Anyone dealing with health anxiety?

When my thoughts would spin out of control making me crazy with all kinds of scary scenarios, my good friend would lecture me "Better go out and get the copyright attorneys,'cause you're writing a novel." A nice way of telling me to shut down the thought factory. ( We used to attend Zen meditation sessions together).
He also quoted his sophisticated and elegant mother, "Most of the things you worry about don't happen."
Put the thinking on hold until you have some grist for the mill. 🤜🤛

I think we can all sympathize, because we all have health anxiety of some sort or we wouldn't be on this site.

That may sound a bit sarcastic, but I am quite serious. I certainly appreciate the terror of waiting for test results!

But as @shmerdloff points out, it's best not to build apocalyptic scenarios in your mind. I know, because I'm an expert at it, and I've spent years working at letting go of worry.

Still working at it.

@fudge08
Is your anxiety about the unknown related to your injury or how your injury will affect your functioning daily or both? What were you doing that caused the injury?

Have you had MRI of lumbar spine and hips/pelvis? This would show if you have any disc issues, compressed nerves, torn tendons, inflammation, etc. and treatment options available can then be determined.

Counseling and medication to help manage anxiety may help you cope.

@fudge08 ,
Is your appointment with a physical therapist or talk therapist? I’ve used both and they were quite helpful. Talk therapy helped me learn techniques to sooth myself when feeling anxious about potential health issues. It changed everything for the better. I had the option of meds too, but didn’t take them, though I would have if necessary.

There is hope for managing health anxiety. It can cause those around you emotional distress too, I wish you all the best.

Thank you, this is a wonderful reminder for me to stop looking for trouble that has not even happened. I hope to be able to walk through this season day by day and moment by moment.

Thank you, I am ready to let go of this worry but I recognize it is not going to be easy.

Thank you, I have an appointment with cognitive behavioral therapist next week. Also I am under the care of PT. It is helpful not only with the physical symptoms but she clarifies for me why certain muscles and joints are hurting and how they relate to the injury, and that helps somewhat with my mind going to the what if this pain is caused by “xyz” disease!

I had X-rays and inflammatory labs. The initial labs looked ok as well as my X-ray but then the doctor did some autoimmune labs and one came back elevated. Even though the doctor is not worried, and says it does not mean I have an autoimmune disease, and many healthy people test positive for the antibodies, it has sent me spiraling into the scenario that I have a disease process. I was emotionally prepared, I think, for a long recovery when I thought it was muscle or tendon injuries but once I experienced the fear of disease I have felt anxiety.

@fudge08
My teen son has health anxiety (he has a heart defect, ADHD, OCD, anxiety, POTS, etc.) and struggles when his heart starts to beat fast/hard. He has, at times, worried he was dying. He had covid 2x and may be dealing with some long covid symptoms. He inherited some anxiety from both his mom and dad (I have struggled with panic attacks, anxiety and depression and his father has generalized/social anxiety and OCD with negative/intrusive thoughts). My son does well with biweekly CBT/counseling, deep breathing techniques, refocusing intrusive thoughts and taking magnesium supplements which helps calm nerves some.

What type of accident did you have that injured your hips/pelvis? Did you fall? If you aren’t already, you may benefit from seeing an orthopedic hip/pelvis specialist for an MRI of soft tissues. X-ray does not pick up soft tissue injury and bloodwork won’t always detect what is going on. When I had hip pain, I went to an orthopedic hip specialist who said my X-rays didn’t show any issues in my hip joint but sent me for hip MRIs. The MRIs showed I had bilateral gluteal tendinopathy and bilateral high grade partial hamstring tears! They offered PT and cortisone injections but I didn’t get the shots. It has taken a while to get better but do believe I may need a debridement surgery to reattach my right hamstring tendon. Years ago, a ct scan showed I had inflammation of the ischial tuberosity hamstring attachment (not sure if caused by sitting a lot for my desk job plus I have hypermobility which may be tied to autoimmune issues that run in my family (my son has hypermobility as well and I also have Hashimoto’s thyroiditis).

Thank you so much for these insights and sharing how your family is dealing with these issues ! I feel like I need to plug in with an orthopedic doctor and further investigate the possibility of soft tissue and muscle injury, which my PT has already suggested might be a factor. We started renovating a house. I am 62 and not used to that much repetitive bending, lifting, climbing stairs. I had some shoulder and neck pain but that went away fairly soon but the hips, hamstrings, were excruciating. My initial inflammatory labs, sed rate , crp, ck that looks at muscle damage were normal but when they did the ANA antibody test it came back elevated and that is what is leading to all the further autoimmune testing. To your suggestion I feel that an ortho consult makes sense. They told me that X-rays would not show muscle damage.
I am very hopeful the CBT therapy can help me with the anxiety side of this. I k ow it is interfering with my life and general health as well as my ability to heal.