6 Misconceptions People With Health Anxiety Have
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Health anxiety is a term that combines two disorders from the DSM-5: somatic symptom disorder and illness anxiety disorder. Previous versions of the DSM called it hypochondriasis. And from this term came the pejorative label, hypochondriac.
People with health anxiety obsess over bodily functions like breathing or their heartbeat; physical imperfections like skin blemishes; or physical complaints like headaches, stomachaches, and lightheadedness. When you have health anxiety, you catastrophize even minor things. In this video, I discuss some of the common misconceptions or distorted beliefs that you can have with health anxiety.
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My biggest fear is that I will one day learn to ignore my health anxiety and immediately get ill 😔
SAME
Same. It could literally happen today or tomorrow. I have to be ready.
Sameeee
A
You’re already ill once you have health anxiety
Health anxiety is a whole lot harder when you have to go through it all alone. If you have support through it that's great but for those who goes through it alone, i feel you 💯 😢
I am alone with it.
@@Skyblue-oi5isI am as well. Thinking of you. ❤
I think a big part of this comes from seeing docs who didn’t even look up from their keyboard, didn’t touch the person, didn’t get blood tests. I felt like I was going crazy asking dr about my symptoms and kept getting drs that said “anxiety”. Finally saw a woman at the clinic one day who ran tests and found I have health issues- nothing major but they need management. Medical gaslighting is very real and more common than this disorder
Correct. The misdiagnosis rate in the American medical system is at an absolute minimum 20%, and likely far, far higher when you consider all the people who "just died suddenly" after being waved off by doctors, plus all the people who get better on their own after a misdiagnosis that gets counted as a correct diagnosis because they got better. Particularly the big 2 - heart disease and cancers - often have extremely subtle, infrequent, uncommon, or even no symptoms. Most heart disease is completely undetectable by the usual EKG and troponin, or the nonemergency blood pressure and lipid tests; these are fine for making POSITIVE diagnoses, but not NEGATIVE diagnoses. A huge number of disorders aren't even detectable with an echo, stress test, cath, or Holter/event monitor. (Microvascular disease and coronary artery spasm are big ones - and what's so offensive is that the treatments are things doctors could easily prescribe "just to see if they work," like nitro, beta blockers, and calcium channel blockers - but no, they'd rather put you on useless antidepressants.) We have endless stories from people who go to multiple GPs, cardiologists, and ERs, get waved away over and over, then finally get told "Oh, yeah, you had a massive heart attack and are in heart failure," on their 3rd or 4th ER visit after months of debilitating symptoms doctors chalked up to GERD, dehydration, costochondritis, or the big catch-all: anxiety. These things are not diagnoses, they are EXCUSES. One woman was DYING, INCOHERENT, UNAWARE, ALMOST UNCONSCIOUS IN HER ER BED and her ER doc (3rd visit in 6 months) was going to discharge her with an "anxiety attack", until a random nurse pushed for a cath and they discovered her heart was failing. She got an LVAD implanted and was in a coma for 2 months. So-called "health anxiety" is just an excuse for "We don't feel like giving you actual health care."
In 2017 I had a serious adverse reaction to antibiotic ciprofloxacin. I went to 5 different Drs and they didn't believe me and assigned it to anxiety. Finally a Dr believed me but he was very senior, very humble and and had seen it before. Way too many Drs are so disbelieving of patients.
@grafzeppelin4069 I want to say you're playing into your health anxiety, but I also want to say you're right. I started having chest discomfort and noticed I was breathing heavy and sweating a lot, even when not active. I do have very bad anxiety as well. I went to the ER numerous times, and followed up with my family doctor, but they all just concluded that I had anxiety disorder and would give me medication and leave it at that. Well, the problem persisted, and when I finally got into a cardiologist (which took forever), I had to wear a Holter monitor for one week and, don't you know it, the results showed I had a delayed electrical response on my heart rhythm, amd my hear actually stopped twice, for 3 seconds each time. Had I just been listened to from the beginning, 3 years of absolute suffering could have been avoided. I now have a pacemaker, and it cleared up most of the issues, but some symptoms are still there, and I can't help but think about what kind of damage may have been done in those 3 years while I asked for help over and over and was never taken seriously. I won't lie, it makes me very angry when I think about it.
Yes, ive got an doctor that is exactly like that, she just looks at you and says its nothing serious, sitting about 2 meters from you at her desk. When i came i expected at least blood pressure check, breathing check with stethoscope, mouth check with light, but no, she didnt even lifted her ass from chair.
Makes me think there should be a new speciality of doctors who work only with those with severe health anxiety 😂
I think you missed the other side of Health Anxiety - the avoidance of tests, avoiding doctors avoiding anything to do with medical conditions and a deterioration of health. Also it can grow arms and legs.... fear of taking pills, fear of blood tests etc., etc.,
The fear of taking medication or pills of any kind is very real for me 😔
@@yvesvixxen same it’s like every medication antibiotics . My worse experience was with and antidepressant called Mirtazipine. It was suppose to be excellent for anxiety. Try telling my doctor I have bad anxiety yes the medication was good to sleep but the morning anxiety was cutting like a knife. I googled the med I found that 10 percent can have alternate effect causing severe anxiety. Crazy anxiety. I spent two days not sleeping and walking when the doctor started to ween me off. It was horrible it took 3 months to start feeling normal. Since I learned how to deal with my anxiety. By living in the now. Thanks to Eckart Tolle and DR Wayne Dyer .✨💫🪶
Agreed, I definitely feel the other side of health anxiety. I avoid all doctor visits and when I finally convince myself to make an appointment for a general check up I experience major anxiety leading up to the appointment and at the appointment. Durning a previous checkup my anxiety was so bad that they sent me to the ER which only made it all worse (I may have even been having a panic attack not too sure). Nothing seems to help the health anxiety and general everyday anxiety. Definitely nice to know we’re not alone in this.
So glad this video showed up on my feed. Your comment is spot on.
Great point. And very true. Conventional medicine makes me anxious bc I am a naturalist and I don't trust what passes in this country as health care, especially as a woman of color...not understoood or respected by the industry.
You have managed to break me out of a massive hypochondria anxiety episode within the first five minutes of this video, thank you.
She really worked magic. I think I might be able to sleep now
I have health anxiety. Recently I was massively triggered by finding a lump in my breast while feeding my newborn - especially bc my mother died from breast cancer years ago. The lump turned out to just be a cyst but the anxiety it causes me is *debilitating*. I am CONVINCED the Dr missed something and obsess over ever little sensation I feel now. I frequently have spiralling worries about “not being my own advocate” and demanding more tests. It is unbelievably difficult. If you struggle with health anxiety too -you aren’t alone!
