I definitely go through the same thing. I've been "dying" for a year now. If its not a blood clot its a heart attack. If my head hurts its a tumor. I always know when my anxiety is the highest because I do think I'm dying everyday. Luckily I have support in my family. I took one of the other members advice and ordered the book It's Only Anxiety and so far it is helping. Sending hugs because I know the struggle.

Having GAD, I have symptoms of health, social, OCD. The health symptoms were pretty bad for a long time. Every pain or twitch was something. Now it’s not nearly as bad as it was. I can tell you that our bodies get so tensed for so long that this causes a lot of the pain we have, at least in my case it did. The tension in my chest and abdominal area caused me to have a myriad of pain. Since I have recovered somewhat, the pain has went away with the release of all those tense muscles. I haven’t had any chest pain for several months now and for the first time in many, many years I can breathe deeply again. I also stopped having esophagus spasms that were extremely painful. Anxiety does affect us more than we actually realize.

I am so glad that I had found people who are speaking my language. I had read about how pain makes a person feel worse physically or mentally. I witness seeing my mother go through this hell every day. This past Sunday, she had a nap, woke up, and felt her legs, and it felt like a lump. The on-call nurse told her that it was probably from blood clots and that she needs to go to the ER in an hour. When my mother got there, the doctor examed her leg and said that it was not a lump, it was probably a nerve or a bone (she has skinny legs). Health anxiety is horrible! What I had read on here is exactly what I witness when I see my mom go through much of the same emotional stuff that was described here.

Practice relaxing and tensing muscles to help you see the difference in muscle aches and muscle pain.

The more you know what is what, the easier it it to breathe through the exercise and calm the balance.

yeah--I do this to myself--but then I laugh at myself and try to figure out how to calm my anxiety---right now I am pondering if I have a brain tumor--but I am pretty sure it is a mix of vertigo and extreme exhaustion.... you might want to take an epsom salt bath (the magnesium soaks in and relaxes muscles and helps with anxiety....

I get health anxiety but not nearly as bad as I used to. I just have tried to apply reason as much as possible. Like, I try to prescribe to the Occam's Razor philosophy which is basically that the simplest explanation is usually the best one.

A simplistic example is: When you see a bright light flash through your curtains, what do you think it is? These possibilities may come to mind:

Likely - It was a flash of lightning.
Less Likely - It was a UFO.

So whenever health stuff starts kicking up anxiety, I try to break it down and apply the most simplistic explanation. By doing that, it helps give me some time to get my head on straight.

By the way, I've had blood clots in my leg and there are usually very classic symptoms. Also, the pain would likely be getting worse and it would likely be constant, relentless.

A long time ago I had similar medical anxiety during a major depression One thing I realized was that there are no 100% guarentees. None of us have a 100% chance of being completely healthy at any point in time. I was able to stop chasing that impossible assurance that I was perpetually OK and acknowledged there was a very, very, very small chance that I did have whatever I feared. That helped me let go of the fear gradually. I mean I'd be driving down the road distracted by worries about illness putting myself in real danger via potential accident. Also if you haven;'t already done so I'd suggest reaching out to your doctor or a counselor and consider medication.

Having accompanied a family member to about 8 doctors, 2 hospitals and a brain MRI, I can sympathize with you. Can I ask the obvious, are you on anti-anxiety medication and undergoing therapy.

I know that I have medical anxiety--it was worse when I was younger, ironically, in the sense that I would "self-diagnose" with certainty everything from arthritis to heart problems. Taking a grade 11 biology course in an adult education course helped a lot with that because it gives you a broad overview of anatomy and physiology, so you know how everything is connected.

More recently over the pandemic it started up again--this time with my stomach where I developed IBS (probably over stress and drinking too much wine to calm my frayed nerves), and you cannot imagine the variations of ailments I've been worrying about. I have gotten blood tests and an ultra sound, both which came out negative. It's tough, I feel your pain.

My son is both agoraphobic and has medical anxiety. He diagnosis himself with some new rare condition at least once a week. He's only 28.

I used to suffer from health anxiety real badly when I was younger. I went from thinking I had bad teeth to then I wanted braces on my teeth because I thought it would make me popular in school and that I would get a lot of friends. I was very wrong. I did not get braces and I was not popular in school either. Also, when I attend school one, I had a health class in the fourth period. Every time the teacher described a symptom of a condition such as having a cold, cancer, tuberculosis, emphysema and the list goes on, I would think I had it. But I have not did thought like that in years and I consider myself better.

Today, I witness how a medical diagnosis changed our lives in a bad way. Since this person had been diagnosed, they are a different person. They have depression, always thinking the worse of everything especially when it comes to their health. It is a terrible thing to go through. Not only is it hard for the sufferer, it is bad for other family members who are witnessing this dilemma will become sad themselves because they feel that they are not doing much to help. For example, I myself feel really bad inside. I sat in think about what had happened whenever I get the silent treatment from this individual, or when they begin to put their belongings together and ignore me at the same time. I tell you it is a totally different life I am used to living.

Is health anxiety the same as a person being a hypochondriac? The reason I am asking that question is that my mother is going through something heath anxiety and she believes that she is going to die. It is at the point that she is looking to get life insurance. A few years ago, she wanted to find a white dress or buy one.

Because of the daily stress we are going through all the time, I have lost my appetite and other things that kept me amused. There is too much going on in life. I have the virus-being told to get the vaccine shot, I called my doctor's clinic and no one called me back, I called the local pharmacy and I was told to get permission from my doctor, and then they would set it up for me to get the shot. So I feel right now I am going to leave the issue alone and just be careful. Plus, I had heard that there had been people who had died or got very sick although they got the vaccine; and now a new virus had started. I'm hearing about death too dang much. My mother is always talking about it and she is giving up, I fix her food but she will not eat if her emotions is in an uproar.

I think hypochondria is now called “illness anxiety disorder” when talking about a formal diagnosis.