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Hi all! I don't know where to start or what is going on. I was diagnosed with health anxiety at the ripe age of 14 after winding up in the hospital with a heart rate of 220. I am a 22 year old female, relatively healthy. I have some heart issues that the doctors are trying to sort out, and they can't decide if it is anxiety or an actual irregularity within my heart. Currently wearing a Holler monitor and am hoping for the best. I lost my job about 2 months ago, and I have been sitting around the house all day. I am very tired all of the time, my muscles in my back are killing me and of course the feeling of something being stuck in my throat almost 24/7. My neck and back hurt so bad to the point where most days I don't want to do anything, and am starting to get depressed now as well. I get almost constant headaches due to the constant anxiety that I will die from my heart. My boyfriend has been trying to help me out here, but it doesn't seem to be working. I fear to get out of the house and walk, because I am scared my heart will beat too fast and wind me up in the hospital again. I have two kids who I am terrified to leave behind and just want to go back to my normal self. I've been getting a weird sensation of being dizzy, but I am not dizzy. I am just spacy and out of touch with the things going on around me. The exhaustion is getting to me too. I don't know where to start to go about this. I am scared that if it is anxiety related they will look passed heart issues and rule it anxiety, and if I claim they might be associated with my heart, they will over look my anxiety. I feel like I'm on a slippery slope that I cannot get out of, and just living my mundane life day by day doing the same things over and over again.

Hey everyone, I’m new to the forum but not new to anxiety. Unfortunately, my anxiety started a year ago when I started my new job as an EMT. It began with me having random panic attacks while driving to or from work, and almost a year later, has evolved into something that is literally destroying my life. At this point, I believe I’m a borderline hypochondriac. I’m pretty sure my doctor thinks that as well, with the amount of times I’ve called over over the last few months. It all went down hill after I had my first physical in about 6-8 years (I’m a 23 year old female). Got blood work taken, physical, whole 9 yards to establish patient baseline. Everything apparently looks great, besides a wonky blood test that has been improving over the last few weeks. (wbc was a little elevated, it has since went down closer to normal range) The problem is, over the last few weeks since my physical I’ve pretty much convinced myself that I have every type of cancer under the sun, despite my doctors and the ER physician (yes emergency room, I’ve visited there twice in one week thinking I had Leukemia) telling me everything looks okay and not to worry. I’ve been googling hard core, that’s also a mistake I made. I’m an utter mess. This anxiety has been causing me so much stress to the point where I’m not sleeping or eating right. My doc prescribed me buspar, which is helping a tiny bit but not much. I was just prescribed Prozac today, and after taking my first pill had a really bad reaction to it mentally. It basically felt like impending doom, and I’ve been crying pretty bad. I don’t know what else to do. I have an emergency appointment with my doctor in a few days where I’ll voice my concerns and hopefully get some peace of mind. Anyone else here have extreme health anxiety? I just don’t know how else to get over it.

Hey guys! It's been a very long time since I've been on these forums. I don't post often. So, I feel so bad because my health anxiety has come back but I suppose with this health crisis pandemic it's kinda normal. About 5 days ago I had quite a coughing fit. I had a piece of cookie dough ice cream go down the wrong pipe, so I was trying to clear it out of my lungs. I was coughing pretty hard, and was laying in bed, so I'm concerned that I may of have torn a hole in my esophagus. 😕 I hhad chest pain after and neck pain, but it wasn't severe. I shrugged it off and went to bed. However, the next day my neck was still irritated and sore, and I noticed a sharp, stabbing pain in my left upper rib cage. I felt like someone stabbed me in the side with a knife. (Ironically it also feels like a pinched nerve along with the pain. Numbness feeling.) It felt like a pulled muscle. I also had this pain in my upper back and shoulder. I had rib pain on my right side but it was less sore than the left side. My chest still was sore from the coughing fit. It hurt to breathe in deeply and it hurt to breathe in general. I just figured it was still sore from all of that coughing. I have had no fevers over the past 5 days. I was hoping this pain in my ribs/chest/neck would of have gone away by now but no luck. I get chest pain after eating, but Meh. I also have a hiatal hernia and GERD (both were officially diagnosed by my doctor, so no self diagnosis here. ) I haven't had much of an apitite to be honest. I've been able to have bowel movements so I am just really unsure. With this whole cornavirus thing going on It's very risky for me to go to the ER to get it checked out. :c There is no way for me to get an X ray or a CT scan so it puts a lot of stress on me. I can't risk going and Potentially bringing Covid 19 back from the ER to my grandparents! Both of them have underlying health conditions so if they caught it they would most likely die. 😞 Is it possible to rupture your esophagus just by coughing? I hope I'm just overreacting and that it's just a coincidence. I mean like I've eaten and drank stuff since then. Like where does all of that stuff go if there was a hole in my esophagus? Wouldn't I have already gone into septic shock by now due to infection? I've been able to keep hydrated and have bowel movements too... I'm basically waiting this out and praying for the best. I hope it's just a coincidence like it was last year with a different topic. (I had thought I got fluoride poisoning from toothpaste but in reality I just had a case of gastroentris or the stomach flu.) I can't go anywhere unless my grandparents litterly drag me to an ER or called paramedics. If I had life threatening complications or something. Even then, I don't want to be insensitive to the ER doctors. I know that they are dealing with a lot. My anxiety has mostly gone away for the most part after my gallbladder was removed but I can't help but feel like my body is trying to tell me that something is wrong and that it is going into fight or flight response again. I just want to get to the point where I can eat some dinner again without worrying LOL. I'm starving.