Hello Emily. Sorry for your loss. I suffer from it too. thanks for sharing ...I wish us a quick recovery.
Consider a 2nd and even 3rd opinion. If they all say the same thing, do not consider a 4th or 5th. Get regular check-ups. That's all you can do. More tests will not alleviate the worry. Also you can use this animus to learn as much as you can about breast cancer and become a clinical researcher. Or maybe if you're brilliant, design a better test? These are real world problems that people are working on 24/7, and worrying alone in your house isn't gonna help anybody.
Thank you for sharing. You are not alone x
Anxiety of any kind is the worst. It can be crippling in ways many people will never understand. What is important for now is that you recognize that your anxiety can drive you to misidentify many thing sas threats to your health. That's an essential first step. Allow yourself to notice when this is occurring. Then, see about "talking yourself down" to a more realistic assessment of what's going on. With practice, that could become a very helpful habit.
♥️
Its kinda crazy how many people are ignorant to this mental issue in the comments. Thank you for the video. Health anxiety is a living hell. And only people that actually have it, know what it feels like. Hang in there, eventually you'll come to terms with it and accept it. And you can finally start to live life.
Completely agree with this. The bulk of these comments are about doctors dismissing/missing things, which is not remotely helpful for those suffering from this horrible mental condition. These are the exact kind of comments/thoughts that can feed someone's anxiety and I genuinely wonder how many of the people commenting actually have or have had health anxiety; I am guessing many of them received that diagnosis from their doctor but don't actually identify with it, which is a totally different situation. Anyway, thanks for your comment, I'm glad someone understands!
Really. I recently developed health anxiety, so I try to watch these videos to calm myself down. It only peaked my anxiety more, I hate these comments so much. I KNOW it's anxiety, all my tests are okay, and I go to therapy because of my GAD. So yeah, it didn't help at all. I wish people would be more aware of what they're talking about and where
Although I believe in health anxiety in some cases, it is also used as an excuse by some doctors to get rid of complex/difficult patients or as a way to compensate for the lack of clinical reasoning or knowledge. If a test doesnt find a physical cause for a symptom, saying that it’s psychological is also a false ilness belief derived from ‘argument from ignorance’.
Exactly. Doctors do not know everything, they can’t possibly or the medical field wouldn’t look the way it does 🙄
Yes. Some doctors misuse health anxiety of difficult diagnosis to write off the doctor's own lack of medical knowledge or competency.
Totally agree. I’ve seen more incompetent doctors in my life who attributed their lack of knowledge with “it’s all in your head”
Yup! They try and do that to be but then I go to other doctor and have to get surgeries because they missed something 🙄
PS-an example. telling someone w POtS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, the most common disability among women of childbearing age-when we ignore ME/CFS the typical “parent pathology”-by one journal articles citation I found recently) for instance to run their heart rate up FUrThEr, or intentionally make themselves dizzier? Could make things MuCH worse. And millions of POTSies are undiagnosed (bc the diagnosis is so labor intensive and time consuming and few facilities even have the know how or equipment), so… again… insisting that docs know best and “absence of evidence is evidence of absence” is an extremely destructive (sometimes deadly) error in logic. 😢
I feel that people need to believe in themselves more, everyday tell yourself that your body is amazing, you trust that it functions very well to support everything you need, you take a moment to appreciate your body every day. You can breath, you can run you can jump, you can think and you can talk!! There is a million of things to be appreciated, your heart is working SO HARD to keep you alive and you should NOT waste time to doubt its function. And your anxiety of sickness will be gone forever.
Having fallen in to a Health Anxiety hole recently, this video helped a lot- I couldn't help but laugh at how accurately this described everything I was doing and thinking.
I have so much respect for phychiatrist and doctors who make medications for mental health and treat people you guys saved my life my jobs, my relationships , my family and everything , i know this is a anxiety video but just wanted to give a shoutout to people like you
I was _misdiagnosed_ with health anxiety together with school refusal as a child. This pissed off my African parents who then ignored or punished me whenever I expressed health concerns after that misdiagnosis. My darling father only spanked me _once_ in my life. It was for being too sick to go to school. 😭😭😭😭 Turns out, I had a VERY REAL illness - a severe case for Fibromyalgia by age 9. When I turned 18, I sought diagnosis for myself , which I got at age 22. Many years later, My mother still thinks the "school refusal" diagnosis is a hilarious story to tell to anyone and everyone 🙄 (she's kinda narcissistic, so publicly putting down her kids is a pastime 🤷♀️) This brought tears to my eyes just now. 😔
God, this. The number of times I was reprimanded or punished because I was feeling sick and people thought I was lying.
Same happened to me by narcissistic parents. I have a genetic collagen deficiency that wreaks havoc on every body system and I always feel sick which my Drs tell me is normal for me having this condition. My parents, family, friends and teachers were awful to me growing up. Ironically it has actually caused health anxiety because there are complications and they dont know a lot about my illness.
@@katt7370 Oh hey, same here! Do we both have EDS? In my case, my mom went through a similar “went to the doctors for her health issues until she finally gave up bc they didn’t know what to do with her” thing when I was a super little kid, and my diagnosis ended up explaining all the problems she’d had as well.
Thank you for the polite reminder of how much we need to listen to children, and truly seek to discern what they're struggling with. Sometimes I forget commas lol
Truely, only us living in these bodies know what we are going through. We need to trust ourselves when something is off. Connective tissue disorder sufferers have been told for too long that nothing was wrong with us and/or we just have anxiety, it's bull shit. Come to find out all these years later we were born disabled and society treated us like garbage because the medical system didn't know what to do with us. It's traggic that labels like "health anxiety" even still exist. Its so dismissive and cruel to make someonr who already knows something is wrong with them that it's essentially in their head. I'll admit I've made my life harder on myself by stressing more than was nessasary (I suppose, but one could argue it was nessasary, anxiety exists as a function of the body for a reason) and letting the anxiety get out of control, but with no answers and no solutions growing up, what was I supposed to do?
I have had Health Anxiety for decades- this is one of the first videos that addressed this issue in a way that reached me-
Seeing or hearing hearing of someone, but say battling cancer automatically makes me think that I will go through the same thing. My anxieties up for days and I assume that every aching pain I have will end up malignant. I constantly think about those people and what they may be feeling during their treatment and that they are missing out on life. I think that is my biggest fear is missing out on life.
