Anybody have tips to battle health anxiety

[anxiety860]

I'm sure people with health anxiety will understand where I'm coming from. Any little pain you assume the worse. If something looks different you assume the worse. Etc. for me when I get reoccurring pain that sparks my health anxiety because I think hmm I've had pain off and on there for a year now. Must be something serious. But every time I go to my doctor she isn't worried at all. And I know if she had any doubt she would send me for further testing. ANYWAYS is it possible to make health anxiety go away? Does anybody have tips?? Pointers? Something that works for them?  In the past year I KNEW in my head I had about 10 different types of cancer. 2-3 years ago I KNEW I had HIV. Well here I am today healthy (maybe not mentally) and wasted all that time worrying for what?? Nothing.... Ugh I hate health anxiety..... Sorry for my rant just had to get this off my chest.

[dairyking887]

The "crippled" analogy is right on.  That is one I use with therapists all the time.  I don't know if it is like this for you, but the worst part for me is that people tend to not see or acknowledge my anxiety, or just tend to be uncomfortable around me due to my anxiety.  It's incredibly frustrating and just makes me want to hide all the time, which of course reinforces my disorder.  I really can't express enough how crippling having an anxiety/panic disorder is.  

[anxiety860]

On medication now.  (Prozac and klonopin) they have done wonders but anxiety still likes to creep up.  When I wasn't on medication my god I may as well have been crippled. It was ruining my life. I couldn't do anything. I am better just ***** it won't go away entirely

[dairyking887]

I am 48 years old.  I have a lifelong panic/anxiety disorder, have had it since my earliest memory.  I too obsess specifically about health-related issues.  I spent most of my young years getting obsessively x-rayed, fluor-oscopied, and otherwise examined for nothing at all.  Yesterday, I had a brief moment where I thought I had found skin cancer on my body, so I had to quickly turn off that mode of thinking or I would have been looking up photos on the Internet for the next hour.  All that I can say is the only thing that really helps me is medication.  And I am having trouble finding medication that even helps very much.  I am getting ready to transition to another failed SSRI-type drug--Brintellix--to perhaps a MAOI inhibitor, Nardil or Emsam.)  My condition is definitely heavily biologically based:  If I erase the biological symptoms, I erase the obsessive worrying.  I don't know if your situation is as severe as mine.  I know that things like exercise, tai chi, yoga, herbal medicine, psychotherapy, EMT, and on and on do not come close to proving me with relief.  Anyway, whatever works for you, that is what you should try.  I certainly think medication is worth a go, if you haven't gone that route yet.  Good luck!

Chris