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Hi all, I'm very new to this health anxiety thing but within the last two months it seems I've developed it pretty badly. I'm already diagnosed with OCD so I'm not exactly surprised this is happening. I started having panic attacks in November for the first time which lead me to heart health anxiety (I swore I was going to have one in my sleep), then stroke anxiety, then brain tumor anxiety, then rheumatoid arthritis lupus anxiety, and now here I am with MS anxiety! It's really awful and I'd like to hear about others experiences with this health obsession in particular. I'm on meds and while they definitely have stabilized my mood and I'm not having 3 panic attacks a day anymore the obsessives thoughts won't go away. I've been to the ER multiple times and they've found nothing wrong. I also got a ton of bloodwork from my primary care and we did find that I was Vit D deficient and I'm on supplements now. Right now my symptoms are: On and off tingles and occasionally numbness when I'm really upset, they are mostly in my arm but are sometimes in my face and very rarely in my leg. The tingles go away and come back by the hour pretty much and I've only experienced actual loss of sensation a few times. A headache that usually happens once a day and I'm pretty sure it's a migraine. I also have stiff toes in the morning that hurt to flex. I've also had a lot of fatigue and have a hard time even taking care of myself nowadays. What are your experiences with MS anxiety? I'm seeing a neuro for the migraine problems and I'll bring it up but logically I am aware that I most likely don't have MS, it is just hard getting the rest of my brain to catch up and I'm thinking about it 24/7.

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.

So my husband is leaving on sunday for a week out of the country and my anxiety levels are already rising. I had an awful headache yesterday and my head is still sore and I'm terrifies of something happening to me while he's gone and I'm alone with the kids. I'm afraid I'm going to have a stroke, or a seizure. Sometimes I feel like my muscles jerk. Can anxiety cause jerking muscles? Help I'm freaking out.

Hi, First time posting. Just joined. I'm now so irritated with myself and my constant fears that I specifically looked for an anxiety forum. Earlier this evening I concluded that I was either going to die very soon of a heart attack, OR, I was fast approaching mental illness. Neither is an attractive prospect. Objectively speaking, the likelihood is that neither is true. But the reality is that my thoughts tell me these are the only two possibilities for me. For about two weeks, I firmly believed I was soon going to have a stroke and die. I get a lot of headaches and have regular migraines and also lots of minor weird sensations in my brain/head - pressures, engulfing feelings, slight dizziness sometimes. After being tortured by these thoughts and losing sleep and becoming exhausted I gave myself a really good telling off. Somehow... that worked and my anxiety that I was about to die from a brain aneurysm or stroke faded and disappeared! I got one really good night's sleep and felt transformed and elated. It was bliss. (Is this how normal people live all the time? They close their eyes at night and actually, honest to God GO TO SLEEP peacefully and wake up eight hours later? Who does that? Who has this incredible skill?). But, very disappointingly, the next night I became convinced I was going to have a heart attack. I was gutted. Why do I think this? Well, because I get chest spasms in the heart area every day, several times per day and have done for years, but that night I got a bad spasm and then a lingering dull ache in my shoulder and collar bone afterwards. I read on the news today that cases of sudden death by heart attack are very frequently misdiagnosed (people sent home with paracetamol/told they're having a panic attack etc) and that women in particular are much more likely to be misdiagnosed than men. The case followed a woman who had a heart attack who was 49 and told to go home and take a paracetamol. That's only two years older than me. I DREAD switching the light out at night because as soon as I lie down on that bed and try to go to sleep, the hideous, terrifying thoughts of sudden death (my children left in agony with grief etc etc) come rushing into my head and PLAGUE me. Will I be cold to the touch when they find me? Will they cry over my dead body? These crazy thoughts are driving me crazy. I'm sick of it. I've had enough. I'm angry now. Logically, I know it's unlikely that I'm about to die of a heart attack (I eat healthily, exercise regularly, and there's no family history)... but logic has nothing to do with anxiety. The thoughts still come and torment me. I genuinely feel I might die tonight. Last night. Tomorrow night. It's horrible. I sometimes sit up in a panic and switch my phone on for some distraction. I sometimes frantically feel for a pulse because I think my heart has stopped. But I'm exhausted and want to sleep. Got to get the kids up for school in the morning. I'm getting worse as I get older, not better. I think about my death during the day. I want to write a will. I imagine how I will suffer and how my children will find me. I've taught them how to make a call on my mobile phone for that time when they'll need to dial 999 to report that I'm dying or dead. It's ridiculous and incredibly intrusive. I love life! I want to enjoy it... and most of all I want to sleep and be free of the terror of instant death by heart attack or stroke - I've done my time worrying about having cancer. That battle is temporarily won. I have no symptoms that my brain could twist and convince me that I have the disease. A mole has been removed. The trouble is, my worries about illnesses and dying aren't baseless. I've recently been diagnosed with Crest Syndrome. And as I already mentioned I have frequent headaches and migraines, pains, aches, chest spasms, and weird brain sensations. When I get ill I seem to suffer much worse than anyone else, for longer. A cold will be incredibly heavy and thick, and will last three weeks and end up in sinusitis or an upper respiratory tract infection. My IBS will cause a thrombosed hemorrhoid which will eventually cause perineal thrush. SIGH. I guess my question is, I've had enough of all this crushing anxiety (and of course I wish all my actual symptoms would go away!). I have a doctor's appointment two weeks from now. What should I say? Is there any medication for anxiety like this? How can hideous thoughts be controlled by medication? I'd rather just tell myself to SHUT UP - but it's impossible when you have physical symptoms (chest spasms). Because your worries are then not groundless. Should I take medication at all or is it just a slippery slope? What about side effects/addiction? What the hell are my chest spasms?! Ditto brain sensations? SIGH. Thanks for "listening." :*-(

