Health Diaries > Hypochondria > The Hypochondria Blog

April 9, 2008

How can I help?

Hi,

I've been reading all your pieces and I'm not sure if I'm crossing a line doing this, but I'm coming from the other side - my partner is a hypochondriac - no problem for me, I love him, the only thing is he doesn't know he is.

I didn't realise the severity of it until we moved in together. He was obsessed that he had a heart condition, his father had a massive heart attack when he was 16 and it obviously had a huge impact on him. His obsession manifested itself by the usual doctors visits, consultants, every test under the sun, google research for hours on end, buying home tests for different ailments and taking several tests a day sometimes every few minutes, waking me in the night because he's convinced his heart is beating irregularly, texts, emails and phone calls. When all the tests come back clear he says they can't be relied upon. Then it turned to stomach problems, two people in my immediate family had been having awful problems with severe reflux acid etc. and had needed operations. Then he got gastroentritis (I know I've spelled that wrong) - eureka! there was something wrong - since then we've forgotten about the heart for the most part and are focusing on the stomach. He reads up on the disease/disorder/illness, is adamant he has one or two of the symtoms and then worries himself into sleepless nights and convinces himself that he's the one in a million who doesn't have the 'classic' symptoms. He now thinks he has GERD and within the space of 15 minutes, convinced himself he was short of breath to tie in with the asthma that some suffers can get.

One doctor told him he had OCD and that cognitive therapy would make a difference - he thinks she's nuts. After a few weeks of sleepless nights (from him waking me up with some symptom or another) I ended up in the doctor crying from sheer exhaustion - well that was the diagnosis. The doctor told me to leave him! No way - I know, god forbid, that if I was sick he would look after me - ok so he might decide he has what I have :) and we'd suffer together - but his good generous heart would be there for me to really care for me. I know he is sick and I want to fight this with him, but every time I bring it up we end up fighting. I've tried to bring it up in a serious factual way, light hearted, peppered the conversation with kisses and hugs, got mad myself - sometimes he'll say 'maybe' but most of the time he gets really cross with me and shuts down and that's the worst thing that can happen.

There are those blissful few days sometimes even a week or two where he seems to nearly forget about it, but it always comes back.

My mom says I should ignore it until he stops talking about it - I like to call it the ostrich approach and until you've lived with this you don't understand that it's not a solution.

Please please please tell me what to do to help him. A lot of you seem aware of what you have and I know it's hard, but you seem to be fighting it. If I broke my leg I would go to a doctor to fix it and I just want him to go to a doctor for the right thing. I just need to take the edge off this. Yesterday he emailed me telling me that a burning in his throat was 'sending him over the edge'. He had a battery of hospital exams just weeks ago and everything was clear and all the docs reports have come back clear.

This has been going on for a year now and before that I'm not sure. I feel really guilty writing this behind his back, but I've tried to find someone to help and they all say the same thing - he has to come to them - so how do I get him to do that with an open mind?

How did you know? How did you accept? What made a difference for you? What can those around you do to make it easier?

I'd really appreciate a few moments of your time to hear from you.

Posted by Staff on April 9, 2008 2:09 AM | DIGG | del.icio.us | furl