Health aniexty

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I don't know quite how to express this but does anyone have trouble with fear of illness?

For example, I always think that a lump somewhere means cancer and find it difficult to deal with any variants. I want it to be black and white. Even when a doctor has told me I'm ok I still worry.

It it just me?

Oh dear, its obviously just me then

47 minutes isn't a very long time.

That is called hypochondriasis. I experience anxiety about my health, but I am not a hypochondriac, so no. I know there are others on the forum who are, though.

Sorry, I don't have much else in my life at the minute and am fightening depression

I'm paranoid about getting everything. I think everything is fatal. Sometimes it makes me extra depressed.

I used to be a severe hypochondriac(I blame it on one of my excessive interests being the medical field...similar to "Med Student Syndrome", but I started anti-anxiety medication, and I'm not much of one anymore.

I've had a fair bit of anxiety about what turned out to be minor ailments.......worst scare was an HIV test, the result was delayed and I convinced myself that they'd found a positive and were waiting for somebody with interpersonal skills to tell me.....by the time they told me it was negative, I'd already thought through how I'd have to restrict my dating activities to HIV-positive women, and how I probably wouldn't live more than another few years. Strangely I'd lived with the same risk for a couple of years without even thinking about it - it was a very small risk, from a girlfriend who'd had a dubious contact before she met me. But once I'd gone for the test, that risk preoccupied me, and I was useless until I had the result.

Being 58 years old, it's now more normal to expect to get carried off by a disease in the not-too-distant future. Of course that's added fuel to my hypochondria, though these days I've calmed down a bit, and usually shrug off most symptoms. It'll be interesting to see how I feel about my health in another 10-20 years time, when the Grim Reaper is starting to breathe down my neck.

I can still feel pretty upset by strange symptoms, but I seem to forget all about them quite readily, so it's only a problem just after I've noticed something. And I hardly ever share my fears with anybody, probably because I know they're mainly unfounded fears....and I know how disturbing it can be to be close to a talkative hypochondriac.

The doctor talking sometimes has a kind of inauthenticity that I respond badly to. I mean, doctors can be terrible listeners, they jump to a conclusion and then they're just going through the motions. The conversation is already over but I don't know that yet.

I think something like that. It's a little hard to explain. But what in business terms is called 'reflexive listening' is often lacking.

When I was age 16 in 10th grade, there was a carbon monoxide poisoning incident at my school. We were led outside, and then a few minutes later a teacher came out and in frustration told us to just go to our next class. This was first period.

End of the day, I was at my locker talking to two friends from my old "the" church (I was in the process of leaving and becoming a free-thinker, these two guys were very much still in this evangelical, strict church). I was experimenting with and learning profanity, and I know, age 16 was kind of late in the game, But that's where I was. Even though potentially serious thing, believed to be a gas leak
As I was gathering my books, I said, "I've had a damn headache all day."
When I looked up, they were walking down the hall. They had walked away from me because I had used profanity---in spite of the potential seriousness of the situation. Well, I had used profanity before (again, yes, this pretty mild PG-profanity), but this is what they planned to do and they clunkily did in spite of immediancy of the here and now.

On the bus, my friend *Robert, my best friend for years and years, he might have been a little aspie, too, or different, he marched to his own drummer. We're talking about it and he says, yes, carbon monoxide causes brain damage because it binds with the hemoglobin and then the hemoglobin can't carry enough oxygen. But he seems completely blithe to the whole subject that, goddamn, I'm his friend and I might have brain damage! and that's all the more he can get worked up about it.

At home, my Mom who's probably even more aspie than I am. 'Oh, it could have been a real tragedy.'
'Dad called the school, threaten to sue them.'

And my Mom justified the gas company. In some weird way, she was so hurt she put the weight on my shoulder.

and then, occasionally, out of the blue, like months later, my Mom would say something about it, like 'The clinical ecology book says most people have had a carbon monoxide poisoning episode.' She's obsessing on it more than I am. She's focusing on the fact that I'm upset, rather than the actual reality.

It was a real episode. This female teacher collapsed in the hallway. This tall male teacher who was a coach walked in there and dragged her out. She was taken to the hospital. In later years, I've kind of appreciated what that coach may have gone through. Walking in was a piece of cake. But in dragging her out---and she was a pretty good sized woman---he must have started breathing a little hard and wondering if he was going to collapse, too.

I sleep late the next morning. I think just because I was a teenager and tired. The day after that when I walked back into chemistry class (the science building is where this occurred) the teacher said, '______________'s back, too!' She's covering up and trying to minimize the event. Look, just because I can walk into a classroom does not mean that I do not have brain damage.

The upshoot. I don't think I was the least bit brain damaged! I don't think I got near enough of a dose. Three years after this incident (which is an eternity when you're a teenager) I was reading in the main medical library, and the doctor writing this article says, as a practical matter, if someone doesn't pass out from carbon monoxide, they probably aren't brain damaged. And I don't feel brain damaged. I don't feel I lost one bit of anything.

The teacher who passed out. The colleague of the teacher who felt motivated to damage control, that is an open question. (to add to it, my Mom tried to conjure up normal feelings of sympathy toward this teacher, seemingly blind to the fact that my Dad had verbally attacked me for not getting along with this same teacher)

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So, sometimes people interaction, sometimes the facts of a health issue. sometimes a swirling confusion of both.

Last edited by AardvarkGoodSwimmer on 25 Feb 2011, 12:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I have convinced myself that I have every single illness.
I don't have a fear of getting it. I believe I have a lot of them.