Hello @user-jz5tm8hg5x….how are you,this so so me…I have been going to the hospital demanding tests scans name it… this year it’s even worse since January I have been spending on hospital bills all because of fear and everything comes back fine!when I hear the C word immediately I start thinking I might have the C then I go to the hospital on and on…I’m so exhausted..it’s taken a toll on me honestly and my family seems to also be worn out by my anxiety…it’s a bit comforting reading & realizing I’m not alone!!hope we over come and crawl out of this dark hole🙏🏽❤️
I'm dealing with the same thing , whenever I feel something I would think of C word i even pray about it asking God to prevent me from that horrible sickness. I've been asking for an MRI but they refuse I think if I would get it that's when ill be relived . I'm away from home staying in varsity Residence. Yesterday I had panic attack out of nowhere. I've been praying to God asking to be healed 🙏🙌🙇♀️.... But I still believe he will take me out of this dark zone🙏
I appreciate these Wednesday mornings with Tracey!!!
You know it’s bad when you’re so scared and convinced that you don’t do any research because it’ll scare you more
THese videos are an amazing public service. Thank you so much. You are so good at explaining things clearly.
This is literally me. Thankyou so much for this video. It’s extremely hard to have this. Very comforting to see a real doc explain this so clearly.
This is so me to how are you doing now?
You’re amazing 🤩 I don’t get bored if your videos, I listen to them while getting ready for work. Love listening to things that brings me any sort of knowledge. Take care :)
Here's what I find very detrimental to my mental health and health anxiety: we are bombarded by drug commercials and health awareness messages on tv. It's like someone constantly at your elbow telling you you may be ill. Wish the U.S. would ban drug commercials as most countries do.
Oh my god THANKS for finaly doing a video about this. No one is talking about it, me and lot of my friends are suffering for years from health Anxiety and this is a nightmare to deal with... It will help so many people i'm sure.
Thank you Dr. Marks . I have suffered from health anxiety and have had every symptom you mentioned since I was around 7 or 8 years old. I’m in my 30s and most the comments in this video are probably why I will always have it.
I also had some fears when i was younger, it was only temporary thing, like i was afraid of going into town, or when i read about some illness i was thinking what if i get it. Now it kinda triggered few years ago and its became an regular rotation good periods and bad periods. Im also in 30s, but i noticed that my friend also has similar thing, but mild case. He also has Asperger syndrome.
Thank you I can say you saved my life ,I am an healthy adult with some anemia .Every time I get a symptoms of anemia I panicked and ran to emergency room .You educational videos helped me a lot .This video describes me 100 percent.If one they I travel to usa I love to visit you and thank you personaly❤❤❤❤❤❤
I actually want to thank you for actually adressing this anxiety problem, i still have it to this day and you pin pointed it so well(duh), i've used to go to hospital atleast 3 times a month because i had panic attacks because i could feel my heart beating too hard and for me it meant that my heart doesnt work well, or that it was beating to slow when resting, i had done so many ekg's and echocardiograms that i grew tired of it, just because i was health anxious, and i didn't believe any doctor i was searching even for a 10th opinion, even though all were the same, so people who actually have this too, stop worrying over small things, not everybody works the same, maybe for your body whatever happens it's normal, except if it causes physical symptoms like throwing up or feeling like fainting losing consciousness, then please do go to a doctor and check it out.
Before I had gotten so hyper fixated on my heart that I would check my pulse and count the beats to make sure it was in rhythm, then if it seemed like the next beat was behind I would freak out again. I would end up thinking I was having a heart attack because the anxiety symptoms and panic that followed. I went to the ER multiple times thinking I was dying, was scared to sleep because I thought my heart was going to stop in the middle of the night, and would have panic attacks in the middle of class. Eventually, I was able to get over this specific anxiety by forcing myself to sit still and hear and feel my heartbeat, meditating on it until my body calmed down and accepted the fact that my heart was just doing its thing. It was difficult at first, but eventually I was able to inhibit a bodily response to the feeling of my heartbeat. I appreciate your videos, they have really helped me deal with and understand certain mental health conditions.
When I was a senior in high school, I went through a period of months where I obsessed about my heartbeat. I went to the emergency room one night, thinking I was having a heart attack. The doc did some tests and said, "There is nothing physically wrong with you." A follow up EKG was also normal. I realized all of it was in my head. I took up video games because when I was gaming, I wouldn't think about the health stuff. That was more than 20 years ago. I still game to this day, just to distract myself from whatever I might otherwise be obsessed with.
My bf is the same way
Amazing. Thank you! I also observe my heart to much and been to multiple cardiologists they even did test for me. Told me I had a normal healthy heart.
literally me 100% it's started when I was 29. I game to keep my mind from obsession with my heart. I get waves of dread come over me too and if its too bad I'll go lay on my bed. always much worse the day after consuming alcohol.
Ive had pretty much the same experience within the last year. I had a really severe panic attack that made me think i was having a heart attack and i was having these attacks where my heart would race at like 250+bpm and they observed me when i had these attacks and it was all completely normal.
Oh my gosh I’m only 10 and this is really relatable cause I’ve been so worried about my heart even tho it beats normally
How are you supposed to differentiate between this and an actual medical condition? My sister definitely has this, and she's pretty self-aware about it now -- her brain will immediately take her to the cancer-related explanation for whatever physical symptom she's experiencing at that time, and it always feels very real to her at the time. But I also know a truly staggering number of people (almost always women or AFAB people) who went to the doctor for something and were told they "just" had anxiety, but then months or years later were diagnosed with a true, physiological issue that would have been noticed if doctors hadn't jumped to the mental health conclusion so quickly. I get that for the doctor, if it's a "real" problem you'll catch it eventually, but when I was in this situation the years in between the initial "oh, it's anxiety" and my actual diagnosis were genuinely psychologically damaging for me. I have a hard time trusting myself and the feelings in my body, and I spent years thinking badly of myself -- because if it was anxiety, and I knew that, why couldn't I just get over it? I don't know how to describe it except self-gaslighting.
I would like to know the answer to that too.
I have been through what you’re describing too & doctors wrote it off as health anxiety but I’m actually it WAS worst case scenario both times. I think it is never a bad idea to go with your gut, even if your gut is trying to communicate the truth with the rest of your body but the message is getting jumbled bc of things like Covid which can wreck havoc on a body & have its systems going haywire.
>How are you supposed to differentiate between this and an actual medical condition? That's the neat part - with the catch-all excuse of "anxiety", you don't have to! It's the doc's "easy way out."
