Using ChatGPT has helped me SO much with rationalising my symptoms. I usually get so anxious that I just close off completely from everyone and everything and accept my fate. However, talking to AI about my symptoms, what I’m afraid of, what my symptoms could be really has helped me more than I could ever truly express. With the help of AI I have been able to make an appointment with my GP and they actually got me a relatively urgent appointment instead of having to wait 4 weeks! It has helped me make a clear list of my symptoms and ways to communicate these with my GP and I really am so so grateful. I’m still a nervous wreck about my appointment on Monday, but I am finally consolable and I feel like I can breathe. I might even go so far as I say I feel like I might actually get some sleep. I know that AI isn’t the best, but I have only been using it to help with my health anxiety and it really has been so helpful. I just wanted to thank the lovely people who have suggested it because I finally feel like I can turn up to my appointments and advocate for myself. I feel like I can breathe.

I’ve been obsessed with a spot on my abdomen hurting for months, despite visits to the doctor. Today is my first day of challenging myself to not prod, press, or poke at it for a whole week. It’s already been harder than I expected, but my anxiety has been better. Hopefully I can go longer than that. If anyone wants to join in on the goal to stop your own body checking, please join! We can do it together!

DAY 2 update: LET’S GOOOOO it’s day 2 💪

DAY 3 update: WE OUT HERE ngl the temptation is there but I ain’t weak!!

DAY 4 update: still going strong!!!

DAY 5 update: OMG can’t believe I’ve gone this long!! Gotta keep going!

DAY 6 update: I still haven’t pressed!! Pretty proud

DAY 7 update: tomorrow it’ll be a full week!! I’m a bit nervous to touch it again. I think I’ll just keep going!

DAY 10 update: I WENT PAST THE WEEK!! I’m not gonna act like the worry stopped even though I still haven’t touched it, but the worry has gotten waaaay smaller. Yesterday I didn’t even think about it

While it may not seem huge to some, others struggling with HA or even anxiety know how hard it can be to get up and clean. And today I did it. I cleaned and cleaned and cooked dinner and it’s nowhere near perfect but on the outside it is a small victory, inside I have moved a mountain. This is such a big step for me. I have hope for the future again. I even listened to my favorite audiobook and started working on a DnD campaign. I appreciate everybody in this sub that has had words to help. I’ve read so many comments so many stories when I’ve been in crisis and I feel the best I’ve felt in a long time. The realization that folks made me have that I should stop looking for things to directly help me, and focus on improving myself without it is what made this all possible. It felt like learning to breathe again, but eventually it clicked that “this has happened before, nothing bad will happen”. I am so excited to be alive and do things again. I extend gratitude to everyone on this sub

Hello everyone! Just wanted to share my bit of experience. I have general anxiety since I was a child. I developed HA as a young adult after my first 100% random and unprompted panic attack in 2017, thinking it was a heart issue (apparently this is not an uncommon trigger for people with HA). In 2021, after finishing CBT and my SSRI treatment, I was completely healed from general anxiety & HA (as in, the thoughts were exceptionally rare and fleeting).

Last autumn, a ridiculous but *huge* HA trigger made me fall into my first full-blown anxiety (and HA) relapse after almost 3 years of total healing of anxiety. It was humbling and very difficult, but I immediately talked about it to my doctor, saw a therapist a few times and applied all that I had learned into CBT. It sloooowly got better and better. Some days are harder than others but when I look back, the progress is there, month by month, week by week.

My HA is still here, although it's "low-grade" at least compared to what it was. I say I'm nearly there because all I need now is to stop worrying "quicker" about my physical symptoms and stop googling (I do it way less than before therapy but, you guys know it, it's easy to fall back into the habit!)

What helps me the most at this stage, and what I want to highlight the most for other people who go through HA and read this... is the "2 weeks rule" where I book NO doc appointment and if the symptom worrying me is still there after 2 weeks, I do. But so far it could be a three day rule - and I haven't seen the doctor since February! ☺

Even though it still is here every day, it is amusing and greatly helps rationalising to see that my symptoms change so often. It's like my anxiety is pushing the buttons. I have various aches... but they keep travelling from from one body part or organ to another. Every week or so it changes. My HA is a creature and it's travelling, I hope it's having fun 😂

Remember, the body is always doing normal, and healthy things such as digestion, hormone fluctuations, etc. It also, you know it, reacts to stress. So, various aches, discomforts are normal and temporary, and they are enhanced by anxiety or HA. They'll pass, you will see. Yes, even what you feel right now, you who are reading me! :)

Anyway, that's where I'm at currently. Any of you have experienced total healing and then relapses? Are you progressing in your journey, noticing you catastrophise a bit less than you did a few months or years ago?

