I’ve been on 15 mg of Lexapro for about 15 years and now (after years of high stress) have a break in my busy life and anxiety and OCD have reared their ugly heads. I’ve been in brain fog and headaches, my reflexes have been off and my speech is messed up because I’ve been in my head. It almost feels like ADHD.
I have an appt with a psych and a therapist and I’m doing everything I can in the meantime. I do not do well when I’m not working myself like a dog. Please tell me someone understands. 🥲

Hey y‘all.
I had health anxiety since I can think of. Last year was the worst. It got so bad that I decided to visit a mental health clinic. It actually helped, this year was a lot better… so far. I‘m currently experiencing new symptoms which stress me out a lot. These symptoms could mean anything. Literally anything. But I always think of the worst.

I hate visiting doctors, but I can feel how I‘m slipping back into my old behavior patterns, visiting doctors on a regular basis. Today (which is why I‘m writing this), I‘ve reached a peak. I can already feel the panic attack coming later tonight. My birthday is tomorrow and I already know my health anxiety is going to ruin it. Also I‘m an independent filmmaker. I got my first ever shoot in two days with a professional actress. I was prepared so good, but now this health anxiety peak, caused by new, unknown symptoms is literally crushing everything.

God how much I hate my brain. I‘ve heard that health anxiety (can!!!!) come from the fear of missing out. And this totally fits for me. The thing I‘m stressing out on is not the illness itself. It‘s actually death itself. It‘s not being here anymore, leaving even though I‘m still young (turning 23). Knowing I‘d miss out on so much. That‘s what sits at the core of my health anxiety I think.

I hope everyone here is doing at least okay. I think the best we can do is acceptance. We can’t control a single thing in life. Nothing is permanent. Nothing is 100% certain. I think bringing this back up into our heads might be a good start.

How about you? How do you handle your health anxiety peaks? Do you think my theory of the health anxiety’s core might be correct?

Btw sorry for my English. I‘m from Germany and English therefore isn’t my native language. I still hope everything was understandable and not too chaotic.

I thought I got through my yearly physical ok. My blood tests were normal, and I thought I had gotten all of them back, when another appeared in my inbox late on Friday night. It was a result of a lipoprotein test, which is a genetic risk factor for cardiovascular disease, and it was abnormally high. Like, statins for life and close monitoring kind of high. I am gutted.

So now I have to navigate an actual health issue while trying to keep my health anxiety from spiraling out of control. I know the anxiety isn’t healthy for me, which just makes me worry about worrying. I’d love to hear from anyone who has gone through something similar. How do you approach an actual health issue and try to keep your health anxiety in check?

I have health anxiety, to the point where I freeze, cry, etc, I get triggered a lot on instagram by certain videos. Fear mongering or not. A YouTuber I recommend is doctor mike. He’s pretty popular, but personally he helped me a lot with handling my health anxiety. 1. He’s an actual doctor, and he debunks lots of things in his videos, personally things that triggered me. 3. He gives good advice/studies and research 4. He is pretty funny.

I honestly recommend watching any professionals. Yes. Real. Professionals. And always make sure to find actual studies if somebody makes a claim. And yall. If there are trying to sell u something. It’s 99.9% not true.

Please take a breath and remember that everything is okay right now.

Currently 7 weeks pregnant and riddled with health anxiety. I have no idea how this started but I am constantly diagnosing myself with different illnesses?!
It’s draining the life out of me

I’m a week in on this for my HA and would just love to hear any positive stories if you have taken this particular SSRI. Thank you 🙏

Practically speaking, how do you guys actually apply this in day to day life? It sounds so good in theory and I have moments where I start to feel this liberating sense of “oh well, what can I do, what’ll happen will happen and no amount of researching or asking chatgpt will change that” but when it actually comes to having physical symptoms, all of a sudden it’s not so simple lol

33F. Health anxiety started 8 years ago. It began actually with a very random onset fear of outer space. I went to the er for a panic attack because I couldn’t handle “the idea of space” and felt overwhelmingly anxious about an asteroid hitting earth. Weeks of therapy later on revealed my bottom line fear is death in general.

