The Hypochondria Blog http://hypochondria.healthdiaries.com/ en Copyright 2008 Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:28:15 -0800 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/?v=3.33 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Free Book about Hypochondria Hi everyone-
Riverhead Books is pleased to offer a copy of our upcoming book, WELL ENOUGH ALONE: A Cultural History of My Hypochondria, to anyone interested (we have a very limited quantity, so this is as supplies last). It's the definitive book on being worried well, in all of its gruesome and hysterical detail, from one of our funniest and most distinctive literary voices. If you're interested, send me an email at riverheadbooks@us.penguingroup.com with the subject line of "Well Enough Alone".

Thanks,
Matt

]]> http://hypochondria.healthdiaries.com/free-book-about-hypochondria.html http://hypochondria.healthdiaries.com/free-book-about-hypochondria.html Humor Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:28:15 -0800 Scared Hi i'm 24 y.o and i think i may have hypochondria. Since last yr i've been having extreme nausea and vomiting, which turned out i had reflux. Ever since then i can't help shake the feeling that there's more goin on in my body that i'm aware of. i constantly search the web about symptoms, even if its just a cough. I am a new nurse and reading those books and seeing patients don't help either. Recently i had severe muscle cramps, but doc says everything is fine. But no one has extreme legs cramps every day. She prolly thinks i'm crazy.It freaks me out and i'm scared there is something wrong with me. But as a nurse it seems like i'm overexaggerating these symptoms, i dunno what to do i'm conflicted. i had an endoscopy recently cuz i thought i had stomach cancer because i would vomit and there would be streaks of blood or i thought maybe really big ulcers. those tests were negative, again i'm relieved, but still scared. Everytime i cough, get a headache or ne thing i think i'm about to die. I hate feeling this way and can't tell my family because i feel ridiculous for feeling this way.

]]> http://hypochondria.healthdiaries.com/scared.html http://hypochondria.healthdiaries.com/scared.html Hypochondria Blogs Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:56:54 -0800 Support Needed I have suffered from hypochondria and anxiety ever since I was a child. My symptoms and fears seem to go in cycles. In between I feel OK. This is a particularly bad time for me. About seven months ago, I woke up in the middle of the night with reflux. I have since suffered all kinds of gastrointestinal symptoms including chronic nausea, abdominal pain, a sour/ metallic taste in my mouth, weight loss (partly due to reduced appetite, but also due to???) and FEAR. All I do is dwell, dwell, dwell on my symptoms. I have had two endoscopies (I did have a Schatzky's ring, which was stretched during the 2nd procedure - my esophagus was too inflamed the first time to treat it), a barium swallow, a gastric emptying test, a CT scan of the abdomen, an MRI of the small intestine and lots of blood work. All normal except for the blood work did reveal an alarmingly low IgA function for which I'm going to a new doctor in two weeks. A couple of weeks ago, I saw the title of an article about burning mouth syndrome. I didn't read it because I didn't want to know the symptoms - afraid I'd get them. Well, guess what? I got them anyway! I'm too scared to find out what the typical symptoms of burning mouth syndrome are but the name sounds bad enough. I even have burning stomach syndrome (my invention perhaps?) to go with it and today the skin on my face was burning. I feel like I'm cracking up. Any help appreciated! Mona Lisa

]]> http://hypochondria.healthdiaries.com/support-needed.html http://hypochondria.healthdiaries.com/support-needed.html Personal Stories Thu, 05 Jun 2008 14:01:14 -0800 Crying Wolf I'm so afraid that after all of the years of my "diseases", and running to every doctor in town, that one day I truly am going to have something, and no doctor, family member, or myself will believe it -until I die of course.
I read something cute the other day. It said, "eat healthy, exercise regularly, die anways."
Good luck to all of us.

]]> http://hypochondria.healthdiaries.com/crying-wolf.html http://hypochondria.healthdiaries.com/crying-wolf.html Hypochondria Blogs Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:45:02 -0800 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.

