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Is there any hope for people obsessed with their health?

  
 
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00:43 / 04.06.04
I was just wondering if anyone here was familiar with any revelant books/websites/psychiatric approaches for those unfortunate souls who obsess over their health (and most probably make themselves sick over it!) Sadly, I am one of those people.

For most of my life I've usually been a worrywart about my health... Only in the last year or so has it become crippling however. It all began when I graduated from high school 6 years ago. That summer I experienced a mega chest pain and thought I was having a heart attack. It turns out it was only chronic acid reflux so they put me on medication to help stop it (which worked). I got through college happy and content... But once I graduated college my health obsessiveness came back big time. I thought that getting a full-time job would make it go away, but if anything it's only amplified it.

Let me give a few examples of what it's like:

Last May. I had the start of a sore throat. I went to the family medical encyclopedia and looked up throat symptoms. A few minutes later I was convinced I had the start of meningitis. I read about stiff necks and my neck stiffened up. I read about fevers and my body started to sweat. Shortly afterwards I was trembling, teeth chattering, legs shaking uncontrollaby, stomach tightening, nausea (later on I learned these were panic attacks. These I can kind of control if I observe the symptoms carefully and mentally calm myself).

last month: Went on new heartburn pills. Unfortunetly I made the mistake of reading the little info thing that comes with it, that warns about possible (though very very rare) side effects. After reading this it took me a week to bring up the courage to finally try the new pill (switching medications or trying new ones always worries me to no end).

last week at work: I was the cashier. usually at the end of a cashier shift my legs ache. This shift, about an hour in, I thought "What happens if my legs hurt that bad an hour from now? How will I get through my shift? What if my legs give out from under me?" Not five seconds later did my legs start feeling unbeliveably heavy until they were all I could focus on, and in a short while they felt exactly like they would by a shift's end... This led to new worries: Do I have a blood clot? Is this the sign of a pulminary ebolism (one of my biggest fears, along with stomach & brain cancer). I decided this was psychosomatic so i tried focusing my mind on other parts of my body. Eventually the leg pains went away.

A few nights ago: This recent week due to a rare schedule change I had to get up earlier then usual in the morning (I'm not a morning person at all). To counter this i went to bed earlier but all I could think about was getting up early the next morning and worrying that I'd fall asleep too late. naturally this prevented me from sleeping and my unoccupied mind kept carrying on and on... "What if you don't get enough sleep? What if you have a mental breakdown at work from exhaustion?" (having a mental breakdown in public is a big fear for an introvert like myself. It should be said that I work at Barnes & Noble, hardly a high stress job, but I'm filled with great anxiety at the start of each work week about whether I'll be able to get through it).

Seriously, my family had to hide the medical encylopedia I got so bad and at times I've spent hours trawling health sites on the web, which only convinces me that I have a symptom that could be one of 30 different disease/conditions. This past year I've had so many bizarre aches and pains and been to the doctors so many times, but because my complaints have been non-specific they don't think it's serious. My main doctor put me on zoloft but I'm not sure if I'm depressed or just suffer major-scale anxiety attacks. In any event it seems I'm only depressed when my health is poor or I'm in pain (which is nearly everyday as of recent). I don't know. At the moment I'm not sure if there's either something really wrong with me, if it's all psychosomatic, if I'm just nuts or what. But it's really bumming me out and affecting my life in ways I'm not happy with.

I suppose it's no surprise I'm a fan of Grant Morrison and David Cronenberg.
 
 
Ganesh
00:35 / 05.06.04
Best thing is to have an able and robust general practitioner who's able to say no.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
10:42 / 05.06.04
How about some sort of negative conditioning, like each time you look at a website you bite your thumb or something like that? It seems from what you're saying that most of your health problems are psychosomatic and brought on by trying to convince yourself you have a disease than really having one, so your physical health seems quite... well, healthy.So ween yourself off the books by introducing some negative stimulation, and without that then you'll only need to go to the doctor when you're genuinely ill.
 
 
Cailín
20:47 / 06.06.04
I'm all in favour of being medically aware, and educating yourself about your health - I know more about my cancer than most of my doctors do, and that suits me just fine, because it's better to know. On the other hand, what you have going on is, well, a little unhealthy. Not to go all psychobabble on you, but I've heard of this behaviour before, and it's not typically symptomatic of a physical ailment, but rather of a psychological one. Obsessive-compulsives quite often run for the medical encyclopaedia every time they feel a bit off. And people with Munchhausen Syndrome do it in reverse - they come up with terrific symptoms and fabricated illnesses. Not to say that either one of these necessarily applies to you. I've been guilty of this on a lot of occasions, although it's been under control for quite some time. Mine stems from the fear of a recurrence of cancer - for a while I had myself pretty convinced that there was no hope for me, that it would definitely come back, in spite of any statistical information to the contrary. I can understand what you're going through, because I always figured somebody has to be on the crummy side of a statistic, and why not me?
Your anxiety about your health, coupled with acid reflux at a young age, well, it seems a little too coincidental, like one has a lot to do with the other. If I were you, I'd try talking to your general practitioner, and see about getting some counselling. I don't think you're crazy at all, but if somebody can help you deal with this, and get you to apply logic and rational thought to your health, maybe you can stop obsessing over it. And in the meantime, I'd have someone hide the medical encyclopaedia and block your access to all medical websites, if at all possible. Good luck.
 
  
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