Health Anxiety: An Ominous Observation

[bdaddyjohnson]

What I am noticing since being a member of this site is that 99% of the members here seem to not be hypochondriacs, but have health anxiety. I am the first to admit that when something doesn't feel right in my body I; 1) start to google my symptoms 2) diagnose myself with the worst possible scenerio 3) run to the doctors office to get checked out 4) agree to have all sorts of tests to rule out what I already diagnosed myself with via google. I have unfortunately acted out this vicious cycle throughout my young adulthood whenever I didn't feel right. I have again started this cycle when my twitching started and here I sit with all these unexplained symptoms. I think that everyone who has these symptoms can probably relate to what I am talking about. I am not saying that this is all in our heads because the symptoms are real. Is it possible though, that throughout life we have abused our central nervous system so much with health anxiety that we have burned it out perminately? The thing is, I don't feel anxious throughout the past three months of twitching yet, I am so determined to find a reason why I am experiencing these symptoms that I cannot let it go. It affects my sleep and my overall quality of life. I want to blame the symptoms on something so badly so I can say "Ok, this is what caused you to feel this way, now here is what you have to do to stop it" Is it that those with health anxiety are so in tuned to their bodies that they pick up on every little twitch, PrickLedPin, pain etc. I just want to know if anyone can relate to what I am saying. The thing is, right now I am trying to find a link between taking a substancial cycle of the antibiotic Levaquin in August of 2008 as a cause for my symptoms. I know there is documented research on this topic that this antibiotic can reek havoc on your central nervous system. Or, am I on a wild goose chase and the worrying I have done throughout the years with health anxiety has already taken its toll on the CNS. The funny thing is, I really don't feel anxious about any of my symptoms right now nor have I been anxious but I do want answers. Any thoughts from fellow twitchers on this subject? Have we all caused ourselves to develop these symptoms over time?

 

[MarioMasher]

It has been suggested before that many of the people on this board have some form of undiagnosed OCD. That wouldn't surprise me at all. It seems to me that the endless pursuit of a cause-- while seemingly innocent and helpful-- can cause a lot of mental torture when there really isn't a "smoking gun" cause to be found. That's why I advise people to just let it go if they can. OCD + Health Anxiety + BFS can be an awfully bad combination. Talk about a recipe for stress twitching. I have found very few people here that have actually determined a "cause" for why they are like this.Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to equally tapping the floor 500 times with my right and my left foot. After all, that's my Saturday ritual.Ciao.

 

[avidgamer198]

Yea, most people on here DO worry a lot. If you go back and look at my posts from last year, you'll see that I was a very nervous person. The only cure I found for all this was just not thinking about it. When I stopped thinking about it I noticed that I don't twitch nearly as much, it almost makes me think that maybe thinking about it was the real culprit to begin with. Consider this: if google/webmd/whatever filtered out the "twitching" symptom to never show ALS or MS... How many people on this site would be more relaxed? I think it'd be over half. Instead of depending on the internet for answers, they'd go to their doctor and trust his/her opinion on the matter. Heck, they probably wouldn't even go to their doctors out of lack of concern...I'm not saying I have anything against anyone on here, because I can honestly say I understand the huge panic all of this cause... I was there not too long ago. All I can really say is that you'll all break out of the cycle eventually too.

 

[Outlook1958]

Before googling I didn't even know about **S I would have never ever linked it to muscle twitching if it wasn't the damned Internet.