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Anxiety due to "uncertainty" of a medical condition vs hypochondriasis.

by MOTAH, May 16, 2007 12:00AM
Hi all,

I have been reading a lot of posts in here & I found in many cases that I'm not alone that my anxiety was introduced by the mystery of what exactly is wrong with me & if it is a killer disease that I have or not, since it took my drs a bit of time to diagnose me correctly.

I don't know if I'm qualified to diagnose myself or anyone else with hypochondriasis (obsession in one's health).

I see that any normal person has the right to be anxious if they see that they have a disabling symptoms that are unexplainable. sometimes or at least in my case it took me 3 months to find out what is wrong & to be honest what I have as answers are still "theories" & defenite answer to what exactly is wrong with me, practically whatever is unexplainable clincally is always blammed on anxiety/stress.

I would like to hear from anyone that actually felt anxiety symptoms disappear or decrease once they know they were ok or know reason behind their illness or actually found that there's nothing wrong with them.

I done some research & found that hypochondriasis could only be diagnosed if someone has the health anxiety for more than 6 months period.

I think that any normal person without any mental illness will feel the same way about their health if they keep getting sicker & they have more symptoms everyday WITHOUT an explanation or a medical reason for their symptoms.

would like to see if anyone walked that road before.

My theory that I've been thinking about, that uncertaintity of any illness could get a normal thinking person to be anxious for a long period of time & anxiety symptoms lasts even after diagnosis was done because stress levels were already elevated.

does anyone agree with me.

cheers,

Member Comments (13)

by Beat Down, May 17, 2007 12:00AM
Exactly what I think also. I have to constantly remind myself that this ball of medical symptoms started rolling after my anxiety. It is unbelievable.  

by LBSooner, May 17, 2007 12:00AM
To: Beat Down
I guess that is where I would seperate myself. I had physical symptoms of the digestive systems that they can't seem to link to anxiety - before I had anxiety attacks.

The anxiety on-set was after these physical symptoms became prominent enough that they made be start to think I might be seriously ill.

Tks,
LB

by BethanySublime, May 17, 2007 12:00AM
i think you're right definitely, but there are also those who were hypochondriacs before having anxiety/panic attacks (myself included).  but then again, after i realized that i have GAD i looked back on my whole life and realized i did have it my whole life.  so maybe i wasn't a hypochondriac first.  it seems like it's impossible to be a hypochondriac without having anxiety, but it is possible to have anxiety & not be a hypochondriac.  idk my anxiety is all health related so i've always pretty much considered my hypochondriasis & anxiety basically the same thing in my case.

by suzi-q, May 17, 2007 12:00AM
What happened to me is when I found out that I did not have the disease that I thought I had, I then "moved on" to a different disease!!!  My anxiety did not go away...I was always panicking that I had something....It is truly crazy what the mind can do....My meds definitely helped with my anxiety and my hypochondria....I have more of an agoraphobic thing going on now...(don't want to leave the house unless I have to...but I do it anyway, and I fight it all the time)..and I realized like one of the posters said, that it is something I had way before my anxiety problems but never truly realized it!!!!

by Raine9, May 17, 2007 12:00AM
First of all, let me say I think you raise an extremely interesting subject.  I have been thinking a lot about this too.

Last October I experienced difficulty swallowing.  I knew nothing about anxiety disorders.  I have always been somewhat of a hypochondriac but it never got out of control until last summer.  I had a health scare.  Anyway, I saw a therapist and she explained what anxiety disorders were and that my difficulty swallowing was due to anxiety but I didn't believe her.  Ultimately I got an endoscopy.  I didn't want a swallow study because I was fearful of the amount of radiation I was getting at the time.  It wasn't until after my endoscopy was done and researching on the internet, that I finally accepted that my difficulty swallowing was due to anxiety and without me really realizing, my swallowing got better.  I don't suffer from it anymore.  However, my latest symptom now is shortness of breath.  

I saw a psych this past week and I asked him, "other people have health scares but why do we all react differently?"  He said that it depends what we bring to the table, i.e. genetics, personal experiences, what have you.  For me, he thinks it might be genetics because my fear of disease goes way back to childhood.  Since I was a child I remember being scared of getting cancer because I would hear my older siblings talking about it.  I probably didn't even know exactly what cancer was back then!  The death of my father when I was  17, of cancer, did not help at all.

Everytime I got a symptom in the past, I would go rushing to the doctor.  After my health scare last summer, I have developed this tremendous fear of going to the doctor because I am so scared they are gonna find something.  However, if I don't go to the doctor and go through with the tests, I'll never know what's wrong with me and my anxiety will get worse and create more physical symptoms.  It's like a double edged sword.  I just got a chest x-ray last week.  It took me over a month to build up the courage to get it done.  I was so terrified of the results.  I could go on and on about this subject but I won't bore you anymore.

This is a great topic!

