Hi jmacr3, I have many similarities to your situation and I know it is not easy. I have two kids and one on the way and I feel that my life was just wonderful at the beginning of the year. I went from a virus to severe headaches and down the rabbit hole from there...I have tried to diagnose myself with every terminal and debilitating illness I could find on the web. I also hide in the tub at night since hot baths are the only things that calm me down...and my wife has had to pick up the slack. :(
I feel like I am on the road to recovery as soon as I shake this chest congestion.
A few things I have had to do:
1) I don't look up any symptoms on the internet unless I also included the words hypochondria or anxiety. I think most of us are searching for realistic, rational, non-life-threatening reasons for the ailments and oddities we are noticing. My wife has agreed to look up symptoms for me and filter out the rare and unlikely things (I really don't want to know about them anyway).
2) Keep a journal. I write down what is going on and how I am feeling. Then I can look for real patterns and notice when things stop. I had a week where tingling feet had me scared to death of dying and being confined to a wheelchair. Now I look back and realize that it went away and my worries were not warranted. I think the obsession of journaling has taken a lot of my time away from researching rare diseases.
3) Trust and accept. I had to accept that I have hypochondria. I have been scared of rare diseases for decades now...even before I had kids. And I am still here! I have also had to trust my doctors. I had an MRI and a CT scan of my head. I do not have a brain tumor or MS. They didn't miss anything. My doctors are not worried about illness, my wife is not worried, and I should not be either.
4) Therapy and medicine. I had to stop all medication, but I am considering going on an anti-depressant because sometimes I just don't care about being alive. I can watch my boys laugh and play and I don't even want to exist because I feel so awful. I just wanted to know what was real! A lot of folks on here swear by meds. They are getting by with them. I hope they can chime in on what is working for them. And please find a decent caring therapist! Someone you can voice all of your concerns to, because our families and friends can only hear so much...
I truly hope you the best. Please keep us up to date on how you are doing. Know that you are not alone and other people care about your wellness.

I am sorry you are going thru this. I too have hypochondria and know how you feel. I do agree with all of the above comments. I don't internet search anything anymore and just message my dr. She has been great with me and always replies to me quickly through our messaging system, it's helped a lot. I also could not get by without my therapist. She has been supportive for a year and a half. I thought I was doing better with my anxiety and depression... and then I had a lot of stressful things happen to me all at the same time. This triggered the worst period of my life you could imagine. I thought about checking myself in somewhere I felt so out of control. I have been taking celexa and while it does have side effects, they are much less painful than dealing with the anxiety. I was going to bed at 8 and making my husband take care of the kids, some days I couldn't get out of bed and would just be sobbing all day because I thought I was dying and every day was the last day. After 4 weeks of consistently taking the medication I felt better, better than normal in fact. Just be aware some people experience side effects if they don't take the meds at the same time every day. I am doing much better and can attribute it to- not searching on the internet, trusting my doctors and test results, having a supportive environment at home, and friends to talk to, my therapist, and meds. I need a big support system. You can get back to being mom of the year. I was against medication- so much. But I had nowhere else to go and it couldn't make things any worse so I tried it and it saved me. I take xanax once in awhile when I am truly panicking and feel like I have to flee from a situation. It calms me down to where I can act normal. The meds I take are very cheap- thru my insurance it only costs like $2.50 a month. I highly recommend it. You have to remember to b consistent with it. It will help or your dr will switch you. You can get thru it. I never thought I would.

Is it you primary Doctor that is prescribing medication or a specialist? I am doing better, but still cannot shake this fear of getting a horrible and terminal diagnosis. I want to try medicinal help over the holidays, but don't know where to go...

Mark if you are looking for psychiatric medications you should contact your PCP or look into a psychiatrist! Hope this helps!