[cesarbs]

> It's mind boggling (no pun intended) how far psychosomatic illness can go, even as far as resulting in blindness, seizures, and paralysis.

While I don't have physical symptoms as severe as those you listed, that's pretty much how my health anxiety manifests. I don't just have obsessive thoughts over being sick. I actually feel things. And my anxiety is not thoughts -> symptoms, it's the other way around. I start having a bunch of symptoms, give it some time hoping they will go away, but they don't. So I can't help but think something is seriously wrong. There are instances where I've dealt with a set of symptoms for a whole year.

A few examples:

- When I'm anxious over a brain aneurysm or brain tumor, it's because I started having visual distortions, tingling, my mouth won't widen on one side when I smile, etc.

- I was once worried about carotid artery dissection, because I could hear my pulse in one ear and it would stop when I pressed against my carotid on the same side (a telltale sign of CAD). MRIs in the ER revealed nothing.

- My heart acts up with PVCs every now and then, and they are so unpleasant that it's nearly impossible not to think I have a serious heart condition. PVCs can be common when people are really anxious or stressed out, but in my case they just come about in my most serene moments it seems.

- I start worrying about colon cancer whenever I get alternate bouts of diarrhea and constipation, coupled with frequent abdominal cramps. This particular anxiety gets to the point where I see blood when inspecting my output in the toilet, only for it to disappear when I blink. Mind you, it's not "hm I think that tiny spec might be blood". I actually see streaks of blood when I first look at it.

- At some point last year I started having sudden weakness in my right arm. I couldn't hold parts of it flexed, and things just seemed heavier. I was sure I had a degenerative disorder of some sort. But then it just went away after several weeks.

I could go on and on and on. It's horrible. Friends and family don't understand me, no matter how much I try to explain to them that I'm not just thinking about being sick (I'm actually trying hard NOT to think about it), but I'm really feeling a whole bunch of stuff. They always revert to "stop thinking about it and it will go away". So frustrating.

[thomyorkie]

You may want to consider the possibility that you have generalized anxiety disorder. The symptoms are vast, constantly changing, and often different from person to person. Some of the things you've described like PVCs, digestive issues, muscle weakness, and obsessive thoughts are quite common symptoms. The best way I know how to manage this without pharmaceuticals is cold showers, believe it or not.

[Nav_Panel]

I developed something like this health anxiety starting back in April, after a severe bout of flu/some unknown and moderately severe viral illness coinciding with a bacterial skin infection. I had a very tough couple of months where I would worry about every minor physical "deviation" that I noticed. I also had constant heart palpitations, which caused more anxiety, thus triggering more palpitations. I'd spend upwards of a half hour at a time on Google, looking up symptoms and trying to figure out whether my headache was due to a common cold or a brain condition...

One thing that personally helped me recover mentally was weightlifting. Part of what helped was that I could relatively easily attribute any random (and benign) ache/pain that I might otherwise worry about to "oh, well, I just lifted recently, so my body's repairing/sore/etc" as opposed to some serious condition I found on Google. Sticking with caffeine even though I was worried about palpitations also helped me through some form of "exposure therapy," where I eventually (re)learned that caffeine is safe to consume.

Talking with my therapist helped. As did consciously reminding myself that, for a lot of rare or potentially deadly conditions, the symptoms would be much more severe than I'm experiencing, and that some symptoms (fast heartrate is a big one) can be attributed to anxiety alone.

For example, last night while lying in bed, I felt a sudden twitching on the left side of my chest at about twice my resting heart rate. I instantly jumped to the conclusion that it was my heart having rapid contractions, which triggered a burst of anxiety, but when I stopped and thought about it (the twitching seemed to be intermittent and didn't feel internal like a heart problem might, it felt external), I successfully convinced myself that it was my muscle twitching -- a totally benign occurrence. Maybe I was dehydrated.

Basically, I was able to help myself by using logic and trying to match the severity of my personal diagnosis with the severity of the symptom I was experiencing. I imagine this wouldn't be possible if I suddenly had symptoms as severe as GP, but it can help me stem these threads of anxiety before the anxiety itself causes more issues than the original problem.

[amelius]

> Sticking with caffeine even though I was worried about palpitations also helped me through some form of "exposure therapy," where I eventually (re)learned that caffeine is safe to consume.

However, it is a well-known fact that caffeine and anxiety don't blend very well. Be careful.

[Nav_Panel]

Yeah, that's true for sure. If I feel extra anxious for whatever reason (happens from time to time), I'll skip my cup or two that day. And if I have more than two cups in a day, bad things tend to happen. But I was at a point for a while where drinking a cup of decaf would make me extremely anxious (or having a green tea, I swear, even the tiniest bit of caffeine would set my heart pounding), so I'm extremely glad to be past that.

[DenisM]

Sorry about your plight, man. How do you cope?

[cesarbs]

I just do. I used to do psychoanalysis before coming to the US and that helped a ton. I haven't looked for a therapist here, so it's a little worse now.

One thing that helped me deal better with it was getting married, and specifically getting married to a woman who had a child. This suddenly took a lot of my focus out of myself, since now I have to care for others. It also puts me in a "I can't fail" mental mode which has me worrying somewhat less than in years past. But it's still pretty bad, I just don't panic as much anymore.

Another thing that made a significant difference was starting an exercise routine. It makes me feel healthier and therefore less worried about coming down with a terrible disease.

[DenisM]

You should start seeing a therapist, and I can help you with that. It worked then, and it will work now.

Send me an email and I will walk you through this. You may feel that you have to think it over first, but that will only exhaust you in a wash-cycle of rumination. Send the email as soon as you reach the end of this sentence.