P.S. Yes, I agree that if a person goes undiagnosed for a long period of time, no matter their state of mind, it can create a tremendous amount of stress which can lead to an anxiety disorder.  Everyone except maybe my husband, he is the calmest person you will ever meet, trust me...  

by tanns, May 17, 2007 12:00AM
I had an out of the blue panic attack in Nov 05.  I didn't know what it was and was convinced I was having a heart attack.  I have been checked, rechecked and RE-rechecked and my heart checks out fine.  If my anxiety (which I NEVER had before) was because of my fixation that something was wrong with my heart, then the reassurance that my heart is fine should have been enough to get rid of the anxiety.  It should be gone.  That should have been my "trigger".  I always hear that if you identify the trigger, you control the anxiety.  That isn't working for me.

My heart checks out fine, but the anxiety still lingers on.  And if anything, is getting worse.  Oh yeah, I still have the chest discomfort too.




Raine9:  lol, my husband is mellow too.  I guess that is good for us since we are dealing with all this right now!!!

by MOTAH, May 17, 2007 12:00AM
To: to everyone
Hi guys, I guess from all the posts the actual line between hypochondriasis & an ACUTE anxiety is whether the worry about one's health is consistent, was always there or was it introduced by an occasion.

For me, I see the whole idea as being the same issue, looking at end results, both long term hypochondriasis & acute short term health anxiety due to say a weird health experience will face the same symptoms, most likely as well to be for the same period & treatment for both is practically the same. pls correct me if I'm wrong.

Now, the interesting part is that anxiety (without knowledge of it & its symptoms) may turn a normal person to be hypochondriac as they'll see themselves get worse & see increased symptoms every day without knowing what's happening to them & without knowledge that its THEM who are actually doing that to themselves.

I find my drs to be pethetic in addressing the anxiety issues I was bringing myself into during my 3 months mysery. I found normal clincal drs to be more concerned about clinical issues, leaving us, the patients, hanging in thoughts that will make us worse even after all symptoms are gone. They should prevent us from going further by giving us education about anxiety.

I don't mean that general practinioners should by psychiatrists but I think they should consider helping normal people who come with unexplainable symptoms specially if it will take long time with an automatic "explanation" or precaution to not drive ourselves into anxiety in the process.

Now, anyone had any symptoms that actually WENT after diagnosis was made & was even cleared or diagnosed with an illness?

In cancer patients, they consider a period of up to 6 week ONLY for the person to be extremely anxious or worried, anything beyond 6 weeks is considered to be chronic anxiety.

Now from above example, anxiety is actually then an introduced illness to a mentally average person. if that was the case, then early treatment & understanding to anxiety MUST be given to patients along with thier research of their illness or straight after diagnosis of a hard illness.

by hatgal, May 18, 2007 12:00AM
I don't know t hat I'd go so far as to say we are hypo's.  Anxiety itself brings on a myriad of physical symptoms and each one should be medically checked. Who's to say I don't actually have cancer (which was my latest health scare, but there was enough regular medical problems to warrant the concern). The women on the ovca forum explain the exact symptoms I had/have; some are o.k. and the issues are benign, but require medical assistance; some end up with late-stage ovca after chasing doctors for so long to take their symptoms seriously.

So now that one of the best gyno/oncos in the country concluded that I have minor endo and it should not cause all my back/groin/hip pain (as other women attest to as well on the ovca forum), I have resigned myself to the fact that yes, my endo/cysts do cause me pain, but it is nothing life-threatening.  However, because my symptoms appeared gradually over the course of a year and topped out in December of '06, I had to seek medical advice/treatment.  It is still in the back of my mind, though, since I still read the posts on that forum and I still have most of the symptoms that the other women have. I just don't take myself so seriously with this anymore, I guess.

On the other hand, I am under such unbelievable stress for the past year, I'm surprised I'm not in the looney home by now!  Can't wait for this facet of my life to pass!

So, I don't think we're hypos; I think/KNOW anxiety brings on a host of physical ailments.  I know, for me, taking the zoloft has helped tremendously to lesson my health concerns as I wouldn't have waited a year after the onset of my latest symptoms before going to the doctor.  That med just triggers the hormones/tonins that are unbalanced in my system and does a wonderful job.

Sorry so long; but this is a very, very interesting topic for anxiety sufferers and we should open a new thread, maybe, to continue our discussion?

Best to all.........

by Raine9, May 18, 2007 12:00AM
To: hatgal
Some of us are hypos in the sense that we worry about every little symptom.  We need it checked out or we can't have peace of mind.  Yes some symptoms may turn out to be actual diseases and that is the scariest part.  But some like myself overworry before the doctor says that there is anything wrong.  I am so terrified that I am going to be diagnosed with something.  My friends and my husband are so laid back, they don't worry about a thing.  The doctor can find something suspicious in a test and they can be suffering from a bunch of symptoms but they have such a laid back attitude, they just think.."ah it's probably nothing".  People suffering from anxiety