Any Hypochondriacs Out There?

I am somewhat. Mainly it's my heart I freak out about because my heart has palps. It's ok but it scares me. My grandad died from a heart attack at 36 and my grandma at 65 and their children have already had heart surgeries. I am 36 so I freak I will die at this age too. I also freak about colon cancer too because my other grandpa died of that and I have issues with that end. Tmi I know

Thanks you too

Ya I have it. first I thought I was losing my liver and then I had prostate cancer this was when I was eleven. When I turned 18 I went hay wire and did alot of drugs and was always concerned that I had done some damage. It lines up with OCD. There in the same spectrum. But I hav'nt really been dealing with it for like four yr's.

Yeah, I think I suffer from hypochondria as well. Mainly whenever I have some sort of pain in my chest, I'm terrified it's something like cancer or a heart attack, or like I've got a clogged artery.. It's not fun. When I'm in the shower or bathroom, I don't lock the door because I'm scared that if I like, collapse or something, that if I locked the door, no one would be able to help me.

Oh and I've got a chronic productive cough(the logical side of me says it's asthma or something's messed up in my nose), but the other side of me says I've got some incurable lung disease that's going to kill me.

Or when I get a scratch, I get scared it will get infected and I'll either die or have to get something amputated....
When I had strep throat a few months ago, I didn't know what it was at the time, so I was scared I had bad tonsillitis and would need my tonsils removed.

I never knew what hypochondria was until I just read this thread and now I know the term for one of my issues.... It's not fun!

I have severe health anxiety, and would love to hear other Christians perspective on this. I know God doesn't give us the spirit of fear, but when we suffer from anxiety, I sure hope he understands we can't help our fears. Wish someone could explain how to do it!

I think my of my hypochondria as just another theme of my OCD. Health obsessions.
Let's see - when I was a kid I thought - I'd swallow my tongue, poke my eye out, have a heart attack or a brain aneurism. As an adult: - fears of liver disease, heart disease, stomach/colon cancer, flesh eating bacteria, a rash can freak me out cause I think I might be having an allergic reaction that could kill me, afraid of food poisoning or any thing that might make me vomit.
I try to handle my health obsessions in the same way I handle any of my other obessions. I try very hard not to do things to reassure myself like checking out symptom lists online, or spending a great deal of time trying to reassure myself that I don't have those illnesses and if I'm being really good about therapy I'll do exposure exercises to those fears. For instance if I get a rash I'll sit down and do a visualization exercise something like this; "Well I suppose this faint rash is going turn into giant hives at any moment and before I can get to a hospital my entire throat will swell shut and I won't be able to breathe at all. I'll be rushed by ambulance to the hospital where my heart will stop and they'll have to do CPR and intubate me.... oh well... guess there's nothing I can do to prevent this. If it happens, it happens... guess I'll just ignore it for now and cross that bridge if and when I get to it." Then I do something else to distract myself. I tend to get rashes/hives if I'm the least bit hot or over stimulated emotionally so I have to deal with this fear quite often. If I didn't just choose to ignore it, I'd likely be making trips to the E.R. a lot.
Mitzi

Qwerty35 said:

I suggested in another thread that it might be a good idea to have a section for hypochondriacs,and(thanks to another member's helpful suggestion)I'm starting this thread to try to gauge how much interest there is in the subject.
As I've mentioned before,I suffer from hypochondria.Being a sufferer myself,I know how debilitating the hypo is,so if any of you guys have the same problem,I'd like to give you guys the opportunity to share your story.
Come on guys,let's get things going!

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God does understand our fears most especially in light of the fact that for some of us the fear we experience is part and parcel of having a disorder.
Anyhow, while it is certainly true that God hasn't given us the spirit of fear, the point of that whole section of scripture is to encourage us to not focus on our weaknesses, of which we have many. Instead we need to focus on and rely on God's presence in us. It's His presence and His Spirit which will provide what we need to live with our weaknesses. He can and will provide, power, love and a sound mind. This is a scripture of contrast. The contrast is our feelings of inadequacy due to our weaknesses, (like what young Timothy had), and God's sufficiency and power in us which overrides all that. It's not as if we can really do anything profitable for God's kingdom on our own. We are all too crippled by our own individual weaknesses and afflictions. But God's grace is sufficient for all of that. His power is made perfect in our weaknesses. So what was Paul telling Timothy in that passage? He was basically admonishing him to get over himself and to trust in the power of Christ in him to tackle the ministry that lay ahead of him. Paul was trying to shift Timothy's focus of his weaknesses to the strength and power of Christ in him. I find it to be a very encouraging portion of scripture for those of us with Anxiety Disorders.
Mitzi

tripleplay said:

I have severe health anxiety, and would love to hear other Christians perspective on this. I know God doesn't give us the spirit of fear, but when we suffer from anxiety, I sure hope he understands we can't help our fears. Wish someone could explain how to do it!

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I have a rash on the inside of my leg. Well it's a bite with a circle of bites around and I want to go to the doctor. I think it's a spider or tick. I get freaked about Lyme disease.