Ur videos are always good reality checks. Thanks. I hate that I have health anxiety. It’s annoying to be around. The “symptoms” feel real and adapt and sneak up on you. Trying to just repress it and live on but sometimes I still get obsessed with it. This was helpful
Whew though…as someone with narcolepsy, this video is frustrating. It commonly takes 10ish years from symptom onset to be diagnosed. It took me almost 20 years. Plenty of folks with real conditions are misdiagnosed with health anxiety because we aren’t taken seriously or because we have a rare condition about which most doctors and nurses are uninformed.
I've been going through some sort of anxiety related to my health recently. Idk why I'm laughing every misconception because that's literally all what I'm thinking. I feel so alone. And I feel so much pain. I'm getting therapy next week, and I'm so thankful to see this video. I don't want to feel this way anymore.
Great video. This has helped me already. Thank you so much Dr. Tracey
It's interesting looking back on the time when I didn't know what health anxiety was. I remember wondering "what the hell does that even mean?" And surely enough after suffering from my first panic attack, this is EXACTLY what happened to me! I immediately became a hypochondriac, I also suffer from extreme paranoia, I was never like this before so this whole thing is very much new to me. But what a strange thing to suffer from though... I panic everyday, and my mind is never at ease. And my body is constantly drowning in this dark sea. No matter how normal I might seem to some people, they don't know what's in my mind and how my brain thinks... the constant catastrophizing. And truly awful symptoms that comes with it is an absolute hell on earth!
I don’t understand how this isn’t classified as ocd. It comes with obsessions (obsessing about your health), and compulsions (constant body checking, going to the doctor constantly). I had a complete mental breakdown last year because of health anxiety. I have been on meds, been in therapy for almost a year, but I think self help videos have helped me a lot..particularly ones about ocd that talk about how to do erp. I found that doing erp on my own helped me heal so much from health anxiety!
True
A lot of medical professionals do classify it as a type of OCD, and the treatment protocol is the same (ERP, CBT and/or compassion focused therapy).
How is your health anxiety now and what do you do to stop it? Also done therapy and meds
Yes. Yes. Yes. Treating it as OCD, using ERP, and stopping my compulsion to "research" has helped the best.
I really enjoyed the demonstration in this one. Love you Dr. Marks and can't even wait for this book!!!
I'll be a navy seal when you're done with me 😊
Your videos are saving lives! Thank you for putting ma at ease
Wow it’s like she knows when I need her videos! Thank you dr marks. You are amazing!!!!
Thank you Dr. Tracey. What makes my health anxiety worse is many doctors' irresponsibility and carelessness while examining me. Some of them even laughed and made fun of me, and they have contradictory opinions. I have 4 disk problems in my neck and they cause me to suffer from a lot of things, and I am lost in the circle of symptoms caused by anxiety, or symptoms that trigger my anxiety. it's like I have a real problem with my neck and health anxiety simultaneously. When I overcome my fears from other illnesses I become afraid of my neck problem (proven by MRI) and I think: Am I going to faint? Am I going to be paralyzed? Is it affecting my spine or the blood or oxygen....and so on....and even after visiting the psychiatrist I started to be afraid of all serious mental illnesses and I watched all your videos many times to make sure I don't have schizophrenia or bipolar or etc....I started to take Fulsac (similar to Prozac) 2 months ago ...I am much better now but I still suffer every day. The nonsense dreams I see (even before taking antidepressants) are annoying. Panic attacks are less often and shorter nowadays. I miss the feeling of giving a lesson (I am a teacher) without being afraid and without being dizzy and about to faint. When will that relief come? When will I completely recover?
There's something that you still believe as true, that once you learn to let go, you'll be better. The relief will come at the point that you realize you are wrong. Doctors cant treat themselves, and they cant even treat their family, because emotions get in the way when our human brains think of our health. Sounds like you tried to treat yourself. Just understand that you're wrong. And appreciate that you being wrong is a good thing. Every time you were wrong about thinking you were gonna faint/be paralyzed and you didn't, that's good. Every time you thought you had a disease and you didn't, that's also good. YEAH you probably do actually have like 3-4 health problems, but you don't have 100. There's something that you still believe as true, that once you learn to let go, you'll be better.
Good morning Dr. Marks! I hope you’re having an amazing week 💚
Yep! I didn't know about this and I've been on my mental health journey for over 20 years!
I have health anxiety that presents like Dr Marks described in the video. It's been going on since childhood, so I don't seek out medical testing/diagnoses because usually I can recognize that it's just anxiety. In the midst of a panic attack, I can convince myself I'm dying, but when I'm not panicking, I (usually) know I'm fine. My health anxiety really kicked into high gear in 4th grade when I developed emetophobia. I'm so sad to read all of the comments about people being misdiagnosed with health anxiety when they actually had a physiological illness but weren't believed by the doctor. In my case, the mental health professionals my parents took me to failed to recognize that I was in a constant state of fight/flight due to a dysfunctional home life, and by the time I was 18, I was showing symptoms of cPTSD (no one caught this, sadly). A decade later, I finally got serious about addressing my childhood trauma, no thanks to my psychiatrist or CBT therapist but rather to my own research. Doctors may know more than most but they don't know everything, that's for sure. Trust yourselves and listen to your kids ❤
I developed this when i was 50 after a wrong diagnosis. Now Almost 3 years later it has left me with chronic insomnia that will not go away. Bless all that are suffering
I'm in the same boat 😔 how much do you sleep. Mine is really bad 😞
This was a very helpful video. Thank you! ❤️
Thanks! I appreciate very much that you always define each technical term as you present them. In college my pet peeve with lecturers and instructors was when they would skim past a foundational term thereby providing a weak basis for further comprehension.
Thank you Patrick, I have a similar pet peeve about throwing around terms and assuming everyone knows what you're talking about. Thanks for noticing and appreciating. Thanks so much for the super thanks!
@@DrTraceyMarks @Dr. Tracey Marks after 3 years of struggling I've finally had the courage to schedule a meeting with a psychiatrist but I'm scared I'll be misdiagnosed. Or they won't believe me because mental health conditions isn't really taken serious in my country. They tell you to go pray. Over the years Your videos has really helped me in understanding myself to an extent. I've tried therapy but I noticed I get better couple of weeks or luckily a month or two and then I disappear again. It's been frustrating because when I'm like a normal or hypomania I start to beat myself on while I was feeling that way before because it doesn't seem like what the current me would do. Like I was I purposely sabotaging my life when I look back but soon after I switched. At first I thought I had unipolar depression but later I started seeing signs of borderline personality disorder now it's more clear to me that it might be bipolar 2 disorder. Please is it possible for unipolar to progress to bpd and then bipolar or unipolar to bpd with bipolar together.. Plus I rapid cycle Earlier part of my struggle my depressive symptoms were more intense compelled to now and I don't know if it was because I'm now more self aware of my condition or it progresses. Suicidal ideas, attempts, emptiness, anger, everything was intense (age 14 to 22) now 24 Now that part is a bit more subtle (I don't know if it was because I left my toxi job environment which to me greatly impacted it) but I still don't feel normal and it has impacted my carrier negatively.