]]> http://hypochondria.healthdiaries.com/how-can-i-help.html http://hypochondria.healthdiaries.com/how-can-i-help.html Hypochondria Blogs Wed, 09 Apr 2008 02:09:45 -0800 How do you know? How do you know if you are a hypochondriac? On some level I know that this fits me of all the internet searches I have done on health issues. What's worse is, I am a nurse. Sick, Huh? Not only do I have the internet for ideas, I actually have seen the worst of the worse in my 10 years of nursing. Before being an RN, I was a CNA. I have had a health related career pretty much my whole life. I can take care of other people's health problems, but not my own.......Again, Sick. I never had issues with anxiety gripping my life until about 2 years ago when my long curly red hair started falling out. No, really, it was falling out. It was a particularly stressful time in my life. So I became fixated on my hair falling out, which lead to dizziness, and heart palpitations and numbness and tingling in my arms and legs. Then after my PCP dismissed my symptoms and gave me an antidepressant "because your husband travels, you have 2 kids, and you need it." WoW! I felt I was cracking up. I really though he might be right and tried the antidepressant only to have a HORRIBLE reaction from it. I thought I was surely dying and no one would figure it out until I was dead. But I set up a counseling appointment. Six months into it, they found out I do have a reason for all those symptoms. I was diagnosed with Hashi's Thyroiditis. Great. So they DID find something. Me finding something ended up having my 35 year old sister find out she had Stage 3 Thyroid Cancer. Ok, now I really started freaking out. Now I must have thyroid cancer too. All the testing ensued. I don't have it, although I MAY get it. That came from a Doctor, by the way. So, ever since then, the anxiety issues have stayed with me. I too, as many of you have experienced globus, and choking feelings, and sore throats, and reflux. What the heck? I thought this was a thyroid problem. Now EVERY symptom I have is "a thyroid problem." I don't know what to do with myself. Palpitations near my period, long periods. Again, I am told thyroid related. I AM on thyroid replacement. I AM in the optimal range for thyroid function....So why can't my fat butt lose weight. Oh, yeah, cause everytime I exercise I get heart palpitations. Did I mention that I am 32 years old? I worry all the time, maybe that's my problem. I managed to marry someone who doesn't EVER worry. He left that marital responsibility to me. Remind me to thank him for that before I die. Yeah, I guess I am a hypochondriac. So what, that just means I am smart. I have figured out how to worry about the very thing that I have the most limited control over... MY HEALTH! Oh, yeah, I am obessed about natural remedies. I feel like the pharmaceutical companies are trying to kill us by giving us meds that give us diseases. You all know I just might be right.....So, instead of taking the meds that may help me, I will just continue to experience the VERY REAL and incapacitating symptoms that plague me on a semi regular basis. I did break down the other day and took 1/2 an Ativan for the heart palpitations I was having. Guess what? Either they went away or it tricked my brain into not caring anymore. AMAZING. So now what? Do I start popping Ativan so I can't feel anything anymore. Nah, not my style. Really I think all this manifested because if I died I don't believe that anyone would raise my 2 beautiful boys the way that I would. That is because I really think that my Hypochondria is my OCD manifestation. My psych asked me if I perform any checking habit? WHO ME? No, better yet, WHO doesn't. If they don't they are the ones with the problem. Don't they know that something COULD be wrong with them, and they just don't know it? AHHH, man, ignorance MUST be bliss.........

Thanks for letting me vent..

Angela

]]> http://hypochondria.healthdiaries.com/how-do-you-know.html http://hypochondria.healthdiaries.com/how-do-you-know.html Hypochondria Blogs Wed, 02 Apr 2008 15:08:13 -0800 Recovering from Health Anxiety Hi, my name is Melissa and I used to have health anxiety/hypochondria. I'm doing so much better now, I have a few issues with anxiety and depression but I'm not too worried about my health.

I have been worried about my health all my life but in about 1999 it got very serious and I stopped being able to function for a while. I was worried I had mostly ALS or MS or some sort of neurological disorder. Then eventually I realized that a lot of the weird physical symptoms I was experiencing were things that were also anxiety symptoms. I found a psychiatrist that was able to help me.

The biggest part of my recovery was realizing that my problem was hypochondria and anxiety, not the diseases I was worried about.

If you'd like to read more about my story, it's on my site at:

http://healthanxiety.homestead.com/

]]> http://hypochondria.healthdiaries.com/recovering-from-health-anxiety.html http://hypochondria.healthdiaries.com/recovering-from-health-anxiety.html Personal Stories Wed, 19 Mar 2008 11:19:30 -0800 hope I hope everybody feels better soon.