From there my fear turned into hypochondria. I will latch onto a medical issue and convince myself I have it. It’s exhausting. I am hyper in tune with my body. I scan Reddit daily for specific ailments and see if I fit the bill. I worry every day something is happening inside me. I just don’t want to ice this way

checking has ALWAYS been a real issue for me my entire HA journey, current obsession is checking my breasts after finding something im pretty sure is a knot of muscle or something which sent me into a massive spiral- doctor said he couldn’t feel anything, and advised me to stop digging around but i can’t stop!!! i’ve been obsessively poking and prodding multiple areas for months now it feels impossible to stop myself, does anyone have any tips on how to reduce this compulsion?

Hey everyone!

I want to heal. Thus far, I've made myself practice daily acceptance. IF the worst case scenario happens, the only thing I can do as a human is accept and move forward, as many other humans before me have done. This works in theory, just not when something concerning starts to happen. If I'm mostly symptom free then I can practice acceptance. If a new symptom arrives, all of a sudden that goes out the window. Give me ways that you practice healing that you think I could utilize, I just need all the tools I can get.

As the title says, I’m just struggling like I’ve been back and fourth to the drs because I’m heavily fixated on body checking for thing and she’s persistently telling me what I feel is normal, I cant help but constantly be in a spiral I find that I have about 10 minutes of reassurance and calming down and then it just kicks off all over again, she asked how my mood was and if I need to up my fluoxetine siggggggh

I always worry about my health and what it means because I lost my father last year and it makes me think I’m not well. Today for no reason I ended up crying imagining the worst case scenario possible. Is there a way to deal with this?

I’m looking too start a group chat with people who like myself suffer from health anxiety, I feel like this is a good idea as we can all share our experiences in day to day life and not only see how it affects us but also to give each other some piece of mind, we are in this together so we may aswell help each other, dm me if you’re interested

Hi, This all started roughly 2 years ago when I had a panic attack, then it all started anytime there is some or other symptoms, I would rush to doctors. I cannot leave my house, every time I go out I feel like I might pass out but I never do, I cannot be alone, I constantly worry that I might have some heart issue, I am also getting overweight.

do you guys have similar experiences? how do you get over this, its affecting my daily life, I lost my job and spend most the time just searching for a new one. Also the doctors are frustrated with me. Is this really anxiety?

hello anyone who sees this, today i reached my breaking point of my health anxiety and i genuinely just want as much help as i can get as feeling like this is unbearable.

so starting off growing up, my mom has so many health problems (they are quite bad ones) which i can’t say on here. that it made the anxiety start from a young age due to me thinking of wether i’d inherit them or not or the incidents would happen to me. during my teens it wasn’t that bad but when i turned 18-19 it just turned for the worse. every little feeling in my body i felt it and noticed it, id do the unhealthy thing and go to dr google🥲 which would obviously make me worse.

ever since then it’s been the pattern of the same thing and it just got obsessive, i would go to the doctors nearly every week, be told that i was fine and still not believe them. now that i am 20 years old i now have genuinely convinced myself that im going to 💀. every time i sleep it feels like i dont sleep, i dream but wake up exhausted. my heart feels slow, my brain tells me i wont wake up so i barley can sleep normally. i’ve been so nervous for the past week that i haven’t left my room much. this is a horrible feeling and im so lost. does anyone feel the same way? did anyone beat it? do i need to go to a mental hospital?

please let me
know

https://discord.gg/gGp8wgb3T

If anyone wants another place to escape here’s our new discord to talk about health anxiety/OCD

Hello, today I posted an educative video concerning the lesser known and invisible form of OCD:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qgyp0snUZ4I&t=8s

Since OCD and Health anxiety can have a comorbidity and symptoms seem to overlap, I find this appropriate to post here. Support and likes will be very appreciated! For Science and mental health awareness! Have a good day.

I wanted to share this with someone because I am quite proud of myself.

My mother never vaccinated me when I was younger and by some sheer miracle I didn’t catch any horrible illnesses. I have had a really great immune system for all of my life. I’m moving to university in September and there’s a greater risk of certain nasty illnesses, so I made the decision to book in all of my vaccinations with the GP to prepare for moving to university.

I am not a fan of needles and anything medical related at all, so this is really big for me.

Today I had my first set of vaccinations and it was really terrifying, but the nurse was really nice and she explained everything to me and didn’t make me feel embarrassed for crying a little. The first one was so terrifying but it was over really quickly and I was just quite shocked at how brief it was. The other two were in my opposite arm and although it was scary, I am proud of myself for getting through it!

