4 ms·

I'm 28 and have severe hypochondria, so this article was a terrifying read. Having a stroke is my #1 fear. But reading it makes me feel good about having shifte

by cesarbs 10y ago

I'm 28 and have severe hypochondria, so this article was a terrifying read. Having a stroke is my #1 fear. But reading it makes me feel good about having shifted my attitude to work after I got married. I don't think I'll ever be the workaholic that I was in my early 20s, because my priorities have shifted so much after getting married and I've become especially frightened of the idea of stressing myself out to the point of suffering something like a stroke. The last thing I want in my life is to burden my wife with having to take care of a disabled me. In fact, I don't think it's only work that can lead to bad health issues caused by stress. I have my whole routine designed to have a low stress life. I avoid bringing in anything into my life that might be a major source of stress. I keep everything as simple as possible. On the symptoms side of things though, I now have to go to the doctor. Again. Reading about the buzzing in the right eye and the tingling was terrifying because I've been feeling something similar for the past few months. So onto my 4th brain scan in the past few years... Sigh. Hypochondria is a bitch.

daeken 10y ago
> On the symptoms side of things though, I now have to go to the doctor. Again. Reading about the buzzing in the right eye and the tingling was terrifying because I've been feeling something similar for the past few months. So onto my 4th brain scan in the past few years... Sigh. Hypochondria is a bitch. I really hope you find a way to handle this that doesn't involve very expensive reassurance from doctors. I experience something very similar when I read about heart conditions; I go into a spiral of anxiety where I believe my heart is failing, even though countless doctors have assured me that I'm perfectly fine there. Isn't the human brain just a ton of fun?
- M_Grey 10y ago
  The trick is to accept that we're animals, and that meta-cognition is only a part of the game we're playing. We have to figure out ways to deal with the less expressive and more primitive parts of ourselves that don't respond as well to that "internal voice". Sometimes you just have to count primes and take deep breaths, even if it feels silly.
  - mercer 10y ago
    I try to remind myself of that whenever I am anxious. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't. Meditation has also had some positive effect, as has CBT. But man does it feel weird that my brain is aware of its own misbehavior and yet can't master it.
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      It's a humbling experience, especially if (as I'm sure many here are) you're an analytical sort, used to problems being resolved with focus and attention.
- DenisM 10y ago
  Did you try treating anxiety as such?
  - daeken 10y ago
    Yep, been treating my anxiety for the last year and a half or so. I'm doing a lot better, thanks to a combination of medications (propranolol to take the edge off the physical symptoms I experience, and xanax to make panic attacks much less awful). But it's still something that's essentially everpresent -- just being managed.
- gm-conspiracy 10y ago
  How many of us here have gotten EKGs for panic attacks we thought were heart-attacks?
  - agumonkey 10y ago
    I did delay such tests for long, what decided me is very weak pulse in the morning, even after a normal night of sleep, and completely at rest horizontally. I had trouble keep my arms above my chest (felt like they were weighting a ton, same sensation if you try to hold your arms up for a few minutes). Also the fact that I couldn't use my indoor bike for 10 minutes without feeling numbness in many places and tingling that also reminded me of bad blood flow. I had to submit to cardiologists conclusion saying "nothing I can see here". My main problem with this is that, maybe a big panic/anxiety can trigger weak heart, bad blood flow, fat accumulation and small stroke. Which then weaken your heart for longer period, hence the whole fatigue, weak pulse, effort intolerance. Etc. Standard cardiac/blood pressure tests don't look there, and the only way would be high end cardiac or very invasive artery monitoring (angiography, coronarography) ...
M_Grey 10y ago
You might be better served by seeing a doctor who can help you with your hypochondria, or otherwise seek some means to manage your anxiety. Some means of recognizing thoughts you're having which are excessively rooted in fallacy, obsessive thoughts and the like, not to mention learning how to redirect your attention and calm yourself is a good idea. After all, the result of that will be that you're under less stress, and less likely to have some kind of cardiovascular event.
Zelphyr 10y ago
Check Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT). It's a form of CBT that has been particularly successful in treating anxiety-related issues.
- helloworld 10y ago
  ACT sounds interesting. This is from an Amazon interview with its creator, Steven Hayes, who's written a book: We get a lot of training in how to develop and use our minds, but we get very little training in how to step out of the mental chatter when that is needed.... Learning how to get out of your mind and into your life when you need to do that is an essential skill in the modern world.[1] [1] https://www.amazon.com/Get-Your-Mind-Into-Life-ebook/dp/B0054M063A/ https://www.amazon.com/Get-Your-Mind-Into-Life-ebook/dp/B005...
  - Zelphyr 10y ago
    The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris is another good and very approachable book on ACT.
- brenfrow 10y ago
  I was just about the recommend the same. This has done amazing things for me. See the book "Get out of your mind, and into you life".
dav- 10y ago
I struggled with severe hypochondria for about two years. I had been feeling tingling/numbness/buzzing all over my body, coming on in waves and lasting anywhere from minutes to over a week at a time. I was ~~worried~~ convinced that it was MS. My (awesome) doctor told me that it was super unlikely to be something as serious as MS, and that it was most likely my anxiety. I had always avoided medications in the past; even though I knew I had anxiety, I thought I could continue coping with it on my own. I finally took his advice and started taking an SSRI (Paxil) and my very physical symptoms disappeared almost immediately even at the lowest dose, after lingering for months. Before I started on the medication, I was unable to read the news or search Google about anything health related because the simple mention of any random disease would send me into a near panic attack. Now, I can research any disease in depth and feel zero anxiety. Oh, and did I mention that prior to being worried about MS, I was convinced that I had some type of heart defect. My doctor at the time was not nearly as good as my current one, and she indulged in my anxiety and we went through the whole battery of tests: EKG, Holter monitor, echocardiogram. Everything came back normal, but my worry just shifted to a new thing. I guess my experience has led me to two conclusions: treat your anxiety first, and try to find a great doctor.
- agumonkey 10y ago
  "Funny", after grief, I started to feel tons of problems, but also heart issues (as mentioned in another comment in this thread). Although it was way more than tingling and sensations (pain in fingers arteries, arm veins, heart, all felt like tiny clogging things moving around), I couldn't lift my arms, run or do any sort of efforts, for an ex athlete it was very damaging. Anyway I also did the same tests as yours. Things looked normal, but I dismissed their tests (a 5min effort test is not enough, you can exhaust yourself in 5 minute, you'd need 15minutes sustained effort to trigger change in heart and vascular regime). After 2 different doctors, I finally accepted the SSRI pill. It did affect my state tremendously for 2 days, mostly brain and lung. Still not good enough on the muscular/stamina side though. Body is a complex machine.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
reitoei 10y ago
> So onto my 4th brain scan in the past few years You really, really need to talk to a different doctor.

