What You Need to Know About Health-Related Anxiety

I recently had a friend staying with me who suffers from severe health-related anxiety, formerly known as hypochondria. Hypochondria is now considered a value-laden, judgemental word. My friend only stayed three nights, but the list of illnesses he believed he had is too long to list. He began by telling me he had a sore throat. He is a grown man, but he even asked me to look at his tonsils. Do I look like his mother? Next he developed a blocked nose and complained that his sinuses were infected but it didn’t stop there. He became extremely anxious about his return flight home and was convinced his eardrums would burst due to his blocked nose. He visited the doctor twice and the pharmacist a dozen times to discuss different medications to unblock his nose and save his eardrums. During the last hours of the trip his health seemed to improve, until he got something in his eye and became convinced that his eyeball had been scratched so … we made yet another trip to the doctor.

Do you have anyone in your life who suffers from health-related anxiety – perhaps a friend or a relative? They often believe they are suffering from the most amazing sicknesses. You and I just suffer from normal, garden-variety illnesses but people with this type of anxiety have rare and exotic conditions. They don’t just get stomach aches; they suffer from twisted bowels that could explode at a moment’s notice. I am going to be honest. I am a pretty robust type of guy. I’m not fussy about my food – hey, I’m Italian, and I love good food. And I’m not fussy about my health. I try not to complain if I’m feeling unwell, I soldier on. Consequently, I find hypochondriacs exhausting, yet I’m also aware that health-related anxiety is also exhausting for the person suffering this mental disorder.

What causes health-related anxiety?

Health-related anxiety is recognised as a mental disorder, and as many as one in 20 people suffer from some form of it. Psychologists believe health-related anxiety can be triggered by a number of things. Many sufferers had a serious illness as a child. They probably feared for their own life at times. This is the case with my friend. He had bad asthma as a kid and was hospitalised frequently. His parents feared their son would never grow to be a man. My friend grew out of asthma yet as an adult he suffers from health-related anxiety. This was probably triggered by his asthma. He was the focus of much health-related attention as a child and this had led him to believe that any ailment could have serious consequences! He is seeking the same level of care he got from his parents, doctors and nurses when he was a small boy fighting to breathe through a horrible asthmatic wheeze. The health-related anxiety is now impacting on his quality of life.

Over-protective parents also inadvertently convince their children that they are sick and ailing and need lots of special attention and care as parents. Children of overly protective parents are conditioned to seek out special attention and obsess about their health as adults. Some people develop health-related anxiety because they are unable to put their emotional needs into words. They are never able to talk about their feelings. They may be craving love, support and attention but they are unable to attract attention or ask their nearest and dearest for this, so instead they focus on their health and exaggerate health concerns. By doing this they attract the attention they crave. Some people grow to find the condition rewarding because at times they become convinced they are ill and then feel a wave of relief and happiness when a doctor tells them they are healthy.

There are other causes of health-related anxiety. A child may have lived through the death or serious illness of a parent. This conditions the child to believe that love and attention are directly linked to illness. As an adult they have a subconscious belief that they must be ill to get love and attention. Also the death of a parent can lead to illogical concerns about their own health. If the sufferer seeks professional help to cure their health-related anxiety, they will first need to examine what caused it.

How do you deal with people with health-related anxiety?

How you deal with a person with this anxiety is dependent on the type of relationship you have with them. If you are close, you may be in a position to encourage them to seek professional help, but if you have a distant relationship and the sufferer is just an acquaintance or work colleague you should just develop strategies to control the behaviour. I would like to help my friend, but he only visits every couple of years. The rest of the time he thinks he is too unwell to fly.

• Dealing with an acquaintance

The reality is that you cannot totally escape hearing about their imagined illnesses. These people need to talk about their ailments, no matter how ridiculous they may seem. You have heard it all before and you know their sickness only exists in their head, but to them it is very real. Imagine how you would feel if you told someone you had cancer and they ignored you or showed no empathy. This is how people with health-related anxiety feel if you dismiss them, so listen and try to appear concerned. Hide your scepticism and show some support, however do not appear too concerned or the person may come to the conclusion they are ever sicker than they first thought!

Discourage them from researching the web to learn more about the illness. Explain that there is a lot of misinformation online. After showing sympathy you can try to direct the conversation in a new subject. These people monopolize conversations with details of their latest disease. Change the subject totally and tell them something about your day. Divert their attention to other activities. Would they like to get out for a walk or coffee? Distracting the perceived pain with new physical activities often works.

• Dealing with family or a close friend

If you have a close friend or family member with health-related anxiety you need to encourage them to seek professional help from either a psychologist or psychiatrist. Your doctor can arrange this. You need to talk to the sufferer about their health-related anxiety and if they agree to see a GP go with them.

Learn as much about this condition as you can. Invest in some books and read online articles. Learn what the sufferer is living through. They may be experiencing terrible panic attacks triggered by concern for their health. Also encourage the sufferer to learn about anxiety illnesses, but do not allow them to become fixated on this! They need to understand it, not become obsessed with it! Talk to the person as they try to change their thinking. Tell them when they are doing well and if they regress ask them why it happened and how they can again conquer the affliction.

The sufferer will be distressed to learn they have health-related anxiety. Reassure them that they will recover, but don’t let them obsess. Again you may be able to distract them. Discourage them from spending hours researching health-related anxiety.

Try to give them some coping skills. Their psychologist should already be doing this, but could you give them some positive affirmations or introduce them to a new and rewarding hobby? Would exercise or yoga classes help them? What about prayer or joining a church?

Above all be patient and compassionate. Unfortunately this condition will not disappear overnight.