Hello everyone! It’s been awhile since I have posted here. Found out what all of my abdominal issues were. I had a malfunctioning gallbladder and it was only functioning at 23%. I had surgery to have it removed almost 2 weeks ago. 😁I never had gallstones, but my gallbladder was starting to go. I’m glad that I had it removed. I’ve managed my anxiety real well, so that’s why I’ve been off of the forums. I’m trying not to get too worked up over this. I’ll just schedule a doctors appointment and try not to worry. Thank goodness for therapy, which has been working great! 🥰 Anyways, I have been dealing with horrible bowel movements for the past few day’s... i’m Constantly on the toilet with loose stools. For the past couple of days I have been getting clay colored stool. Very pale. Almost white. It hasn’t stayed that way, thank goodness. It has went back to brown. It’s really been back and forth. I’ve also been having mild abdominal pain. No fevers yet. I’m trying to make sure I am recovering fine and that I am not getting complications from this surgery. One of the complications says pancreatitis, but I have no fever or severe pain. I thought pancreatitis was very painful? Especially the acute kind? Is pancreatitis painful? Making an appointment, trying to keep calm. I’m pretty chill. I’m keeping my anxiety in a hole, where it belongs, and away from me. I should also add that I still have mild acid reflux issues and have been nauseous over the past few day’s. I can still eat and drink. I’ve been trying to cut back on fatty foods. I ate fatty food over the past few days, so maybe that is my issue. Lol Glad to be back on. Hope all is well with you guys. ❤️

I have developed a severe fear of strokes about 6 months ago. It started because one morning about an hour after waking up, my vision felt off. It is really hard to explain, and since time has passed my memory of the event isn't as clear. But it was kind of like I had just walked into a dark room after being in the sun, like I couldn't properly focus my eyes. Since I've always had health anxiety, I started googling and "stroke" came up. I panicked and my SO started to drive me to the ER. By the time I got in the car my vision was fine again but I was still nervous and had stroke on my mind. I sat on my left hand because it seemed to feel weird and I didnt want to think about it. A few minutes later, I pulled my hand out and it felt like it went numb/asleep. Only, I couldnt shake it away so I freaked out and we called an ambulance. My hand felt better in a few minutes but then I felt like my left side of my tongue and mouth were tingling...and then they seemed to go partially numb as well. That again resolved in a few minutes or less. The ambulance came, hospital ran a bunch of tests including an MRI and CT scan and everything was fine. So they diagnosed me with migraine with aura. I have a history of headaches related to stress/anxiety, but never with an aura as far as I know. So after that I became obsessed with the fear that I actually had a TIA and that I was going to have a stroke any moment. Every moment of every day I am worried about it. I constantly think parts of my tongue, mouth, face, hands, etc are going numb and constantly "check" to prove to myself theyre not. Ive had quite a few one eye visual auras since then as well which I had never noticed I had before. But theyre not correlated with migraines. Then lately, I have days where I feel these weird icy/wet/menthol feelings all throughout my body. It just travels around randomly for hours or even a whole day. I've also had this experience with prickling/pins and needles as well. Both come and go and are random. I do not have panic attacks so I know its not correlated with hyperventilating either. I often feel it in my tongue and face which scares me the most I think. But sometimes I wonder if I ever even had numbness the day I went to the ER, or if it was all psychosomatic. Does anyone else deal with this weird feelings? Could it truly just all be in my head and be caused from consistently high levels of stress? I really try to avoid going to the doctor, but I'm on the verge of going for the recent sensations I've been having.