by cesarbs 10y ago

daeken 10y ago

> On the symptoms side of things though, I now have to go to the doctor. Again. Reading about the buzzing in the right eye and the tingling was terrifying because I've been feeling something similar for the past few months. So onto my 4th brain scan in the past few years... Sigh. Hypochondria is a bitch. I really hope you find a way to handle this that doesn't involve very expensive reassurance from doctors. I experience something very similar when I read about heart conditions; I go into a spiral of anxiety where I believe my heart is failing, even though countless doctors have assured me that I'm perfectly fine there. Isn't the human brain just a ton of fun?

M_Grey 10y ago
The trick is to accept that we're animals, and that meta-cognition is only a part of the game we're playing. We have to figure out ways to deal with the less expressive and more primitive parts of ourselves that don't respond as well to that "internal voice". Sometimes you just have to count primes and take deep breaths, even if it feels silly.
- mercer 10y ago
  I try to remind myself of that whenever I am anxious. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't. Meditation has also had some positive effect, as has CBT. But man does it feel weird that my brain is aware of its own misbehavior and yet can't master it.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    It's a humbling experience, especially if (as I'm sure many here are) you're an analytical sort, used to problems being resolved with focus and attention.
DenisM 10y ago
Did you try treating anxiety as such?
- daeken 10y ago
  Yep, been treating my anxiety for the last year and a half or so. I'm doing a lot better, thanks to a combination of medications (propranolol to take the edge off the physical symptoms I experience, and xanax to make panic attacks much less awful). But it's still something that's essentially everpresent -- just being managed.
gm-conspiracy 10y ago
How many of us here have gotten EKGs for panic attacks we thought were heart-attacks?
- agumonkey 10y ago
  I did delay such tests for long, what decided me is very weak pulse in the morning, even after a normal night of sleep, and completely at rest horizontally. I had trouble keep my arms above my chest (felt like they were weighting a ton, same sensation if you try to hold your arms up for a few minutes). Also the fact that I couldn't use my indoor bike for 10 minutes without feeling numbness in many places and tingling that also reminded me of bad blood flow. I had to submit to cardiologists conclusion saying "nothing I can see here". My main problem with this is that, maybe a big panic/anxiety can trigger weak heart, bad blood flow, fat accumulation and small stroke. Which then weaken your heart for longer period, hence the whole fatigue, weak pulse, effort intolerance. Etc. Standard cardiac/blood pressure tests don't look there, and the only way would be high end cardiac or very invasive artery monitoring (angiography, coronarography) ...