Stay strong everyone, be gentle with yourself, and be patient. Healing is possible!

Hey everyone! This is a silly HA story. I hope this may bring some reprieve and laughs as it did to me.

I’ve been in therapy (CBT) for two years and I’ve had significant progress to the point I’m two sessions away from being discharged - as my therapist thinks I am in remission. Yay!

This week though, something ALMOST set me off. I went to a beach house with friends for a swim. I live in the Nordics and the water is notoriously chilly, even in summer.

When coming home, I saw a blue spot on my foot. All my health anxiety alarms started to set off. I started thinking about the worst. I got really tense and was nearly falling in an obsessive spiral trying to figure out things. Was it a hematoma? A broken vessel? Was it the cold water? The ginger drink I had? Or worse?

Then I remembered my therapist’s advice: “just because you think something, it doesn’t mean it’s true. It doesn’t mean you’re right.”

And as I let that sink in, I tried to let go of obsessive thoughts by relaxing my shoulders, taking a deep breath, looking at my sandals…

… and there it was, a smashed blackcurrant.

I had conflated a blackcurrant stain with a hematoma.

I couldn’t stop laughing my way home. I haven’t had my session yet with my therapist, but I hope she will laugh about it too.

When getting stuck on some silly obsessive thought, remember: your brain is good at finding whys and at being wrong. Not everything is dangerous. Take a step back, focus on something else… and who knows. You may even find out accidentally an answer, and a silly one at that 😀

if your mind is strong enough to make you feel THIS bad, make you feel all these symptoms that are not there, its strong enough to do the exact opposite. its strong enough to make all of those worries vanish, its strong enough to make you happy and healthy (which you probably are!)

im not diagnosed but i believe i am (and have been) suffering from health anxiety, it runs in our family and a few of my family members have said that i probably have it as well. im still struggling with it, hell im struggling with it RIGHT NOW as im writing this out. i could get barely enough sleep last night because of nausea, and i still have it right now. there is a voice on the back of my mind saying 'its not anxiety, there's something wrong with you' and maybe you have it too but do NOT listen to it! that voice has no power over you unless you let it!! this is the day YOU and ME put an end to this. your mind has control over your body to an extent but YOU have a control over your MIND. are you really going to spend the rest of your life, or the next few years of your life stressing over this? guys, life is short, its not worth it.

ive spent years of my life letting my health anxiety control me, especially these few months its been hard for me because im recovering from a small operation done on me (for my nausea, it was related to a polyp found in my stomach) and even though its been 48 days, i still have anxiety about it coming back or i always have this thought in the back of my mind saying "what if i never heal, what i suffer from this nausea forever" because i still feel nauseaus sometimes (even now) but come on, its been almost 50 DAYS. im healed now!! there are no reasons for me to be nauseaus, its just my health anxiety acting up. i am putting a STOP to this. im not gonna let something psychological make me suffer physically, im not gonna let it rule my life, and YOU shouldn't either. i even feel better now that i wrote all these! this is the day you and me both put an end to this, this is the day we'll be free!

(this is my first post on this sub and i dont use reddit often, so i dont know if this is the right flair for this post and i also dont know what a megathread is 😭 im sorry if i made a mistake. im also not native, so please ignore my grammatical mistakes if i have any)

One thing I find myself doing fairly often is something I call “standby mode”, where I dont have anything that I’m actively stressed about but I sort of zone out and wait to feel a sensation on my body to be focused on. Lately tho I’ve started to view this as a good thing, and instead of being stressed over nothing it reminds me that their actually isn’t anything wrong, because if I have to search for it, that means nothing is actually wrong with me. So next time you’re looking for something to be wrong with yourself just remember that all that all that means is that nothing is wrong in the moment (like always lol) and just chill out.

I didn’t know I had health anxiety for most of my life, but looking back… it was torturous. It still is, sometimes, but it doesn’t rule my life like it used to.

I reached my limit a few years ago. I wanted to go to the dermatologist for every change, convinced I was in trouble! My stress would make my chest ache, and that only caused things to snowball further… I would worry every time I used nail-polish, or a household cleaner.

Now I have an “anxiety episode” maybe three or four times a year. It isn’t fixed, but it’s progress, and I would like to share how I made this progress with you.