I'm not a hypochondriac, but I have a different kind of health anxiety.

I have a few health problems already, and almost everything I do I start thinking if it's going to make me feel sick. "If I eat this will it trigger a headache? Will I be too tired if I go to this birthday party?" Stuff like that.

Edit: double post.

Last edited by astaut on 25 Feb 2011, 4:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Jacs, I may be able to give you information with both health worries and depression. And feel-and-texture may be the tool and the factor in common.

For example, all the information on swine flu, all the news reports trying to nail down what cannot be nailed down. Okay, flu can occasionally cause either direct viral pneumonia or indirect bacterial pneumonia. With the viral pneumonia, it's more that you get sicker and sicker, start having more and more trouble breathing. Well, if a person starts having trouble breathing, please, get some help and pronto! And so, maybe not that much of a pattern, maybe just more of a slide.

With bacterial pneumonia (caused by flu stripping epithial cells, leaving you vulnerable), there can be more of a pattern:

“Report Finds Swine Flu Has Killed 36 Children,” New York Times, Denise Grady, Sept. 3, 2009.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/healt ... .html?_r=1
“ . . . In children without chronic health problems, it is a warning sign if they seem to recover from the flu but then relapse with a high fever, Dr. Frieden said. The relapse may be bacterial pneumonia, which must be treated with antibiotics. . . ”

And presumably this is the case with adults, too.

Now, there's going to be all kinds of cases in which the patient only kind of recovers and only kind of relapses. Once again, all that messy gray area.

But, all the same, this is good to know. This adds to a person's repertoire. A little more information, when to see a doctor, when to be a little more insistent, when to see a second doctor if necessary.

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Okay, a patient has a bacterial infection, blast it with one broad-band antibiotic. If that doesn't work, blast it with another. I used to think this was terrible practice of medicine, but I've kind of come around. That kind of ping-ponging, trying something, looking at feedback, trying something else. That is a powerful tool.

Or anemia, probably three dozen different potential causes. Okay, do some lab work, start treating for the most likely. If it doesn't work, do additional lab work, treat for what is then most likely. Well, I guess we could do the million dollar work up, but lose time, also lose feel and texture and right-brain pattern recognition skills. But really, we don't have the money to do the million dollar work up for everyone. We want an inclusion society, etc. heck, I've often been poor (and/or different), often at the very edge of being excluded (have not liked the situation, but parents have helped out financially)

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On depression, some medication works on some people, some on others, and even the greatest doctor in the world can't predict which medication will work on a person and which won't.

Disclaimer: I AM NOT A DOCTOR.

Depression can start out situational and become biochem. We on the spectrum can be excluded for all kinds of lousy reasons and some situations, for all kinds of accidental reasons, can be terrible. Or partially understandable, but boy, they're (most people) not exactly open to different people and not exactly in favor of giving a person a fresh start.

Okay, everyone’s biochem is a little different and something like Zoloft might work very nicely thank you very much for one person and hardly at all for another. And four weeks is about the period of time in which you can tell whether a medication is going to work or not.

And the important thing is to have a doctor with the patience to keep tinkering with the medication. And if a person has to cycle through seven medications (and maybe experiment with diet or I understand lithium can sometimes enhance an antidepressant), what the hell’s wrong with that? It doesn’t mean anything’s wrong with you. It just means biochem is a complicated, tricky thing, and a doctor and patient just needs to keep trying. And if a patient needs to see a new doctor, the equivalent of bringing in a new quarterback while you remain head coach, so be it.

Among the worse are psychologists, psychiatrists, and other mental health “professionals.” Good Lord. All too often, they are “be righters.” Yes, I've had bad experiences as I believe a number of people at WrongPlanet have. These "professionals" can oh so easily slip into them being right about a diagnosis or prescription is more important than the patient’s life going well. (!) (!) And plus, they have their own issues. If a psychologist had a sign on his or her bathroom mirror, ‘My issues are not necessarily the patient’s issues. I am to be there for my patient,’ that would be a good start. And another inspirational sign after another couple of weeks.

So, really, I think a person might be better seeing an internist or family practitioner, who can just as well prescribe an anti-depressant as any other doctor, and might keep more of this light touch, let’s try it a while. Doesn’t work, let’s try something else.

I understand, that if a person abruptly stops taking an antidepressant, sometimes the bottom can fall out and your serotonin levels can fall even further. The stuff I've read is inconsistent regarding this point. It occurs to me, that a person on his or her own, can go down to half and call the same day and make an appointment. And then when he sees the doctor in a couple of days just say, some bad side effects, I’m now down to half a dose. That’s keeping it real. And I’m hoping the doctor would come round and accept this. If not, there’s a lot of other doctors out there.

This is me....I am a huge hypochondriac...and I am not depressed at the moment...I spend weeks obsessed that some little mark could be cancer and I have intrusive thoughts about this...it's horrible! I gave generalized anxiety disorder btw.......

Yup - I used to be one of those stereotypical OCDers, terrified of germs (I could always relate to "Monk", lol). A kid in my middle school got cancer, and then I became afraid that every lump and oddity on me might be cancer. Then, in eighth grade, I became extremely afraid of getting AIDS and other STDs, and I would wash my hands constantly to get rid of any "germs" that might "cause" them. I'm now a lot better, although I still wash my hands more than I should ...

One thing that helps me, is to tell myself that germs DO die after a certain amount of time. Also, with any odd moles or whatever, if there is hair growing out of it, it means that it is healthy - hair wouldn't be able to grow out of cancerous moles. Have you considered going on medication? (Antidepressants also helped me a lot...)