]]> http://hypochondria.healthdiaries.com/hope.html http://hypochondria.healthdiaries.com/hope.html Hypochondria Blogs Mon, 17 Mar 2008 01:14:27 -0800 On MS I'm also sufferring terribly from a fear of MS @ the moment. I have 3 bulging discs in my neck, one of which is pressing on my spinal cord & causing numbness and tingling mostly in my left arm (occasionally in my right). Physical therapy and cortisone shots have eased the numbness and tingling but have caused other interesting sensations to occur, which i've convinced myself is actually MS.... despite a perfect brain scan & the reassurance of several doctors and physical therapists. But, as we know, a perfect scan doesn't mean you're in the clear. So, i've been in a terrible doctor loop of scans, blood tests for months now... and everything has turned out perfectly so far. But, in my mind, that just means they haven't done the right test yet. I also want to conceive very badly and need to act quickly because of fertility issues but am frightened that i'm terribly sick.

It's funny that when i recently looked up the definition of hypochondriac one of the diseases we fixate on is MS. I think it's because our anxiety can cause many of the symptoms associated w/MS. I googled my symptoms one day and, of course, MS popped up. Its symptoms are common to about a million different illnesses. The interenet is a hpyochondriac's worst enemy.

I'm also terrible at waiting and seeing. I've convinced myself of many illnesses over the past 18 years (both my parents died suddenly when i was young... @ different times) and i've never had a single one. Although my symptoms were real, they either turned out to be nothing or nothing life threatening at all... never what i thought it was. So, maybe it is all in my head... i hope so anyway.

I'm here if you want to talk... usually @ all hours of the night too. I'm sure you know what that's like. Breathe, regardless of what it is... if anything... it will definately be ok. We can more than handle whatever comes our way in life :)

]]> http://hypochondria.healthdiaries.com/on-ms.html http://hypochondria.healthdiaries.com/on-ms.html Hypochondria Blogs Sat, 15 Mar 2008 16:22:52 -0800 Hello, is anyone still using this site? I'm in Canada and really need some support. The fear of the past month is ALS or MS, I've actually gotten to the point of hoping it's "something like MS" because of my fear of ALS. My father has MS so I guess I've spent much of my life worrying about it, I've had 3 brain MRI. Typing it out sounds crazy, however, I often say to people, how can it be crazy if the symptoms are there, the lumps are there...!!! I guess the difference is my inability to 'wait and see' I am immediately convinced I'm dying. I do have Crohn's disease, diagnosed 10 years ago after a year of being sick and doctors telling me that it's all in my head and it turns out, it was something. I guess that adds to my fears. Most recently is a sudden attack of severe all over body aches which I thought at first to be the flu (but no fever). It felt like my bones, muscles and skin were all aching at once. That was nearly six weeks ago. I am taking pain killers everyday and had been, unitl six weeks ago, trying to conceive (I got married in October) so now I feel even sorrier for myself as I am 33. I have constant fatigue in my legs and upper arms and pain that seems to move everywhere, some twitching (usually after walking etc.). I'm sometimes so exhausted I cannot lift my fork to my mouth to eat...

Is anyone out there, I feel as if I have lost all hope...

]]> http://hypochondria.healthdiaries.com/.html http://hypochondria.healthdiaries.com/.html Hypochondria Blogs Fri, 14 Mar 2008 12:32:10 -0800 Hi can anyone give me any advice for the past ten years on and off i`ve had symtoms of heart attacks some days i have chest pain all day with pains down my arm, i`m petrified of even going for a shower if i`m alone in the house incase i have one and no-one finds me. this is ruining my life i`m sick of chest pains and worrying. p.s i`ve had numerous ECG`S all clear and other checks off my doctor but i just don`t believe him

]]> http://hypochondria.healthdiaries.com/.html http://hypochondria.healthdiaries.com/.html Hypochondria Blogs Mon, 10 Mar 2008 08:30:36 -0800 I am 33, mom of three. Dad died of a heart attack at 48 (first heart attack at 31). About six years ago, I became certain that I had a tumor, or something wrong with my gall bladder. It was nothing. Lately I am convinced that I am about to drop dead of a heart attack, just like my father. I CANNOT stop worrying about it. I know it's dragging my life down, and I've spent unecessary money on dr visits and tests. I mean, what 33year old do you know who has a cardiologist?! I am scared to death of taking any drugs for it (no, seriously), but what do I have to lose? Anyone on meds and successfully come off them? Any one out there beaten this horrible beast???