1. I set-up what I call the “two week rule”. Given my anxiety is primarily about issues that take a long time to develop, I tell myself I’m allowed to think about it/make an appointment if it’s still on my mind in two weeks. I let myself worry about it in that moment, but after that I put it aside and force myself to wait. The concern almost always goes away. This was extremely difficult at first.

2. Knowledge is power. If I’m concerned about an exposure to something, I take time to do research about that something. What is it made of? How does that interact with the body? How does the body handle that contaminant usually? Obviously this takes time, but I’ve slowly gained a better working knowledge of common (and uncommon!) hazardous materials that has made me feel much more secure.

3. In line with #3, learning about how our body protects itself has been a lifesaver. The immune system, the liver… We are absolutely amazing.

4. The game of odds. I used to go online and self diagnose myself with whatever I was most afraid of. After all, we’re much more likely to want to “prepare for the worst”, right? I changed that to “prepare for the most likely”, with an extra bonus of “the symptom you’re looking up probably has a dozen nearly-identical, much more likely, and benign dupes”.

Obviously you can’t just logic your way through everything, but there’s a lot of power in at least recognizing when your thinking has entered an unhelpful pattern. If you can do that in the moment, it starts opening up avenues to choose what you do next! For me, I “choose” my two week rule.

Sometimes this doesn’t work, and that’s okay. I keep practicing it and my life keeps getting better. I so sincerely hope those of you reading this find what works for you; health anxiety is truly a hell.

The reality? What I consider "good" has evolved. I used to believe it meant having no anxiety at all. Now, I believe it means embracing anxiety to the fullest without allowing it to control you.

I still have spirals. I still have bad days. However, they no longer define who I am.

The absence of fear is not normal. It's the belief that I can manage any situation.

And to be honest, that's sufficient.

Heyy. So myself 22M, have been having severe health anxiety since February of 2024. One particular scare lasted a month and I forgot to apply for my entrace exam and wasted 6 months of my life. Parents walked in on me in the middle of a panic attack this April of 2025. Talked with me for hours, I told them everything My cousin who is a doctor suggested I go therapy. 8 sessions in and I no longer have panic attacks. I still self-diagnose myself with conditions over minute symptoms and ask stupid questions on reddit. But I no longer get mentally exhausted from it. No longer spiral over it

What worked for me? My therapist asked me to reason my symptoms. Ask myself what would happen if this is happening to me. Ask myself in the moment am I spiraling or is this something that actually needs attention. To ask myself why I didnt trust the doctors and wanted second opinions.

We also discovered that I have severe fear of death. And I am a gay man living in a homophobic country who might end up alone after his parents are gone and does not want a condition where theyre dependent on others for basic care.

I dont know if i can fully feel normal again, but my therapist has helped me so much wherein I can do my daily tasks again and only have moments of health anxiety as compared to panic attacks daily.

If you can afford therapy, its worth a try.

I didn't tell my niece to "get over it" when she was frantic about an exam. Even though she didn't believe it at the time, I assured her that she was loved, safe, and capable.

And I came to the realization that That same kindness is due to me. Everyone does.

Now, when I see myself slipping, I try to respond the same way I would to her: I know this is hard You’re not alone You’re doing your best, and that’s enough

Perhaps you could give it a try as well. Speak to yourself as you would a loved one. It makes a difference.

I’m deep in my HA at the moment… a lot going on. I could post my symptoms, problems, questions. Ask for advice reassurance etc.

But I wanted to come on and say that yesterday I attended my first Pap smear that I put off for a long time. I cried and it was a bit of an experience but I got through it.

Currently worrying about results … but I took the step to actually go. And for that I feel kinda good.

Ever since I had a rare, life-threatening illness (twice!) as a child, I’ve been a huge hypochondriac, hyper aware of every sensation in my body and always catastrophizing about what it could possibly be. Over the years, I’ve thought I’ve had everything, from aneurysms to flesh eating bacteria, all because I felt a slight sting in my head or because my skin looked a bit flaky. It got particularly bad in my mid twenties when I started having severe panic attacks—not only did I think I MIGHT die at any minute from some terrible disease, I KNEW I would die, any second now. I stayed up at night for days, constantly monitoring my pulse for any changes. I avoided going to the bathroom for as long as I could because I didn’t want to be found dead on the toilet. And when you spend such a long time KNOWING you’re going to die at any minute, it brings on quite a terrible existential crisis 😓. But that’s for another time. I’ve been better since, and one thing that’s helped me is being able to laugh at myself when my brain starts getting carried away. I wrote this song, which makes me feel better, so I wanted to share it with this community, in the hopes that if any one else has experienced what I have, it makes you feel better too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6R4sF_YpnQg