Health Anxiety Makes Me Think I Have Leukemia

MATD · Jun 7, 2023

Anxiety is the culprit. You have gotten yourself worked up into the state you find yourself in. I’m pretty seasoned in the anxiety condition, having suffered it for many years. Instead of talking about symptoms, let’s talk about the cure. There is a method of acceptance developed by a renowned Dr, Claire Weekes. She has many books available on line at cheap prices. There is also a book by Carl James, It’s Only Anxiety, available on line. These books give us the way to recover from the anxiety condition. They teach us how to accept our anxiety symptoms without reacting to them. It’s your reaction to the symptoms that keeps the anxiety going. By practicing acceptance, it literally calms the mind and body and lets the anxiety and it’s “symptoms” fade away.

MATD · Jun 7, 2023

Accept that you feel that way but don’t react to it. Accepting means to recognize your urge and understanding it is only anxiety making you feel the way you do. Then you simply don’t react by looking things up. Giving in, or better said, reacting to the urge is what keeps the anxiety going. A gentle few words to yourself, such as “ I know it’s only anxiety” helps to redirect your mind. Do it every time you have that urge. And you can use the same technique for the thoughts you have that lead up to the urge to google. Simply accept that it’s anxiety causing these thoughts and don’t react to them. Do not be hard on yourself either and feel bad about these thoughts. If you do, that’s reacting. Just simply tell yourself “it’s ok, it’s only anxiety.” I seriously urge you to get Dr Weeke’s book, Hope and Help For Your Nerves or Carl James’ book, It’s Only Anxiety. These books will teach you how to deal with your anxiety and help you recover. Anxiety only gets worse as time goes on if it is left untreated. The acceptance method helps us to learn how to recover, calm our mind down. Right now you are young, nip it before it does worsen.

Jonathan123 · Jun 8, 2023

Oh Yes!! I go along with everything that has been said. I would only add that, as said before, we fall for illusions. What is an illusion? It's something that seems real but never is! The problem arises because the symptoms SEEM so real They do don't they? When the magician comes on and makes a railway train disappear we know it's an illusion, but it seems as if it really happens. It's all smoke and mirrors in HA, but because it is so painful in a mental sense, we believe it all. That does not stop it being an illusion! As others have said, accept it all. How does the train disappear? Does it really matter? What matters is that we see it all as an illusion and don't react to it by adding fear to fear and thus stoke the fire.
The urge to look up symptoms. I do know what you mean because I could not stop doing it when I had GAD, but in those days there were no Googles only the public library, so I went there. It was the equivalent of looking up Google. I became addicted to looking up everything. It just made me worse. If I had only known then what I know now! Then I got Dr. Weekes' books and with wise counselling and the books and recordings I began to improve, but it took time, lots of it. It can become a habit because we are looking for reassurance and we surely won't find it on Google.

Sophiexoxo · Jun 8, 2023

Sneakycat563 said:
For about 6 weeks, I have had health anxiety and I was making it worse by looking up symptoms on Google (not a good idea). For the whole six weeks I have been stressing out about what I think I might have. I don’t want to give anyone else any anxiety from hearing different health conditions, so just a warning. Some of the things that I thought or think I might have over the last 6 weeks are heart disease, heart failure, lung failure, GERD, silent reflux, esophagitis, throat cancer, brain cancer, and leukemia. My health anxiety got really bad last week when I looked up about heart failure. Now my health anxiety is affecting me almost all day besides after I talk with my family about my health anxiety. When I think about all the conditions that I diagnosed myself with, I actually have really strong proof I have hypochondria, but my brain for some reason doesn’t agree with what I know is happening to me. It seems like whenever I find a condition I think I might have, that’s when my anxiety gets worse and I start to feel symptoms that weren’t even there before. When I find on to a new condition, it kind of seems like the symptoms for the what I thought I had before either go away or aren‘t as noticiable. Currently, I am really worried about having leukemia even though my family keeps reassuring me I don’t have leukemia. When I looked up the symptoms, I found that most of the symptoms were kind of happening to me. When my anxiety isn’t getting the best of me, I think that instead of having serious conditions, I think I just have health anxiety, silent reflux, and maybe iron deficiency. Sorry if it sounded like I vented a lot of my health anxiety problems. Don’t feel forced, but anyone has the time and patience, it would be a great help to talk to someone on this thread.

I could have written this post myself exactly as you have said it. I’ve suffered with health anxiety for well over 10 years. And what you have described is my life daily. The only thing keeps me going is I tell myself that “last time I had a worry that I was dying or had a serious illness I didn’t have one” and this helps me sometimes. Go to the doctor and ask for some blood tests and the majority of Tests ie a CBC will pick up anything sinister. This will help to put your mind at ease at least for the time being. I don’t really have much advice seeing as I am in the exact same boat. It’s so hard and tiring. I know how hard it is to try and tell yourself that it’s just your anxiety. But it will get better

Health Anxiety Makes Me Think I Have Leukemia

Sneakycat563

New Member

MATD

Well-Known Member

Sneakycat563

New Member

MATD

Well-Known Member

Jonathan123

Well-Known Member

Sophiexoxo

Member