How did your health anxiety start? what did you do to help it?

Explain your health anxiety, how did it start for you and what did you experience? That could be symptoms, feelings, etc.

What did you do/ do you do to cope with these things? Myself I find it hard to not look up symptoms when anything feels out of place but it just feels like one new "symptom" after another.

I have a feeling mine started while I was in the shower 3/4 weeks ago and I got a sharp pain in my head. After that for about a week I had a racing heart and aching pains in my chest (I still do) and other places. I'm trying my hardest not to look up symptoms from now on and to meditate but honestly I'm just scared and would feel a lot more grounded to hear other people's experiences and know i'm not alone in this.

All the best xx

 The reason it's best not to look up symptoms is that many symptoms that are common with anxiety are also common in many other conditions. So you could needlessly scare yourself.  Then people start thinking about it over and over and over and become more anxious and get more symptoms. That's why I suggest not to google anything. 

 you're definitely not alone! I have had your same symptoms and many more. 

 The rapid heart rate is a classic sign of anxiety. What happens is that when you're anxious, your brain sends out a hormone that speeds up your heart rate. That's because your brain thinks you were in danger and speeding up the heart rate  sends more oxygen to your body. This is called the fight or flight response .  it feels uncomfortable but it cannot hurt you. 

My symptoms started in my 20s. I had twitching of the muscles, ringing in my ear, chest pressure, Needles and pinsfeeling in my arms and legs,  floaters in my eyes, racing heart, .  Ever since I can remember which is about kindergarten, I have always had anxiety. Over the years it build up and build up and then literally in one day I got all of those symptoms! I actually had a nervous system breakdown . My body just could not handle the stress anymore. I thought I had a terrible disease. I did not have any support over the Internet because this was back in the late 80s. I thought I was the only one in the world with this because I didn't know anybody that suffered from this. Very scary!  My dad took me to a neurologist and everything came out normal. He told me that it's all stress and anxiety and that I should take a vacation. 

 my symptoms eventually died down but because that was a huge first episode, they lingered for months and months. A terrible time in my life. After that,  my symptoms lessened but I would still get locational twitching, fatigue, Eye  floaters and weird feeling in my head.  I just told you all that because I wanted you to know that your symptoms are very common with anxiety and stress. Literally millions of people in the world suffer from what we have. Today I am in my 50s  and feel like it I can pretty much control my anxiety when I feel it creeping up. It will never completely go away because that's just how my brain works. However I can really  minimize the symptoms or have them completely go away when I use the audio meditations, eat healthy, exercise, socialize and stay positive as much as I can.

if you can get a book called mindfulness meditation, it is an excellent read and teaches us how to separate negativity from our own thinking. 

 I always suggest a visit with your doctor just to get things checked out. Then if everything's OK it's time to start working on the anxiety.  Have you ever tried the meditations on YouTube? They really calm  me down. They have them on anxiety, depression, panic attacks, etc. 

 when you get a symptom, the worst thing you can do is react with anxiety because that will bring on more anxiety. What you do is acknowledge the symptom and then go on doing what else you were doing. Even if you still feel it I don't give it any attention .   There are several videos on YouTube that teach you how to react to symptoms. It does work. 

I hope you feel better soon!

This was great to hear....Currently Im concerned about a brain tumor or lack of. My symptoms change, as soon as I realize its anxiety, another one arises. I dont google much anymore, and I just broke down and started 50mg of zoloft.. I hope I can get back to my life. I dont have health insurance so I cant go get my head checked too $$$ But I just had bloodwork done and all was good, eyes checked and they were good, other than an eye floater in my left eye. Im 32 with 3 young children, Im so scared of a terminal illness, and dying, and no mom for my kids! I believe in GOD and I pray to him alot, and that helps! Im currently struggling though