Does anyone else suffer from health anxiety?

I'm constantly like this too, pretty much everyday i worry about something medical. The main one is cancer tbh, I'm so scared of it, i try and eat foods which are supposed to combat it, i exam myself more then 3 times a day to be sure i have no irregularity's etc. It is really dominating my life at the moment, that's not to mention the other things i'm scared of developing like heart failure, or i just drop down dead for no clear reason. So trust me it is something i go through everyday.

It’s possible you have Generalised Anxiety Disorder, it’s a frequent comorbid condition with Asperger. I have it too. I read once a perfect description on how it feels: “it’s like that moment when you touch your back pocket & your wallet isn’t there.. but every second of the day”. You should seek a diagnosis. I know.. for me this is a million times worst than Asperger.

I'm also awaiting diagnosis, but yes. I had a period of serious health anxiety a couple of years ago. I feel like it could be 'linked' in the way that we tend to be hypersensitive to body sensations and tend to hyperfixate on things. I am an obsessive person and when I want to get to the bottom of something, I will research endlessly (so I fall into a sprial of research which almost always convinces me I'm about to die). I also catastrophise a lot and am a generally anxious person. Combine all these traits and you have perfect recipe for a hypochondriac! I'm SO MUCH better now though. CBT and medication helped some, but 90% was figuring out in my own head the mechanics of what was happening each time I spiralled and looking at this really logically (luckily another strong point of mine!) to figure out where my thought processes didn't match with reality. A lot of the initial recovery does involve trying to forcefully ignore any symptoms and DO NOT GOOGLE. 99% of the time my symptoms would resolve on their own whether I googled into oblivion or not. And that 1% that didn't, I saw a doctor and was told it was something completely benign or treatable. Going through a period of doing that, really showed me how much I was over reacting to the tiniest of sensations etc. I now have a set of rules for myself to keep from spiraling into a googling panic. Unless something appears obviously serious, I ignore it for a few days and see if it goes away, it usually does. If it appears like something may actually be 'seriously' wrong or it doesn't go away in a few days, I will allow myself to google, but only for the NHS page on whatever I think it is, and then follow directions on there (such as 'see your gp for routine appointment').

Edit: you also need to constantly remind yourself that pretty much ANY symptom you're experiencing, can be CAUSED by anxiety itself. When you start recovering from this type of anxiety, you will find that, for example, those odd pains you get in your chest, or head, or wherever, don't happen as much anymore, if at all.

I am 64, fit and healthy for my age. I have no medical or sexual issues. Lately though, I have begun to feel the onset of joint pain caused by arthritis. I do not fear death, I fear pain. I worry about what precautions or preparations I should take to ease my senior years and to help my wife deal with me as well. I also fear that pain and nightmares / pain induced insomnia might drive me to suicide. I also have PTSD from military depolyments.

Yes. My health anxiety is so great that a lot of the time I actively avoid reading about medical conditions - because one look at a list of possible symptoms is all it takes for me to start correllating myself with them, and I inevitably find one or two that match and I start panicking and go fully obsessive-compulsive over the tiniest, most random feelings.

I've always suffered from health anxiety on and off but the past 6 months have been historically bad for me in that regard.