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Care Opinion

Health Anxiety

Posted By waterfk34

"Health Anxiety"

About: Inclusion Thurrock (Talking Therapies)

(as the patient),

I have suffered with health anxiety from a fairly young age. A lot of the time I have managed to deal with it with occasional flare up but it normally gets worse when I am going through a stressful time. When my parents died after dealing with the initial sadness and shock I reverted to worrying about my own health.

When I hear of someone else’s death or loss I end up mirroring the symptoms of their illnesses.

Most recently Covid has affected my condition immensely. I contacted My Doctor for help and she referred me to Inclusion.

I initially joined group online sessions for more general anxiety. This helped me recognise that I was not the only person to feel the way I did and I could learn and understand the symptoms both physical and mental.

After the course I opted to explore my Health Anxiety with an online course and a supporter that I spoke to every three weeks.

I found the whole experience very useful and helped me to be more logical about my catastrophizing, symptom checking and endless research into ailments.

I would have liked to continue with my supporter meetings for a little longer, maybe every six weeks.

I do appreciate that resources probably wouldn’t allow that but I feel that I have relapsed a little since losing my supporter.

I understand that I could reconnect after 3 months if I feel I need to. I hope that I can overcome and stay on track.

I think I would find some sort of forum useful where I could discuss my issues with other Health Anxiety sufferers, maybe chaired occasionally by one of the supporters.

I would highly recommend the services that Inclusion can offer.

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Responses

Response from Isabel Saunders, Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner, Inclusion Thurrock NHS Talking Therapies, Inclusion Thurrock IAPT 2 years ago
Isabel Saunders
Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner, Inclusion Thurrock NHS Talking Therapies,
Inclusion Thurrock IAPT

Submitted on 30/11/2021 at 17:41
Published on Care Opinion at 17:41

Dear Waterfk34,

Thank you for sharing your experience with us.

Sorry to read that you have suffered health anxiety since a young age. It is understandable that even when you learnt to manage how to deal with the flare-ups, sometimes can get worse during stressful times, as the situation you described when your parents passed away, and that after you dealt with the initial sadness and shock, then you reverted to worry about your health, as mirroring the symptoms of others illnesses.

Is understandable as well that Covid affected your health anxiety, but I’m very glad you made the right decision to contact your GP and they referred you to us.

Yes, the webinars we deliver help in many ways, and one of them is that people can relate to others, realising they are not alone, and that there are others feeling and thinking the same way. It is excellent to know that it helped you to learn and understand the physical and mental symptoms and that after the webinar you decided to explore your health anxiety. I assume you decided blended CBT as treatment, so you were working on SilverCloud, which is an online platform and a CBT therapist supporting you.

Very happy to know you found the treatment useful and it helped you to be more logical about catastrophizing, symptom checking and endless research into ailments.

Yes, you are right, we recommend for you to digest all the information you learnt during your treatment for some months, then if you feel the need, you can contact us again, and could be other issues you need to work on. I will suggest you if you feel you cannot stay on track to contact us.

On that note, with the information you have given us, I think you have come far and you have learnt some valuable coping mechanisms.

Well done on the work you put on!

J. Isabel Saunders

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