Hi everybody, i want to share my concerns.It all started one year ago when i suffered a major injury to my neck. I fractured my thyroid cartilage which is a pretty rare condition. 3 CT scans were needed in order to prove that. The doctors couldn't figure out almost, so that was the first time where i lost trust for them.Since then i'm always worried about my health and started looking things up on the internet to figure out what problems could i have. My phisiotherapist recognized that i have a mild scoliosis at my thoracic spine, a more severe scoliosis at my cervical spine and he sent me to the chiropractor to adjust it.Before i went to the chiropractor 2 days before i started to look up things on the internet that are related to spinal adjustments. I've found out some pretty scary things about that which are : stroke, damaged nerves and damaged discs.When i went to the chiropractor i remember that i was pretty much terrified of what could happen if he adjusts my spine. The adjustment went "well" so to speak, in that moment i've felt better my posture was better, my neck was longer.However at my way home 4 hours later after the adjustment was made, my neck started to become really stiff, and on the back of my neck, on the left side it started to burn really hard, and i started to panic , like i thought that im going to have a stroke.Since then i had many symptoms: shortness of breath, dizziness, blurred vision, my ears are ringing, sometimes i loose my balance ,some stomach turbulence, brain fog, and i have headaches ( mostly on the left and right side.)I asked my chiropractor about stroke and he told me that if i was to have a stroke i would got it immeadiately after the adjustment was made, or in that day. I asked my phyisiotherapist and he told me that when the adjustments were made it shocked my whole body and thats why i have these symptoms. I recognize that i'm pretty stressed most of the time mostly after the chiropractic visit.Sometimes i fell asleep and i woke up in the middle of the night, an im tired during the day.It's been already one week after the chiropractic adjustmetns and i still feel dizzy, with a lack of balance, my left ear is still ringing, i can't properly think, i have sometimes shortness of breath, and i have sometimes headaches on the left side and the right side of my head.I researched many things and the one thing that stuck with me besides after neck adjustments is the danger of stroke, and restricted arteries which causes blood insufficiency. I have some questions for you guys because im really confused right now. Am i in danger of getting a stroke? It's been already 1 week after the neck adjustments. How fast a stroke develops? Could it be long ? i mean weeks after the adjustments?Could it be that my arteries got restricted and i get smaller quantity of blood to my brain? Are these symptoms related more to anxiety or more related to chiropractic? After one week i still feel dizzy, unbalanced, blurred vision, brain fog, headache, ear ringing, stomach turbulance.. What should i do , think ? Pls help me out, im feeling hopeless right now..