Wondering if anyone can help me. I'm terrfied i have melanoma under my pinky nail. I have had trauma to this nail before but I cant remember if I had these pits here before. They say its rare but due to my anxiety I am awfully scared. I also can't find any pictures on google that look like what I have. Please can anyone help me.

I'm lost. I had gotten on medication and things were fine but over the past few days they've gone down hill. I was watching a movie with my wife and a woman mentioned she had hpv, the women then said, "Well yeah we've all had hpv." I I immediately went to google and found that it can cause warts and multiple types of cancers. Since then I've questioned my wife about her history knowing shes only had one other sexual experience which was her rapist when she was 11 years old, I cant imagine how I made her feel asking if her rapist had given ger hpv. I felt terrible. But I kept going convinced I had gotten it from a girl I briefly kissed, or a stranger who had kissed my wife. If my mind wasn't on HPV, it was on the fact that i may have sleep apena because a friend of mine made a post about her daughter who has down syndrome that had a sleep study and found she had sleep apena. I know if I hear another disease itll start all over. Now I'm left wondering is this my life? Am I just going to spend my life worrying, driving myself crazy and waiting to die? please someone help me.

First, let me say thank you for the many members on this forum and their willingness to share information. It has helped me stay "grounded" through my health anxiety struggles the last 6 months. Brief history - Had an SVT (super fast heart beat) back in July18 that kicked off my first genuine panick attack and a series of stress related health issues (or so I believe). Although the Dr. said that sometimes they just happen and my heart was fine (normal EKG) I freaked out about all the sensations in my chest I felt for many weeks following and looking back realize I have been in a constant state of high alert ever since. Then camping with my family on Labor Day, I felt a vibration sensation going down my neck and internal tremors throughout my body. They were mostly noticeable when I was at rest and varied in intensity. In the middle of the night in my RV, good old Dr. Google made me 100% certain that I had MS and I had my second panic attack. Completely ruined the rest of the weekend as I was paralyzed from fear. A visit from my general practitioner the following Tuesday came the diagnosis of anxiety and the prescription of Zoloft. I struggled with the tremors and getting a good nights rest for several months. As the year ended, I actually started to calm down a little and decided to drop the Zoloft as I did not like the side effects. Then came the terrible news that my Brother-In-Law had been diagnosed with ALS. As I set up a Go Fund Me for him and learned of the circumstances he would be facing, I felt my anxiety coming back on. And low and behold, my tremors turned into muscle twitches, I noticed I seemed more clumsy and dropping things and my muscles seemed tired and fatigued all the time (even though I was capable of doing all the normal activities, yard work, cooking, cleaning, etc). This led to multiple visits to multiple doctors (the first one had to be wrong, right?) all of whom stated it was anxiety. In February, as my muscle twitches were still ongoing, a return trip to my new primary care gave me a referral to a neurologist. She didn't know what was causing my twitches for certain (although she still believed anxiety) but wanted to give me peace of mind. She also started me on Wellbutrin to help calm the nerves. The neuro didn't have openings UNTIL MAY!! Instead of peace of mind, now I had several months to worry about the appointment and what I was just certain was the true cause of my twitching. I also started seeing a counselor, who taught me coping techniques such as breathing and grounding. She also told me to stay off google or to google twitches AND anxiety since anxiety was the only thing I had truly been diagnosed with. That google search led me to countless YouTube videos along with this forum. A place filled with people who shared my story, in many cases almost to the letter. I got a call today that they had a cancellation and asked me to move my neuro appointment up to this Wednesday, 3/27. Even though I am much better now thanks to medication, therapy and the stories on this forum, I am obviously still nervous that I will be that person that was misdiagnosed with anxiety instead of the very rare, terrible neurological disorder that so many people with health anxiety fear. I mean, that's what anxiety does. 100 arrows pointing one way and we only pay attention to the one going the other. I will know more on Wednesday but this forum has helped and will help to get me through until then. Thanks to all that share and I hope I will soon be able to help as well as someone who overcame what was only a fear.

I’m a 30 year old female and I first experienced health anxiety in about August 2017. Since then it’s been bouts of anxiety lasting a few weeks to months, and then I made a switch mentally to just focus on the here and now... and more recently I have been trying to eat a predominately vegan diet, and I’ve found those two things combined really helped me. Then on Saturday last week, whilst watching a documentary on health, my anxiety came back with a vengeance! I had been feeling that good, and that strong that I felt empowered to watch the documentary but it’s had the opposite effect. I have been needing to pee more frequently for the last couple of months, and due to my history of worrying and anxiety, I put it down to generalised anxiety but it’s been playing on my mind... so much so that I woke up at 3am this morning so worried about it that my Fiancé had to take me to the ER. I’m here to really source out positive stories, and to chat with likeminded people on the road to being free of health anxiety...