M_Grey 10y ago

You might be better served by seeing a doctor who can help you with your hypochondria, or otherwise seek some means to manage your anxiety. Some means of recognizing thoughts you're having which are excessively rooted in fallacy, obsessive thoughts and the like, not to mention learning how to redirect your attention and calm yourself is a good idea. After all, the result of that will be that you're under less stress, and less likely to have some kind of cardiovascular event.

Zelphyr 10y ago

Check Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT). It's a form of CBT that has been particularly successful in treating anxiety-related issues.

helloworld 10y ago
ACT sounds interesting. This is from an Amazon interview with its creator, Steven Hayes, who's written a book: We get a lot of training in how to develop and use our minds, but we get very little training in how to step out of the mental chatter when that is needed.... Learning how to get out of your mind and into your life when you need to do that is an essential skill in the modern world.[1] [1] https://www.amazon.com/Get-Your-Mind-Into-Life-ebook/dp/B0054M063A/ https://www.amazon.com/Get-Your-Mind-Into-Life-ebook/dp/B005...
- Zelphyr 10y ago
  The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris is another good and very approachable book on ACT.
brenfrow 10y ago
I was just about the recommend the same. This has done amazing things for me. See the book "Get out of your mind, and into you life".

dav- 10y ago

I struggled with severe hypochondria for about two years. I had been feeling tingling/numbness/buzzing all over my body, coming on in waves and lasting anywhere from minutes to over a week at a time. I was ~~worried~~ convinced that it was MS. My (awesome) doctor told me that it was super unlikely to be something as serious as MS, and that it was most likely my anxiety. I had always avoided medications in the past; even though I knew I had anxiety, I thought I could continue coping with it on my own. I finally took his advice and started taking an SSRI (Paxil) and my very physical symptoms disappeared almost immediately even at the lowest dose, after lingering for months. Before I started on the medication, I was unable to read the news or search Google about anything health related because the simple mention of any random disease would send me into a near panic attack. Now, I can research any disease in depth and feel zero anxiety. Oh, and did I mention that prior to being worried about MS, I was convinced that I had some type of heart defect. My doctor at the time was not nearly as good as my current one, and she indulged in my anxiety and we went through the whole battery of tests: EKG, Holter monitor, echocardiogram. Everything came back normal, but my worry just shifted to a new thing. I guess my experience has led me to two conclusions: treat your anxiety first, and try to find a great doctor.

agumonkey 10y ago
"Funny", after grief, I started to feel tons of problems, but also heart issues (as mentioned in another comment in this thread). Although it was way more than tingling and sensations (pain in fingers arteries, arm veins, heart, all felt like tiny clogging things moving around), I couldn't lift my arms, run or do any sort of efforts, for an ex athlete it was very damaging. Anyway I also did the same tests as yours. Things looked normal, but I dismissed their tests (a 5min effort test is not enough, you can exhaust yourself in 5 minute, you'd need 15minutes sustained effort to trigger change in heart and vascular regime). After 2 different doctors, I finally accepted the SSRI pill. It did affect my state tremendously for 2 days, mostly brain and lung. Still not good enough on the muscular/stamina side though. Body is a complex machine.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

reitoei 10y ago

> So onto my 4th brain scan in the past few years You really, really need to talk to a different doctor.