Thank you Dr. Tracy for all you do. I appreciate you.
Me too. She is amazing. She helps me SO much
I concur
Agreed.
THIS is so aggravating ! I have actual chronic illnesses like IBS, RLS, migraines, and they are just now listening to me and diagnosing this auto immune disorder i've been saying i have for years. idk what it is, i just knew something was off. i didn't get the blood test for auto immune diseases until recently, and it came back unusual. so im finally getting help. however, the combination of me actually having health anxiety (usually over heart disease or having a stroke or cancer), and doctors not believing symptoms of people with health anxiety, it has taken me a long time to get proper treatment for my actual diagnosis. the diagnosis and stigma against health anxiety is a double edged sword, because we often ignore our Actual health problems, and focus on the anxiety symptoms and what they mean, rather than whatever pain caused the anxiety. so my joint pain and anxiety became 'what if i had a heart attack', when it is actually whatever this auto immune disorder is. thanks for this video. i can only speak for myself, but i was chronically ill child before i developed health anxiety as an adult. i wonder if this is a common thing?
Ur videos are always good reality checks. Thanks. I hate that I have health anxiety. It’s annoying to be around. Trying to just repress it and live on but sometimes I still get obsessed with it. This was helpful
Dr Marks, thank you for this important information. I have anxiety and I have many of these
I cant believe that you just described how i have been feeling the past year...I had a panic attack because i thought i had a heart problem. After visiting many doctors everyone assured me its just anxiety...
Dr thank you so much for this insight it is exactly what I am going through since i have entered menopause.Every word you said was true.I will definitely give a thought to it and will try to come out of it.❤
I appreciate how clear you are, thank you.
You are welcome, thank you!
I use this video as my monthly therapy. I am quite strong minded with my mental health but I have a very logical mind that pulls me into borderline health anxiety and to catastrophize when something feels off. Watching this video basically lets me know I'm being stupid lol
thank you for making this video. i’ve always felt so alone suffering with health anxiety bc not a lot of people talk about having it. most of the time i just feel crazy and when i do talk about it i get dismissed. pretty sure i also have ocd bc of it :/
Awesome, realizing you have it is the first step. Don't let it define you tho. Grow past it. Imagine if you let every bad thing from your childhood still define you?
It's the same for me Sometimes I feel stupid for worrying so much I think I will go Crazy but I wish it gets better
@@richielivesYes! You're so right miss/sir
Doctors DO sometimes miss things and don't take their patients' concerns seriously. You do need to, WITHIN REASON, be your own advocate when it comes to your health.
Hi Dr. Marks! Could you possibly make a video discussing how one’s childhood can affect their future relationships, specifically regarding a significant other and marriage? I know this may be a broad topic, but I am quite interested on this. Does childhood trauma solely cause relationship issues such as trust issues, attachment issues, etc? Could childhood experiences cause one to seek a different style of relationship.. such a polyamory? Thanks for all of the informative and interesting videos you’ve posted to this channel!
Thanks so much for sharing this 🙏🏻 life changing stuff
Your videos are really helpful thanks Dr Tracey I have watched all your videos bcz I’m also taking treatment for health anxiety 😥 and this video really helped me thank you again 🙏🏻love from India 🇮🇳
Hi Dr. Marks! Your videos always pop up on my feed at the perfect time! 🤩 If possible, can you talk a bit about Thanathaphobia (fear of d*ath) - sometime I feel like I’m the only one has this fear and I can’t exactly pin point where, when or why it begun. Thank you and so much for your videos! 💕
Your not the only one who has that fear. I do too and it sucks
@yeahthato4444 u r not alone over one year now
You are not the only one dear,i suffer from this too real bad😒
Ya but here's the thing. My dad had a sore back. Dr. gave him muscle relaxers and said "it's probably just a strained muscle"....2 months later he was dead from cancer. So sometimes a sore back is just a sore back....and sometimes it's not. Doctors favorite thing to say these days is "it's probably just". It's better to check and be safe than to be sorry.
You are correct Miss Stamper. Sometimes doctors miss diagnoses. Unfortunatly it's not that uncommon. This video is about excessive anxiety about health problems you don't have or have to a mild degree but catastrophize. That's what can happen with anxiety. Missed diagnoses or hard to find illnesses are a different issue from what I'm addressing.
I feel like Health Anxiety will become as outdated as the concept of hysteria one day. The sheer number of people with pain who get dismissed only to find out later that there is an underlying cause should tell us misdiagnosis is not uncommon. Not to mention diagnostics are not as common outside of the "first world" where a majority of the world population lives and still rely on the American DSM system that are diagnostics heavy. On the other hand, second opinions are prohibitive due to costs in the US when you truly need it. And what about neurodivergent people who have interoception sensitivies and are underdiagnosed all the time? This is not an insignificant chunk of the population and every doctor has possibly misdiagnosed or dismissed such cases many times over their careers. Wouldn't hurt to admit the frailty and bigotry of the medical system.
@@acquilinjohn6140 Exactly 👏
@@DrTraceyMarksmy mom's misdiagnosed ramped up my health anxiety. I kept advocating for her and researching, it turns out I was right. Unfortunately we only found out I was right after she almost died from septic shock. It took her months to recover. Some people never recover from septic shock. How can I trust doctors now?
Im so sorry for your dad… What kind of cancer if I may ask? My mom has a sore back for 3 weeks now and its not going away! She had breast cancer in the past and Im worried it may came back, but she is dismissing it and assuring me she is fine 😑
Of course, health anxiety is an irrational thought process. There are of course, exceptions. Some illnesses are notoriously difficult to diagnose like Lyme Disease, and people with Lyme disease can often be dismissed by doctors as having health anxiety before they are able to get a diagnosis.
This happened to me as a child with fibromyalgia. My doctor diagnosed me with "school refusal", (not a diagnosis you should share with African parents.) They decided the best way forward was to ignore or punish me (spanking) when I expressed feeling sick. Fast forward to adulthood, I sought out a diagnosis for myself and have slowly learned to overcome the stigma of my childhood. It's not easy though. I still tear up in the eyes when I think about it.
