Is there anyone that suffered/suffers from health ocd? A good example would be taking your blood pressure and heart rate obsessively and asking yourself if your ok? If so tell me and how you overcame it little by little I want to hear wins
I haven’t totally overcome it, but it’s one of my exposures i’m working on in ERP. I tell myself phrases such as “maybe my heart rate is increasing, maybe I’ll have a heart attack, maybe I won’t, I’ll never know for sure.”. I definitely struggle with this a lot but recognizing those thoughts and labeling them as OCD and not truth has helped a lot
@Anonymous I like that you labeled those thoughts as “lies” that is so good I’m proud of you keep going’
I had a medical scare a several years ago that I worry did irreparable damage and I do find myself regularly saying “don’t freak out” before getting my blood pressure at the doctors or psychiatrist.. but somehow I haven’t fixated on it to where it’s something I struggle with. I think I chalk up the majority of the things that would worry me to just living a recently rather sedentary lifestyle. I do make the effort to exercise though, when convenient. Also, I do check my heart rate sometimes too and it’s very easy to psych yourself out. my heart beat always feels abnormal if i put my hand on my chest but I regularly get EKG’s whenever I am switching meds and they always come back crystal clear so idk. i just think to myself, we’ll get there if we get there 💀
@JeffTheGiraffe i swear i didn’t put an apostrophe after EKG. i know better 😭
@JeffTheGiraffe Thank you for sharing this! Wow I’m proud of you. Keep moving g forward and no worrries in the ‘ in EKG lol I sometimes do that🤭🤭
@Jailyn.h1 If anyone catches me making a grammatical error such as that and I haven’t yet corrected it, know that there was some foul play Luckily I don’t feel compelled to communicate over text how i’d write papers though. Like right there, I didn’t capitalize that I and I’m just going to not do anything about it nor will i add a period 😎😎 (im basically batman) (im not)
@JeffTheGiraffe I feel that!! Haha 😆
Saying “maybe, maybe not” has helped me, too. It’s not a cure all, but it does help quiet the thoughts. I also try my absolute hardest to resist the urge to google, take my blood pressure (I put my cuff away, out of sight out of mind), ask my husband if “this is normal”. I fail a lot. Sometimes I fall back into the reassurance seeking behaviors. It’s just about keeping going, for me. I will try again to not succumb to the thoughts and the what if
@AshtonT I am trying to do the same thing slowly not having the urge to get them i used to struggle all day with checking my blood pressure and heart rate obsessively. But since im on Zoloft im able to see that im calmer and I do check it but not 15 times throughout the day. Keep going I know this will all come to an end🫶🏽🫶🏽
And we may slide backwards sometimes but it’s not forever! We’ll get better, again
@AshtonT Absolutely I believe that we will ☺️
I’m currently struggling with the same thing. Fresh air helps a little.. still battling it. Tomorrow a new day though. Props to you ♥️
@ElleGiovanna Yes it absolutely does help. And thank you for the little reminder that tomorrow is a new day I needed that🫶🏽🫶🏽
@Jailyn.h1 Of course, I made it through that night. It’s all we can do is take this day by day. Remember to stop and smell the flowers too 🧡
@ElleGiovanna Absolutely I will 🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽
I have gotten maybe about 8 EKG’s within the lest 2 years? I’ve also gotten an echo done, and I got a heart monitor to track my heart over the course of maybe 2 weeks, back last year. Even though I have been to the emergency room so many times because of panic attacks that I thought were heart attacks, and went with a Cardiologist I still obsess and worry. I always think that I am going to develop some kind of heart problem after getting the tests done. Like if they’re just suddenly going to appear/my heart will suddenly have an issue. I especially get nervous when the pain is in the center of my chest + I get a tight feeling like I have pressure on my chest and can’t breathe completely. Please someone share their experience of how they controlled their health anxiety, especially if it’s related to this.
Can anyone share any success stories regarding Pure/Real Event OCD? I think I just want some uplifting news more than anything, though this may read as reassurance seeking… not sure what counts and what doesn’t. So any education on that may be helpful too. Many thanks!!
You can laugh at the title if you want, it’s objectively pretty funny. Hi guys, this is my first time on this app and I mostly just wanted to see if anyone out there is in the same boat as me or works in health care and is dealing with this. I haven’t told anyone what’s going on. I’m in my 4th year of medical school and In the past year I’ve developed what I think is pretty bad health OCD. Now health anxiety is a really common thing for medical students to have, I know that. It wasn’t until recently that I realized that the constant lymph node checking, self diagnosing & examining and reassurance seeking could have definitely had crossed the line into compulsions. Both my parents are cancer survivors which is what originally made me want to become a doctor but now every single physical sensation I have sends me into hours or days of rumination that I or someone I love has stage 4 terminal cancer. I spent an entire vacation with my boyfriend having a silent panic attack and convincing myself that he was dying of pancreatic cancer when he just had food poisoning and was fine days later. I had a complete mental breakdown and told myself I had lymphoma for weeks when I realized I could feel some of my own perfectly normal lymph nodes in my neck. My logical brain knows this is completely ridiculous but the emotional brain will not shut the hell up. It seems cruel that I made it this far only to feel like my own damn brain is betraying my ability to think through health situations clearly. I’m determined to get my symptoms under control before I graduate in a year as I don’t want this to affect patient care. Just wanted to get this off my chest and see if anyone else out there in health care is struggling too.
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