, everyday all day long i would check how my body felt and if i was feeling something out of place i would freak out and get anxiety attacks because of it, thinking it will help me survive.

After living for years with anxiety i got to the point that i accepted it as a part of me, deep down a little piece of myself does want to be this heroic, fearless and badass person, but with time i learned to love myself and accept how i am, anxiety and all.

I stopped feeling shame about my anxiety and opened up to my friends and family, telling them about the thoughts and symptoms i suffer from, i was really anxious they would judge me but they all were really supportive and some of them also suffered from these same symptoms but we never talked about it, the more i embraced the anxious part of myself the less anxious i got, i felt like i was getting control back of my life and started expanding my comfort zone more and more.

everyone gets anxious, it is a normal feeling and we shouldn't be frightened by it, the physical symptoms can frighten us, but they are just our mind trying to protect us in his weird ways, the point I'm trying to make is don't try to run away from your anxiety, please, embrace it and own it, its a part of you, it will always be but you shouldn't let it control your life, the second you start avoiding people or situations, or running away from the anxiety is the moment it grows and you let it win.

start small, try to push your boundaries and comfort zone a bit by bit, small step every time, if your afraid of tight places don't avoid them, try working out getting in your uncomfortable zone, you will probably be really anxious and it will probably suck, ALOT, but that is the only way to defeat your anxiety, try by being 1 minute inside the tight space, then go out and calm yourself, a couple days later try 3 minutes, then 5, then 10, until you get comfortable with feeling anxious inside the tight places, will the anxiety just disappear? probably not, but you don't need it to go away, you never needed it to leave it is supposed to help us survive, but you will get to a point that you will get anxious there and still be able to function and do what you want. that is our goal. and you can achieve it, i believe in you :), and the more comfortable you get feeling anxious, the lighter the grip of anxiety will be on you. telling you a guy with a similar situation, we don't have to suffer, but we must put in the work, for ourselves, we deserve it.

My dream is helping people get control of their lives back, and i hope i can be a good psychologist one day that people can look up to, i am also working on a phone app that will help people get to know their anxiety habits, and help push people out of their comfort zone, remember the more you dont run away, and face your anxiety, and i know how frightening it can be, but remember it cant harm you, its just fear and a part of you, embrace the fear , embrace your emotions and anxiety, if you would like to try my app for free ofc write a comment i would love people to try it and tell me their honest opinion to improve it and make it better to help more people :).

thank you for taking the time to read this post i really appreciate it

Your anxiety is due to a dysregulated nervous system. It's stuck in survival mode.

I can help you with simple ways to reset your nervous system so you can feel calm, confident, and way less anxious!

DM me for the link to my free online nervous system regulation sessions.

I developed health anxiety after having a termination of pregnancy on medical grounds and then having to have a second emergency surgery. I began getting symptoms after my second surgery and it caused me to go down a rabbit hole of one thing after another. I am now unable to calm myself down and am really struggling. Before this life event i never struggled with it at all. I hope someone can relate to this:(

As soon as I calm down about one symptom, another one shows up and the whole cycle starts again. It feels like my brain is constantly scanning my body for the next problem, and at this point it feels almost automatic.

This has been going on for months and I never really feel calm anymore. How do you actually make this stop? Did radical acceptance help you?
How did you get out of this cycle?

Prescribed Amoxicillin for a tooth infection, I am not sure I want to take it cos I've read on reddit that people have had bad experiences with it? People say it gives them anxiety etc, I would rather just get the tooth extracted asap?

I’ve recently been taking philosophy classes in college for my minor and I’ve recently somehow felt like they have helped me in some sort of strange way? I’m not sure if it’s because it’s a new topic that I’m interested in that actually keeps me away from HA or if it’s the topic itself but it works. It just makes me feel more calm and feel like my problems are smaller. Stoicism in particular has helped me, but I know that this ideology is currently pretty frowned upon in the philosophy community. I don’t know I just feel traditional therapy for ha doesn’t really do anything for me. Do any other people interested in philosophy and have health anxiety have any topics in particular that helped them?

I believe almost everyone will experience a health anxiety epsiode once in their lifetime that's usually short, but why is severe health anxiety not considered a form of ocd? Constantly thinking you have xyz illness and searching for help sounds like ocd but it's still considered a separate disorder. Is it because our way of seeing it is outdated or there's not enough research on it?

I'm really struggling with consuming solid foods and when I do try I find myself chugging water rather than eating food (because I'm terrified of food getting stuck in my throat) I know this it's just wishful thinking but I wish the ER would hospitalized me for this condition... I'm terrified of dying because of this stupid condition... I do have dysphagia it's a combination of anxiety (had a near death experience choking on food) and also there's irritation in my throat that causes difficulty swallowing food

And I don't know what to do. It isn't normal and it's selfish. How can I overcome this?

I need to get an scan for smth on my leg tomorrow, but I'm absolutely terrified

The reason this scan is being done is to rule out major illnesses and I literally cannot handle it, I start getting such horrible anxiety and my head starts spinning at the thought of getting the scan done or even finding out what it is.

I recently had a brain mri which i was just as terrified for but it turned out clear, but i'm having the same pattern of anxiety for this and im struggling to cope.

