Have Your COVID Concerns Crossed Into Health Anxiety?
It is typical to be concerned about your health, especially during a pandemic. But when does concern cross into health anxiety?
What Is Health Anxiety?
Health anxiety (also known as illness anxiety disorder in the DSM-5) occurs when people become preoccupied with either having or developing a serious medical condition. A person with health anxiety will try to decrease symptoms through various means, but the methods increase their anxiety and worsen physical symptoms (Haig-Ferguson, et al., 2020).
Other symptoms of health anxiety include:
- Self-monitoring for signs of illness
- Hypervigilance about your health
- Avoidance of medical care or frequently seeking medical care
- Experiencing intrusive images
- Having somatic symptoms
Do You Have Health Anxiety?
Are you having typical concerns about COVID, or has it crossed into health anxiety? See if you have experienced any of the following:
- Your fears about your health are impacting your quality of life.
- Your fears are out of proportion to the actual threat.
- You are avoiding reasonably safe activities.
- Healthcare providers cannot find a source of your symptoms other than stress or anxiety.
- You avoid going to healthcare providers.
- You find yourself ruminating (getting stuck) on a cough or sneeze to the point where you cannot engage in other activities.
- Even when reasonable precautions have been taken, talking to someone in-person significantly increases your anxiety, potentially leading to avoidance.
- You have obsessively searched symptoms online (cyberchondria).
- Your loved ones and friends tell you they are concerned about your behavior.
- Your loved ones and friends are annoyed or upset because you have repeatedly asked them if you have a temperature or other symptoms.
What Can You Do if You Think You Have Health Anxiety?
- See a mental health professional. Some counselors have expertise in health-related anxiety. Cognitive-behavioral therapy is effective in treating health anxiety. Your counselor can assess health anxiety using scales such as the Health Anxiety Inventory (Salkovskis, et al., 2002).
- It may be challenging for you to curb excessive searching of health symptoms, also known as “cyberchondria” (McMullan, et al. 2019). If you must search, look up “health anxiety.” Sometimes changing the goal can help decrease the need to search.
- Visit forums such as Reddit’s /r/healthanxiety. It can help to know that you aren’t alone in your experiences. If your anxiety increases as you read others’ stories or if they are triggering hypervigilance about your health, you might need to take a break.
*Health anxiety can be such a beast to deal with. I sometimes struggle with this and it definitely has gotten worse since the pandemic started. I always think I'm having a heart attack (😅) and there have been multiple times I've ended up in Urgent Care and I even went to the ER once. Not fun, but very real. There are so many people who struggle with this, so you're definitely not alone!! Lastly: stop Googling symptoms!!*
Do you believe you're someone who struggles with health anxiety? If so, has it gotten worse since the pandemic? What are some ways you cope with it?
#HealthAnxiety #Cyberchondria #COVID19
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@fruityPond7887
Do you believe you're someone who struggles with health anxiety? If so, has it gotten worse since the pandemic? What are some ways you cope with it?
I wouldn't say that I struggle with health anxiety on the whole. But I do know when the pandemic first started, I was liberally taking my temperature frequently everyday.
I am, however, in tune to the slightest change that I can feel in my mental/emotional health, so that has been an area that I have needed to learn acceptance towards as I've realized that I can't always *feel* the exact way(s) I would want to all the time. So yeah, in that sense, I would say I cope my centering myself while remembering that I literally can only control what I can control.
@sereneSunset26 Oh yeah lol I used to do the same thing and take my temperature constantly 😅 But yeah I agree that realizing you can't always control how you feel is so important! I've been realizing that a lot lately. I've been trying to practice gratitude for days when I feel better than others and be happy that I am doing okay!
@fruityPond7887 I can't say that I struggle with health anxiety but since the pandemic began I've been trying to eat healthy, workout...etc.
@comfortableNight4463 Those are all really important things to be doing! I'm happy that you got something good out of the pandemic! 😊
@fruityPond7887
The first set of points matches pretty well with having a serious illness too.
Throw in COVID which many people with chronic conditions are at greater risk of, can diminish immune responses to vaccines, have interrupted treatment, screening, access to medical care, shortage of tests, etc. and it is a mess.
@AffyAvo I appreciate your perspective on this! I'm sure having a chronic illness in the middle of a pandemic made life that much more difficult on you and many others 😞 I saw a statistic that says 1 in 4 people were late on their yearly cancer screenings because of the pandemic. It really turned everything upside down! I'm hoping things are getting easier for you as cases go down! ❤️
@fruityPond7887 It's been over a year since I had a tumour marker test, and no idea when I will get a requisition because of the plastic shortage. I get those done to help monitor that my tumours haven't become cancerous. I did have 2 MRIs in the past year though, which at least shows there isn't a big concern about them - they just seem to be there, staying constant.
I do look forward to when healthcare becomes normal again and hopefully with improvements compared to what it was pre-2020.