Hi there, I was wondering how many of you have been dealing with muscle fasciculations? Mine happen all over my body, but primarily in my knees/thighs when I am at rest. I was wondering how many of you also experience perceived weakness in it's company? Lastly, how many of you can pinpoint these to PTSD and/or other traumatic experiences? I have a long history of familial emotional trauma, in addition to having worked in Alternative Educational programs in the inner-city of Chicago, where I have seen and been the victim of various forms of trauma from that role as well... Any and all insight is welcomed.

Hello, New here I have recently been diagnosed with health anxiety and am on a waiting list for CBT, I have had a really good week, no pains, nothing! Last couple of days I have been having a slight ache in my upper left breast, sometimes feels like pressure on my heart...I was just curious because could the ache be linked to my heart? This triggers my anxiety. Its such a random place, I wanted to see if other people had anything similar or random triggers. I know if i keep thinking about it it will get worse and all my other symptoms will start! Just be nice to talk

Hi everyone, About a month ago I posted on this forum as well, about how I've been having a lot of physical symptoms over the past 6 months and how I didn't know what to do anymore. It was really nice to read all the replies and to feel like there are people out there who understand..so I hope this isn't annoying but I have another question for you guys. The physical symptoms are still there, I feel sick (weak, dizzy, aches, like I have the flu) every day. These past two weeks I've also been having a lot of issues with my stomach/bowels and have lost 8 kg (now weigh 48 kilo, which is underweight for my height). Last week I went to the doctor to ask him about several of the symptoms. He did a pretty thorough check, felt all my lymph nodes (I was convinced that one was swollen. Turned out it wasn't, which proves I shouldn't interpret symptoms), listened to my heart/lungs, checked my breasts for lumps, felt a lump on my rib and listened to my bowels. After his check he said that there was no reason to think I have a serious illness. He did order blood work to check for some bowel diseases, anemia and to check something in my liver. Everything came back fine (of course) and he said it was probably just a virus. I asked if it could be bowel cancer but he just said 'no'. I was relieved for about two days, but then I started worrying again because I still feel so sick every day, it has been going on for so long and he didn't order any scans. I know that anxiety can cause a lot of physical symptoms and all of my symptoms CAN be caused by anxiety, but it also says everywhere that you should get tests done to exclude any real illnesses first. I keep thinking that I didn't have enough tests to exclude real illness, especially because on this forum I am reading a lot of messages about people getting scans etc. Can my doctor really know that I am not sick without scans? How can he know what is going on on the inside of my body? I know the not trusting doctors thing is typical behavior for people with health anxiety. I am so so frustrated with myself, because I have been going to therapy/doing homework/listening to the anxiety guy podcasts/reading books..but no matter what people say, the thought of me having a serious disease (and dying) keeps haunting me. Again I think this partially has something to do with my mum, who was diagnosed with melanoma and then was 'cured', still went for check ups every three months (no scans). Every time they said that she was fine, while meanwhile the tumors inside her where growing and spreading everywhere. I also know that melanoma is very aggressive so I shouldn't use my mum's situation as a reference. Anyway, I really don't want to live like this anymore. Now I am thinking about getting one of those total body scans and pay for it myself (I am not going to bother my doctor again). My therapist says I shouldn't do it because it won't reassure me. I feel like it WILL reassure me because if the scan turns out okay I feel like I could finally believe that these symptoms are really caused by anxiety and I can use this as a reference in the future. Even the basic scan costs a lot of money though (900 euro). I am in a long distance relationship and am planning on visiting in a few months time, but the price of that scan is basically the price of a plane ticket. On the other hand, my health anxiety is really affecting our relationship in a negative way, so maybe it would be good to get a scan like that before I go visit? I have studied psychology and I know that my way of thinking is very twisted and standard health anxiety behavior, which makes it even more frustrating that I can not stop thinking I'm sick. What do you guys think? Has anyone ever had one of those scans? Did it reassure you or is this a very bad idea? Thanks in advance.

Any thought that I have, my brain brings up the topic of death. For example, ill be having a heart palpatation and my brain tells me im having a heart attack and dying right now. Sucks because it got so bad i dont even wanna take any medication because i think im gonna die if i take it. Anyone else have anything similar?