Yep, took me 6 months to be diagnosed. It was a terrible stressful journey.
@@politereminder6284 That is really shocking. I hope your parents acknowledge their mistake.
@@elenikiroyThank you for your concern. My dad did later, because my University Professor went out of her way to explain it to him after I requested for disability accomodations. That was very helpful in my early adulthood.
I'm saving this video. One of the best HA related videos I've ever seen. This dr is great.
Doctors dismiss far too much as health anxiety. I am scared to use medical terms to health care providers because they make comments like "have you been googling?"... No, I have autism and a special interest in science. I should not have to "dumb down" my language or pretend I have no scientific knowledge in order to be taken seriously. The anxiety I experience around health is the result of doctors dismissing my genuine medical illnesses as 'Somatic symptoms'. These include, but are not limited to: - Heart condition (required surgical correction) - Erythropoietic Protoporphyria - Mast cell activation and allergies - Prostatitis - Bleeding from the kidney (For reference I live in the UK)
I experience this in regards to the term sobriety. I was informed that if I had a resentment and left it unaddressed then it could lead to relapse. Some people take it to the extreme though and I'm finding now that I can get annoyed by others and also annoyed with myself. I thought if I wasn't feeling love and tolerance to ALL others then I was a failure. I'm sure now that others suffer me as do I suffer others and I think that's spiritually perfect as it doesn't set others up to experience devastation to the point where they become suicidal. It as so negates homocidality in the sense that if you can find self forgiveness then your able to empathsize with others.
Thanks Doc, this video describes exactly where I am mentally and have been for awhile now. I've been conversing with a few close friends about health concerns I have. My mom, her two brothers and her mom, (grandma) all died of cancer. I know something is not quite right with my body, but no one seems to know what it is. Presently I have no health insurance and I feel that cancer is beyond a clinics capabilities; the one that I utilize, anyway. So now I just keep it all tucked away, but it's still a concern.
Thank you for always speaking about interesting and important topics. Can you please make a video about advantages and disadvantages of self-diagnosis? It's becoming much more common lately. As a person with diagnosed mental and neurodevelopmental disorders, I have mixed feelings about it. Hope you can help me better understand this phenomenon.
good suggestion, though i am not diagnosed with health anxiety i am almost 100 percent i have it, ive had worries ever since the age of 7 and an on going on has been focusing on my heartbeat, i get palaptations, chest tightness, and i can go days overthinking what could be wrong with. the part she did not talk about in the video was about how some people with health anxiety actually avoid doctors, me personally ive avoided them most of my life and im trying to not do that but if i were to do that it would cause me great panic and horrible anxiety attacks, i think that its valid for me to self diagnose but i do agree when you say that you have mixed feelings about it, i never tell anyone ive GOT it, rather i tell them im almost certain something that also links is that i havent got a diagnosis because everytime i even think about going to get one my heart races and then i start to focus on my heart and my panic immediately switches to be revolved around my heartbeat and then before you know it im having a panic attack
Learning about the disorder is a healing by itself
Hope we are all well! We have got this
I thought this video was quite balanced and fair in its analysis. Thank you.
Hello Dr. Marks...I've watched several of your videos with all of them being AWESOME! I was wondering if you could do a video about the psychological aspects of radicalization and what to be conscious of while engaging with online groups and social media? I did a search in your library and wasn't able to find anything. Thank you for your time and helpful knowledge.
This entire description of the diagnosis is exactly what those with Lyme disease, other autoimmune conditions that aren’t widely known or treated within the mainstream medical community etc… when the concerns are actually valid. Every single one of these happen in the above mentioned patients and results actually have happened like death, end stage issues, undetectable but still real red flagged test results etc.
I love love love your channel; however, I feel this video totally missed a comprehensive circling back to the possibility of real conditions as I mentioned…
Thanks Brittany. The focus was on the condition of health anxiety which is excessive anxiety about conditions you don't have. Focusing on disorders that can be mistaken for anxiety is a different topic.
I guess what I’m trying to explain is that sometimes this condition is diagnosed for people that actually have underlying root causes for symptoms presenting as such. So to see a video saying these are misconceptions, when sometimes they are not, is upsetting as well as somewhat invalidating towards those who know and/or experience the label of this when it is an inaccurate diagnosis. Thank you for responding! I really enjoy your content as someone who is in the psychoneuroimmunology field myself :)
@@brittanymlanders I see what you mean Brittany, yes you're right. People who complain "too much" can get labeled with this and subsequently have their complaints dismissed and root cause illness missed. 😔 Thanks for following me. Psychoneuroimmunology wow!! I can barely spell that. 😀 All the best to you.
Whilst your observations about obsessively seeking medical opinion is correct, I also went through a phase where I was scared to go to any medical appointment out of fear they will find something badly wrong with me. Even straightforward procedures like getting my BP or pulse checked would cause my anxiety because I was convinced they would find issues wirh my heart.
Thanks doc for mentioning interopceptive exposure technique
I need to talk to my health team about this. Thank You!!
Hi Dr. Marks, love your videos. This one I'm having some trouble with. While I don't doubt people fall into this category, it's important to acknowledge that this is the exact rhetoric that is wielded against many of us with rare serious chronic illnesses/disabilities. Before getting diagnosed with EDS, POTS, Occipital Neuralgia, and many others, I had "health anxiety" but it was because I knew that many things were wrong and no one was taking me seriously because of concepts like this video. It caused complex trauma that I am still working through. Funnily enough I ended up seeing a psychiatrist, and him and my therapist were the only professionals in my life early on who were sure my physical issues weren't just health anxiety. But doctor after doctor continued to believe so anyway. Western medicine simply fails many with rare conditions because it is not a part of the training curriculum, which is why many of the regular tests come back normal, leaving me wondering what was missed. It's unfortunately true that most doctors are not trained on my issues or how to test for them. My conditions are multi-systemic and there is no one department or specialist to see, so I need to see 'multiple doctors and take many unnecessary tests'. Many of my symptoms do vary on a daily basis, and have suddenly 'materialized' without clear explanation. And if I had not done my own research, I would not have known to push for genetic testing and specialists to prove and treat my conditions. This is the reality for those of us with EDS. The problem is that being in this situation is incredibly stressful, so I can see how the two conditions can look the same from the outside, or even have minor overlap. The difference is psycho/somatic illnesses can never be proven, but all of my conditions have been. Please be careful making a video like this without acknowledging that some are presenting in a similar way because they have undiagnosed real debilitating conditions and are gaslit for years (or sometimes decades) into believing it's all in their head, by both doctors and those closest to them, who might watch this video and get the wrong idea. I'm sure you know there's this concept in medicine, if you hear hoofbeats think horses, not zebras. Once people paint brown (health anxiety) over zebra stripes it is hard to be seen as anything else. Something to consider.