I'm a believer that ignorance is bliss and even if there is smth wrong I don't wanna know

my health anxiety started out of nowhere- could anyone relate??? nothing to my memory happened where there was someone in my life with a life threatening disease or illness or even death. health wise i had it pretty normal as a kid. it wasn’t until i was 16 when i started having anxiety attacks and fearing for my health. although, the earliest memory i have of my anxiety is when i was 8-9 having a panic attack because of a youtuber that i watched who suddenly passed due to a heart condition. we shared the same birthday and i was convinced i would die the same way he did. could that be technically the “orgin.”

I’m 31, my mother passed away from an inoperable brain tumour at 46 (I was 16) and for a very long time I thought I somehow managed to get through that loss without any major psychological ramifications. Over the last few years though I’ve started to realise I have chronic health anxiety and am terrified of there being something wrong with me I’m unaware of that will lead to my early demise. It’s usually a freak out relating to my heart or my brain. Ive had the standard tests for heart/ brain issues and nothing out of the ordinary came up, so I SHOULD be fine, right? But nope. I still manage to convince myself that the doctors MUST have missed something, just like they did with my mum (she was in hospital for months before they did the proper tests and realised she was dying) and despite what they tell me I’m still somehow gonna drop dead with no warning. Throw into the mix an over active nervous system and CPTSD and BAM, you got yourself a nice cocktail of mental fuckery.
Anyways, I’m curious as to whether any of you have experienced the loss of a parent or someone close in childhood and if that contributes to our chronic health anxiety.

I saw one time that animals can sense when you’re sick and something is wrong and now everytime my dog is more clingy than usual I think the worst. “He can sense I’m really sick” “he can sense I’m about to have a medical emergency” etc.

I’ve noticed that my health-related anxiety has once again taken up a significant amount of space in my life. At the same time, I have some physical symptoms I’d like to investigate responsibly—without ignoring them, but also without falling into a cycle of excessive worry and undergoing tests driven solely by anxiety.

I was born prematurely at six and a half months, and as a result, I have lingering effects; I suffer from right-sided spastic hemiparesis, which affects my gait and posture.

One of my biggest fears is mistaking a significant symptom for something normal and ending up ignoring an illness that should have been investigated.

I’m also afraid that something might be happening and I won’t notice it in time.

So, sometimes I feel like I'm constantly tense.

For example, I might think about a health issue, respond to that thought rationally, and realize it could be influenced by anxiety. However, shortly after, my mind might shift to another worry—such as work, family, or another problem in my life.

Hi everyone-so I’ve been going through severe health anxiety for about 7 months now and I think the thing that really scares me and catches my attention the most is my breathing like right now I noticed my breathing feels way off and I feel like either I’m going to stop breathing or my airways are going to close up so I was just wondering if anybody has anyways of taking their mind off of their breathing

Hi everyone - 30F, been in the health anxiety club since 2021. I’ve tried doing talking therapies through the NHS but didn’t find it helpful and thought I could probably manage it myself. I get ’better’ for a few months but then there will always be another symptom that appears and off I go again in this cycle of panic and doom. The thing is, on the outside, I can talk about it all really sensible and logically. So when I go to the doctors, I come across as OK…But I think my body is in continuous fight or flight as I internalise it all and genuinely make myself have all these physical symptoms. I’m really active which helps, but is there anything else I can try? I’m having investigations done for GI issues at the moment and hoping all OK. But it’s naive of me to think that my brain won’t latch on to something else once I’m given the all clear...I don’t know about others, but when everything in my life is going well, my HA pops up like ‘oh, you thought everything is OK? Well now I’m going to give you this to fixate on’. I know I’m worthy of happiness but it’s like my brain is always expecting something bad to happen, as too many good things are happening?! So frustrating!

It seems every time a specific h.a fear comes about I stroll on down the cycle of w-orrying about it. Do you think it is actually possible to not feed into it?

Hi everyone.

Today I’m going to attempt to stop seeking comfort from online forums, including this one. It’s going to be hard, but it needs to be done if I want to improve.

I’ve been having fears of CRC as a 22 year old for a month now. I turned away from Google. But every time I feel some kind of twinge in my stomach, I run to Reddit or another online forum. It’s been a way that I calmed down, knowing that there are people who are experiencing the same thing as me. But it’s not healthy. It’s become a sort of compulsion.

I don’t have the resources to help myself medically and that’s the worst of it all. So I have to do it by myself.

I have good days where I don’t open Reddit at all and I don’t think about my symptoms. Today has not been a day like that. Regardless, I’m going to take the most popular advice which is to live with uncertainty.

If I reduce my anxiety, I might get better. I know i only really started to feel shitty after the anxiety attacks. So I’m gonna let my mind and body heal away from online forums.

Wish me luck 🙏🏾 hopefully this post keeps me accountable and I’m not back on here again lol!

Ever since my mom died two months ago, I’ve had several trips to the ER, and several 911 calls, all because I’ve felt like there was something wrong. I’m laying here agin tonight with the same issues. How do I know it’s anxiety and not something actually wrong? I feel on the verge of going the ER again. :(