Hypochondria or not?

newpint · Post by **newpint** » Thu Apr 02, 2009 7:56 am

Well I believe I am a hypochondriac and going on the internet to look up symptoms and illness only fed my anxiety. (Made it worse) Yet I could not stop going online. It seems like everytime I would goggle something the first thing that would pop up is something related to cancer. Which is my fear of getting. I have tried to stop goggleing illness and symptoms and my anxiety has improved a little.

Deener · Post by **Deener** » Thu Apr 02, 2009 10:58 am

It makes me laugh to see so many of my irrational thoughts posted! Geez we are all in the same boat. We have our medical books that people like us do not need to have, and now technology gives us Web Md! I can also relate to the little kid thing looking in the medical books. I remember going through puberty and growing breasts and being so scared. Instead of asking my mom, I looked in the medical book and diagnosed myself with breast cancer. After all the knot had never been there before! haha Anyway I remember sleepless nights thinking about dying and plannibg my own funeral. The things we sometimes do to ourselves instead of getting cold hard facts from a knowledgeable person instead of books etc...Sometimes it is hard to tell what is real and what is not unfortunaltely. Good luck to you all.

michellep426 · Post by **michellep426** » Thu Apr 09, 2009 5:24 pm

Good lord isn't hypochonriasis freakin HORRIBLE???? Reading through these other posts was just mind boggling... that's so ME! I look up everything online, went from thinking I had a brain tumor to aids to having colon cancer, now its my heart. I am on a 24 hour holter monitor right now. I got the works done today, blood work, chest x rays, ECG, the holter till tommorrow. I've been getting palpitations a lot more lately, sometimes more than 10 times a day... seemingly out of nowhere, and even though part of me is relieved I'm finally doing something about it, part of me is TERRIFIED they are going to find something real. Then what? What if I do have an arrhythmia? I can hardly take an antibiotic when I have to much less be on pills every day and worry about dying everyday knowing there's a real reason to have concern. I think the hypo anxiety and hypo anxiety attacks are the worst. Because I can talk myself out of regular panick attacks using the techniques I learned. But when I'm trying to talk myself out of why my heart is beating funny or I feel out of breath or I feel dizzy, and then it happens again before I'm completely calmed down, I lost it! I always go down that wrong path. My doc prescribed me citalopram... I'm terrified to take it, but something HAS to give! The definition of insanity is repeating the same actions and expecting different results. Time to face my fear head on... I'll let ya all know more tommorrow when I get my results and if this citalopram helps. Sucks there's no pill for hypochondriasis... I wonder if the anti depressents will end up alleviating some of that. Has anyone else taken them and it helped hypo?