hyper79

Hi everyone,I am still stuck in the reigns of anxiety but have overcome alot of my health anxiety.Six years ago before I had a computer I purchased a box of books on diseases of the body trying to figure out why I continued to have these panic attacks and other unusual symptoms that accompany anxiety after being diagnosed with the disorder by a doctor.I soon found myself daily researching symptoms in the books,I found out on my own I had lung cancer,polycythemia, liver disease, lymphoma, lyme disease, lupus, just to name a few but trust me there were lots more that I really did not have,they were my own creations.My dedicated research caused me much more suffering and stress as well as depression.I began seeing doctor after doctor trying to confirm "my" diagnosis but each visit I got a good report and more frustrated.I finially threw the books in the trash and even had thoughts of digging them out but didnt, at this point I already had too much knowledge which for me was a bad thing!! I improved as time went on and we got a computer and I made myself a promise of not researching symptoms which I broke, when I got lab results back after a job physical and my doctor reviewed them to me and said my test were fine I requested a copy and come home and surf the web to see what the doctor overlooked and sure enough I would find it and spend anxious hours going from site to site playing doctor over nothing.I never saw what I was doing until I clicked on my favorites and saw how full it was with health related sites.My tip is trust the doctor and if you are not happy with his/her diagnosis get a second opinion from another doctor, by all means do not play doctor as I have and end up in a never ending cycle of habit, the first step to anything especially anxiety is to accept it but in my own way I fought it and continued to get worse.If you have health anxiety look at what you are doing that is creating more stress and fear that is keeping your anxiety alive and ask yourself what is backing up your beliefs.I have give up surfing health issues and have began trusting my doctors opinion and have improved on my health anxiety.