Well said and I totally agree with your post. That is why I have a problem with CBT, some things are real but once an anxious person gets the 'Label' of anxiety anything they report is fobbed off as anxiety, I am speaking through personal experience here. I am also truly sorry that you have had to go through all this pain and dismissal by some in the medical field. I wish you well and good for you for having the resilience to find answers.
You said this so perfectly and with such poise. I'm still working through my complex PTSD from my experiences dealing with the standard medical system and I think I went a lil to hard in my comments on this video, but it's where I'm at after being exposed to this kind of rhetoric too much over my life. I don't want anyone to come to this video and think they are crazy, because they aren't. EDS gang til I die 🌼 (Not a rare condition btw, just under diagnosed, we are out her in mass amounts , thankfully more and more people are getting properly diagnosed as information is spread and caring doctors are educated 🌟🙏)
@@sophiathedandilioness Thank you 🧡 I can definitely empathize that it's difficult to remain calm when talking about this stuff because it's triggering in a way most people will never understand. I'm sorry you've been through such similar things. Stay strong ~ (also you're right, even though its classified as one where I live, there's no way of knowing how 'rare' it is until it's brought more into the light, but it's definitely under-diagnosed especially given how difficult it was to get diagnosed. My ON and other co-morbidities are unfortunately pretty rare though, which makes things difficult)
@@samduncan5472 oof, yeah, the rare co morbidities that pop up are compoundingly stressful 🥺 sending you love and spoons my dear. I hope your current doctors are taking really good care of you 💖
What's even more complex is when you have a rare and/or chronic illness and develop actual health anxiety because of years of being dismissed. Having both complicates parsing which symptoms are due to which disorder, and thus complicates and delays treatment. I think it's vitally important that mental health professionals get more unbiased training on health anxiety and that cross-departmental health care teams get used more frequently
Thank you Dr. Tracey ❤️🩹
My partner has had health anxiety as long as I’ve known him, but it was manageable. But after his stepmom died of lung cancer (long term smoker) in December, his anxiety went through the roof. It’s all he thought or talked about. He spent about 4 1/2 months going to doctors, getting tests, and running up thousands of dollars in medical bills. Thankfully, his therapist and psych doc were terrific. After some trial and error, he got medication that was a huge help. We also found a good workbook Helping Health Anxiety from the Centre for Clinical Intervention. It can be downloaded for free.
Thanks for that resource Peaceful Possum ❤️
Thanks for all your videos Tracey, love from Colombia 🇨🇴
You are so welcome! Thanks for watching🙏🏽
Besides pre-existing general and social anxiety, I have personal historical reasons to have health anxiety. A decade ago, for a month, I was having some unusual symptoms, the most standout being daily sore throat in the first half of the day and joint aching. Being a naive and unknowing teenager who mostly didn't get physical activity, I attributed the joint aching to not being very active and the sore throat to be me sleeping with my mouth open. I did not think they were related. The symptoms did persist, so I went to a doctor. My regular doctor was out for a while, so his then-assistant saw me instead. The assistant did a couple of tests but not a strep throat one explicitly because I did not have a fever. Whatever treatment I was getting as well as the walks I was taking were not helping at all; over the month, my joints became really achey and stiff (I could barely get in my pants or the bathtub), I did develop a fever, and I had decreased appetite, lost senses of taste and smell, and was getting weak. Eventually, I saw an urgent care doctor who saw me one evening and then sent me to the hospital the next morning on account of very low blood pressure. I had gotten sepsis, pericarditis, and cardiomyopathy. The hospital, for the entirety of the next month that I stayed, did many blood draws on me and had me seen by several different specialists. They never learned what the original illness was (though I suspect it was the strep throat I was not tested for), but I almost died without knowing it. I also heard that the assistant doctor that saw me had gotten fired for malpractice or something similar (when the original doctor came back and I saw him, the original doctor calmly expressed regret and remorse for what happened). I do not consider myself to know what is okay and what is not okay when something seems abnormal with my body, and with that major illness I developed as well as some other ailments I have had since then and not known were issues that needed to be treated, I am a major hypochondriac and germophobe for good reasons.
Sorry but some doctors are legit horrible at their jobs. Some don’t even take you seriously and that doesn’t mean you’re a hypochondriac. It just means that you respect yourself enough to find a proper diagnosis for your symptoms/conditions and a proper treatment from a reputed doctor.
I have health anxiety - I’m scared all the time, past few weeks I’ve just come to terms we all die - I’ll die but until I do being anxious is just my life. So I’ll live my life and die when I do.
Holy shit, it's like you're in my mind. Every word you said is word for word what I think.. from thinking that the doctors are too busy and wanting to log all my symptoms to thinking I will die in my sleep. Every. single. detail. this is scary
Woohoo my favorite KZheadr uploaded a new video.
She is so right...wow
Awesome video thank you 🙏🏾
I was diagnosed with health anxiety almost 4 years ago. With every pain or sensation I feel (headaches, stomach pain, back pain etc) in my body I think that it is cancer and that is almost every day 😥 I take medication (antidepressants), tried several types, have had behavior therapy for almost 3 years and nothing really helps. Rationally my brain knows that the chance of having cancer when having headaches is small, I still panic and think I have cancer. I have done some medical tests but until now no results of anything severe. And then comes the question; do I trust the doctor or is he missing something and do I need further examinations. Even when I am on holiday or are supposed to be relaxed, I am still worried about my health. There is no escape from my negative thoughts. I am going to do a mindfulness course in september, maybe that can relief me a bit. Sometimes I am afraid that I never loose this anxiety and I think that I rather want to be dead then. 😢 Thanks for your interesting videos and greetings from the Netherlands.
How are you now?, I am suffering almost from the same thing, I hope I will get recovered
Good to know I'm not alone.
Thank you for the video. I would love to see one on iatrophobia.
My fear of dizziness stops me from so much in life, thank you.
Dr Marks described me to the T. Every single point. Except that in so many years I have anxiety I haven’t figured out how to get rid of health anxiety. :( what is amazing is reading comments. These are classic thought processes of hypochondriacs. ( blaming doctors of not taking them seriously, not having enough expertise etc). I was one of them! Now I realize that my mind is playing a lot of tricks on me and years if looking for issues never proved. So, at this point I understand why my doctor would not take me seriously, but she still does. I just need to trust her and my body more and don’t let my mind rule. How to do that???? I don’t know!