Oh man... I always thought I was going to get lyme disease when we lived in the U.P. of MI. I had wood ticks get on me sometimes and even though they don't carry lyme... I used to worry that the deer ticks might have gotten on me too. Ticks are so sneaky, you can't even feel them crawling on you.
Then I got bit on the neck by this enormous spider and had some sort of allergic response to it so I spent the next whole year looking under my bed for spiders, in my sheets, in my shoes with a flashlight, wouldn't walk under trees...etc. I called it my post traumatic spider bite syndrome. I loathe spiders anyhow so being bit by that giant and then being told by the hospital that they thought it might be brown recluse really set me back. I don't think it was a brown recluse just a giant pine spider or something like that. Soooooo creepy!! Now I'm back to being able to walk in the woods and do gardening and even killing spiders on my own without needing to call for my husband to do it. That was hard work but I don't want them running my life... stupid things! As of yet I still won't touch a tarantula. My husband thinks I should do that as "exposure therapy" but really... is it necessary to learn to tolerate tarantula's? I think I can live a fairly normal life without doing that.
Sorry for the spider rant... and for stealing this thread... Let's get back to health themes. Mitzi

raven1 said:

I have a rash on the inside of my leg. Well it's a bite with a circle of bites around and I want to go to the doctor. I think it's a spider or tick. I get freaked about Lyme disease.

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Just wondering--- could hypochondria include thinking you have different mental disorders than you actually don't? Or is it limited to physical ailments?

Yes... I would definitely think so. In fact when I first started to struggle with obsessive harm thoughts my greatest fear was that I had some sort of psychotic illness. I was so frightened by that idea that I couldn't bring myself to share the thoughts I was having with anyone, not even my husband or mother. I thought I'd end up in a padded cell in a straight jacket. That was the only idea I had at the time of what being mentally ill might be like. Sometimes, ignorance isn't bliss.
Mitzi

Fluffpuffgerbil said:

Just wondering--- could hypochondria include thinking you have different mental disorders than you actually don't? Or is it limited to physical ailments?

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I found this board at the perfect time - thank you so much for starting it. I have been dealing with OCD for pretty much all of my adult life and my OCD is entirely centered on obsessional thinking related to my health.

Here are a few of the health-related worries that I have had over the years:

-Worry about colon cancer (I ended up having a colonoscopy at 36! - all was fine)

-Worry about headaches, shakiness (I had an MRI of my brain at 18 - all was fine)

-Worry about a 'spot' on my leg being cancerous (i had two biopsies done at 36 - all was fine)

-Worry about heart palpitations (I had an EKG, Nuclear Stress Test, etc. done at 35 - all was fine)

-Worry about muscle twitches (repeatedly throughout my 20s - all was fine)

-Worry about one pupil being larger than the other one (had a thorough eye exam - all was fine)

-Worry about floaters and eye flashes (currently - trying to tell myself all is fine)

-Worry that a cough was lung cancer (all was fine)

I could go on and on and on. Sometimes dealing with this feels so debilitating. I thought that I had a good handle on my OCD and many of my symptoms calmed down when my children were born/adopted. It think that having my children to focus on and raise gave my mind a different "path" -- because just recently my youngest child has started all-day kindergarten and my health anxieties seem to be back with a vengeance.

I have really been struggling lately and pray that these fears, too, will pass. I focus a lot on my prayer life when I am anxious (well, not a lot - but certainly more) and this morning I started to feel afraid that God was giving me these worries to focus my attention more on Him.

I also have phobias about enclosed places and don't take elevators very often, haven't flown on an airplane in more than 12 years (which has really limited my personal and professional life) and don't take subways, etc. I'm embarassed about this and try to avoid letting others know about these fears.

I feel really blessed to have seen this posting on here. I actually joined just so that I could post on this forum. Thank you for starting this discussion. It is always nice to know that I am not alone!

Fluffpuffgerbil said:

Just wondering--- could hypochondria include thinking you have different mental disorders than you actually don't? Or is it limited to physical ailments?

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I definitely think so.

Oh wow! I never knew that what I experience is to do with OCD but now I realise that it is. My obsessions about health started when my dad died in 2001. I got obsessed about death, and got very ill. Also I was convinced I had bowel cancer at one point, and stopped eating because eating was feeding the cancer and also I got scared about putting something inside of my body. I didn't know what was happening to me but I was in hell. Didn't eat for many weeks. Tried to get help but no-one would help me. I was real messed up.

Since then I have worried all of the time about health issues - cancer etc. I was so sure at the beginning of the summer that we had bed bugs because I thought I had bites on me. Had to take everything off the bed, and do all sorts of cleaning and spraying in the bedroom and still didn't believe we didn't have bed bugs. Was totally convinced we had them and every time I thought about it I would shake. Hubby went mad looking for non-existent bed bugs !

I always think everything is going to be something horrible or fatal. I also have a terrible fear of germs. It makes me cry when it gets real bad, because I know I can't control the germs. This is because my husband is in the house as well, and even if I can control germs generally, I can't control him and his germs.

I try to deal with this, and sometimes really freak out but know I have to try to ignore all of my fears.

I wonder what causes all of this? Does anyone know?