]]> http://hypochondria.healthdiaries.com/.html http://hypochondria.healthdiaries.com/.html Hypochondria Blogs Tue, 19 Feb 2008 17:53:00 -0800 im 17 and i have been dealing with hypochondria for almost a year. my mom doesn't believe me, and my friends never give me the time of the day to even listen to me. I can't tell my boyfriend, he will think I'm a creep-o. I am facing many things. At times my ear gets clogged, and I think I'm going deaf. My eye turns red and highly irritated, I think I'm going blind. The one I worry about most is getting a STD. Not to mention, I lost it to my boyfriend and he lost it to me, and I have no intention with every having sex with anyone else due to cervical cancer and I don't want to contribute an STD. I have been tested twice in the past year. I wanted to go get tested once every month, but it gets pricey. When the doctors tell me I do not have one, I think they are lying to me. In a sense I want to know to know if something is wrong with me, but when Im at the doctors office I'm shaking because I don't know want to hear if anything is wrong with me. I sit at home and worry, worry, worry, worry, and worry. I cry all the time about it because I am so scared. I don't know what to do...

]]> http://hypochondria.healthdiaries.com/.html http://hypochondria.healthdiaries.com/.html Hypochondria Blogs Sat, 16 Feb 2008 11:02:43 -0800 i always think i am dying Hello. I just found this site and thought i would share my story. Ever since I was very young, I have thought I had many diseases. When my brother was three and I was six, he got a piece of carrot lodged in his lungs and had to have surgery to remove it. For months I would cry and choke at night thinking I too had a carrot stuck in my lung. When I was seven I watched a movie about AIDS and thought i had Aids for about a year after that. Now, I am 25 and almost everyday I think I am having a heart attack, and I always tell myself, yeah, this time I'm really going to die. Needless to say, I never do. Also, for three years I had a permanent sore throat. thinking I had cancer, I saw about five or six different doctors about it, and finally a throat specialist succeeded in convincing me that I was fine. The next morning, for the first time in years, my sore throat went away. Now, besides for the heart attack thing, I have a lump on my chest which three doctors said was a cyst, and I cant help but really believe it is cancer. I am so sick of always thinking I am dying. and i am scared that one day I will be actually sick and no one will believe me.

]]> http://hypochondria.healthdiaries.com/i-always-think-i-am-dying.html http://hypochondria.healthdiaries.com/i-always-think-i-am-dying.html Hypochondria Blogs Sun, 03 Feb 2008 13:19:14 -0800 My hypochondriasis is worse than ever I just found this site after spending countless hours for the past two years searching for solutions to my numerous health problems. I have had OCD and hypochondriasis since the age of 4- I am currently in my 40's. I have diagnosed myself with everything from cancers to aids( live like a nun) -non of course which I have. Now I have been engaged in a battle with a possible diagnosis of reflux. The latter has been the most difficult to overcome. Three doctors say that I don't have it based upon mannometry and pH testing but and ENT says that I do based on history and the apprearance of my larynx. I did not manifest any symtoms of heartburn until I was told that I have reflux for the first time. After that I developed speech problems, hoarseness, globus etc. and was put on Pariet. It has all gotten to be too much for myself and my family. At least with all the skin lesions they could be biopsied and a definitive diagnosis could be made. Now I am afraid to be on or off the Pariet and am totally obsessed with finding a solution to the situation. Reflux is a tough one for hypochondriacs because it is difficult to diagnosis with any certainty and it can of course cause esophageal or laryngeal cancers so it is like the PERFECT disorder for the OCD hypo. I no longer function- used to be a successful teacher and am living in a severe depression which is comorbid with severe anxiety.
Just wondering if anyone else has successfully dealt with the relux as a potential somatiform disorder. I am on an antidepressants and engaging in CBT. I would love to hear from others who may be going through something similar and hear some suggestions on how to deal with it.

Thanks for your interest.

Anne

]]> http://hypochondria.healthdiaries.com/my-hypochondriasis-is-worse-than-ever.html http://hypochondria.healthdiaries.com/my-hypochondriasis-is-worse-than-ever.html Hypochondria Blogs Tue, 22 Jan 2008 21:48:23 -0800