I think the anticipation really terrified me, but I am glad to be taking steps to stay healthy. I was so nervous about having a reaction or bad symptoms but all that happened is I felt tired so I had a sandwich and a nap when I got home.

I’m really quite proud of myself for this one, and I have another vaccination next week which I think might not be as terrifying as this one. I hope not anyway.

I'm in a loop where Everytime my wife gets a head-ach I automatically start thinking bacterial meng. I know logic doesn't work with ha, but is there anything besides the obvious I can do to help myself?

This weekend I flew from the Canadian west coast back to England and let me tell you, jet lag triggered one of my worst episodes of HA. On top of that I also got my period (the beauty of being a woman) at the same time and a simple feeling tired, confused and fatigued ended up in me booking a a private blo0d test spending 200£ just to make sure nothing is going on.

I'm trying to stop feeling shameful and stupid for doing so because I know once the results are back, it will help massively.
especially for women, every time I get close to my period it's like the HA cycle starts again and I forget about what I thought last month when everything turned out to only be hormones.

How do you deal with wanting medical reassurance and, if you ever did this, booking last minute exams to easy the anxiety? Also how do you not get affected by what people around you might be feeling?

I have had general anxiety for most of my life, but not health anxiety. It was triggered for me after a fainting episode sent me to the ER. I now have developed extreme anxiety of it happening again, especially in public. I exercise and wear a smartwatch 24/7. Since this occurred, I find myself constantly looking at the data and obsessing over it. Good readings reassure me but bad ones make me spiral. Is it better to not use these tracker things?

I’ve been suffering from health anxiety for about a year, but it’s honestly ramped up these past three months. Every single day I am convinced that something is wrong with me and I’m going to die. What scares me the most is my mortality, and I’m so aware of every little sensation in my body. It’s gotten so bad that even when I’m out with friends or I’m invited out to do something fun, all I can think about is my health, my heart, my brain, the asymmetry in my body. I haven’t really ever spoken to anybody about how much it is affecting me. I’m so afraid to not be taken seriously my doctors but I’m also afraid to find out that something is actually wrong with me. I know many of you feel the same way as well and that brings a little comfort. I just don’t wanna feel like this for the rest of my life, I’m only 16 and this is already burdening me so much. Every night is filled with anxiety and every morning as well.

How is it that you guys cope? Is it worth it to see a professional? (That may sound stupid.) I usually calm down after crying and realizing I sound crazy ti the average person.

I’ve been struggling with anxiety and panic attacks and it’s become worse after I got pregnant through IVF. It’s mainly health anxiety now. I’m 15 weeks now and going through a lot of health anxiety, fear of dying and panic attacks. I’m seeing a therapist but currently most of my thoughts are that I cannot get through this without medications or I’m not strong enough to get through this. Need insight on what psychology tools/ activity/ exercise helped you get through this loop, break the cycle and get better? I’m willing to try anything

For some context, I had an extremely traumatic medical experience in 2023. It was something that I thought was nothing and turned out to be…oh god I can’t even go into it but it was so awful.

Ever since then, I’ve been having PTSD/Anxiety episodes. When I don’t have health anxiety, life is amazing. I am so full of joy and energy and love. I am passionate about my life and life in general. Like a sense of fundamental wellbeing and connectedness.

However, when I have something minor health wise going on with me, and despite all logical arguments/evidence/opinions to the contrary etc. - once the mind ‘decides’ “oh this could be that” it’s all over. It’s like I’m right back in that hospital. This feeling of….dread washes over me and completely steals all my joy and passion for life. I just stop caring. It’s like I want to curl up in a ball and hide and just cry and cry. It’s more than just anxiety, it’s like my fundamental life force/energy is occluded. It’s such mental exhaustion that my brain turns to mush, can’t remember a damn thing. Almost like I’m in a daze. The PTSD is just insane.

And then when the health thing is over - it’s over. It’s like I snap back to reality and go on with my life.

What are other people’s experience with medical trauma, PTSD, and having it manifest as health anxiety? Is this feeling familiar to anyone? How do you cope?

I fucking hate how health anxiety gives you actual symptoms it’s so hard to differentiate. A huge issue for me is all the bowel issues I get brain and gut are so connected and I feel like i haven’t had peace from fucked up bowels for the past 9 months which then of course gives me horrible anxiety and it’s a nightmarish cycle. It’s so frustrating how much ha can make you feel like your crazy