My (self diagnosed) health anxiety started actually with an lsd trip that I abruptly had to cut short. I didn't know it at the time, but started noticing once I was smoking weed. Everytime I smoked weed I got super anxious about my heart, it was beating really fast and most of the times I thought I was dying. After some time I started feeling anxious in other situations as well. Everything seems to be calmer now, but last year I even started feeling heart palplitations and thought something was wrong with me, and it actually was - I had a very stressfull job, many times I was working 3 or 4 extra hours until 3 am I also ate lot of junk food cause there was no time or motivation to do better. Ever since I stopped and took care of myself I'm feeling much better. Simetimes I still feel something in my chest but it usually occurs when I'm really stressed. I avoid most drugs and try to live a more peaceful life and it seems to be working. My younger self would definitely like to see this video because the thoughts were just awful.
I was anxious about my health since I was a kid. I had a very bad panic attack after smoking weed few years ago. Passed out for like 10-20seconds and I was screaming “I’m having a heart attack” in front of my friends. They calmed me down then my chest started paining for few minutes and my head was feeling heavy too. Sometimes I regret smoking weed. Thought it would make my anxiety go away.
I do have health anxiety. But I also have chronic illnesses, which doesn't help my health anxiety. I was dismissed several times because of my anxiety. I was also told several times my tests were normal. Eventually, I found out I was right the whole time and I have a chronic neurological condition called chiari malformation, which often comes with many comorbidities, such as POTS. so it was missed and dismissed, several times. definitely fuels my health anxiety and encourages my behaviors and thought patterns.
I've been through that... I'm much better now but I still get confused with occasional symptoms that are different from those I experienced in the lowest points of my disorder. Last November, after years of being well without meds, I suddenly developed a hypoesthesia from the waist down. At first I wasn't alarmed, following instructions from my psychologist and psychiatrist, but after a week I sought medical support and by then I was already completely out of control thinking it was something fatal that would eventually impair or kill me. My brother had ALS and I know this symptom isn't related to that but is still quite uncommon. I'm 90% better now, but the hypoesthesia lingers near my ankles though I learned to ignore it.
THANK YOU. I’ve been medicated for anxiety for a long time but it got ridiculously debilitating last year. I thought I had chronic laryngitis and went through medical test after medical test and each time I refused the results. As a result I went mute on and off for more than 6 months. it was the darkest time in my life and I wish I knew about this type of anxiety when I was dealing with it. The longest I went mute was for 3 weeks strait. I’m senior in highscool so not being able to socialize because of this really stunted me socially.
I have been suffering from health anxiety since I were 12 years old. At that time I became so anxious about my health and started to feel my palpitations in every part of my body. I also did check ups with doctors but the results always came up clear. Now I get chest pains every month that lasts for more than a week.
I have sort of the reverse. I have so much wrong with me that any new doc has difficulty believing I can have so many issues and still function. It’s annoying to have to answer that everything I have has been diagnosed by a specialist in that field every time I have to go to urgent care or the ER. Yes, I have that many allergies. Yes, I’m taking that many medications. Most of the time, I end up telling them what I need them to do for me, because they have no idea what’s wrong or what I need. It’s irritating. So, I understand why someone would feel skeptical of the medical profession or feel that they’re being treated poorly. Many of us with multiple chronic illnesses have our doubts, too, at times.
I wish i could find a psychiatrist like you locally that takes the time to explain different scenarios and possibilities. I am currently tapering off zoloft and am having trouble deciphering if how i feel is from withdrawal symptoms from tapering or if my anxiety is indeed getting worse while tapering. I have never felt like zoloft has worked. I have been on zoloft for 8 months. From 200mg and am now down to 50mg cause the whole way, i have never felt like the medication was helping. I have eliminated other meds that were prescribed along side zoloft, and each time getting off those i felt better. So now i have told myself the meds are the problem, but then im scared of the side effects from getting off them cause i have had side effects all along and of course the side effects are also the symptoms of depression/anxiety. And nobody has any answers and i feel like im left on my own to figure it out. Only answer i have gotten is taper off zoloft and start a new med. Im hell bent on not going through the trial and error process to find out if something that will make me feel worse before i could possibly feel better, works or not.
Thank You do much for this video. 🥰
I always thought I was a hypochondriac and even was told so the I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder. Sometimes autoimmune disorders are challenging to diagnose right away..
I have mast cell activation syndrome, for years Drs dismissed me and told me it was anxiety. Even with a confirmed biopsy I still get treated poorly like it’s health anxiety because 99.9% of Drs don’t know what MCAS is :-/ I would love to see a video on health trauma and how it causes c-ptsd/ptsd. My trauma comes across as health anxiety but it’s from real medical/illness events like pain,cancer, malpractice/surgical damage and constant medical gaslighting.
Exactly! I was misdiagnosed for ten years as well. Yes I have anxiety- from having things missed!
Yes please. We need a video on that.
@Amanda Fiction Sorry you are going through this. It just infuriates me that the US healthcare system is so negligent. The good doctors are very few. How did you finally get a diagnosis? How did you tell/convince your Dr. to run this test?
@@abigailp.1252 it's not only in the US. And Doctors do their best usually. It's just that some things are hard to diagnose and take time. The patient has to advocate for themselves. It sucks, but that's life.
@Zockblatt Shickleblender True
Wow! I experience all six 😞Thank you for this information.
Omg this is so ON POINT. We will flat out diagnose ourselves. SMH - sigh
I'm one of the lucky people who actually found out what's wrong w me and got all my proper, formal diagnoses once I became an adult, but I spent 3/4ths of my life getting told I was fine and KNOWING that was wrong. I went through a few false self diagnosis, but I wasnt wrong about what I was experiencing, just what was causing it. We latch on to labels because that's what we've been taught we have to do in order to be taken seriously. People don't just "have health anxiety" there are actually physical issues that cause this level of severe anxiety, Dysautonomia is a big and common example. This video missed the mark, sadly, and comes off as just more medical gaslighting. I like this doc and have learned a lot from her in the past, she helped me get a PMDD diagnosis, but this wasn't helpful, if anything it was quite hurtful. The very ending part was getting close to helpful, as nervous system regulation can be very helpful to decrease symptom severity , but it's certainly not a cure. (Btw, I'm not upset at you or anything, just saw this comment as an opportunity to have this discussion)