Hypochondria

Hi,

 I think it's important to distinguish between hyperchondria and the genuine feeling that most with hypersensitivity experience.

I've had several different experiences and they present with their own unique difficulties.

One of my lads has an extremly high pain threshold. (He also has dypraxia and falls a great deal.) He can go to casualty with the severest of breaks and show little or no sign of discomfort. This has always been an issue when facing the staff. As a parent you can come across as overbarring or over insistant when you push to have an assessment they feel is unnecessay. The staff at my local hospital have had to apologize in the past to my son, having x-rayed his arm on my insistance, only to find a severe break. (One member of staff accused my son as, 'having me on.' She later appeared with a lollypop for him, expressing that she'd never witnessed a child with so little symptoms and so much mobility in a broken limb!) Given that they wanted to send him home, this could have been a disaster. 

My other son however, is extreamly sensitive to what he feels throughout his body and this can be difficult to guage. He also was sent home from hospital in severe pain following a sports injury, but had to return to hospital days later when the x-rays were re-reviewed and it was revealed he had a broken thumb. Yet in his most recent trip to casaulty the same level of pain was related to a simple torn muscle.

In my own case i'm also hypersensitive. I've experienced extreme bowel pain for some years and had a number of tests which have been negative.

However, in more recent years i've also experienced other pains, which I dismissed having had negitive results in the past. My GP was also unsympathetic & I never challenged his dignosis because i didn't want to embarrass myself further. When I began displaying other symptoms and could bare the pain no more, a scan revealed haemorragic cysts, which I've clearly lived with for some time and suffered prolonged pain and no treatment for.

Both under and over sensitivity can lead to their own very different problems. How we respond to them however can have totally different outcomes.

Some like chest and stomach pains can be induced by the high levels of anxiety we face on a daily basis. It is no coincidence that bowel issues run in very high numbers for those on the spectrum. This does not mean they are not valid, it just means that they are caused by anxiety, not by a specific disease. This does not make them any less real for the sufferer.

The balance of knowing when to ask for investigation is always a tricky one. I'm very good at asking for assessment for my children, but poor at insisting on help for myself and too quick to dismiss subsequent pain because I didn't want to further embarass myself for the same negative outcome.

My understanding of the definition of hyperchondria is that it is 'imagined ill health.'If that is what you are describing then this maybe indeed what you are suffering from.

If however, you are experiencing genuine pain then perhaps you need to acknowledge that. The truth is that you maybe experiencing that pain or making that pain worse because of your anxiety, not because of illness. Once you establish the cause, it maybe possible to break the cycle where you jump to the conclusion that the pain is something more serious or worse ignore the pain when in genuine need.

The link below is by a woman who has looked in anxiety and the affects for those on the spectrum. You may find it of some use.

www.youtube.com/watch

I'm no GP or Psychologist and in the event you feel ill, I'd most definately advocate seeking medical treatment, but since dicovering the link between my own anxiety and the related bowel pain I suffered as a result, I've been able to manage my bowel pain levels and minimize my trips to the GP for more pressing issues.

Mindfulness, may also help with managing your anxiety levels. In doing so you may find that your pain is reduced and it may also help with your pattern of thinking that all pain is related to something more serious.

The book 'Living well on the spectrum' by valerie Gaus can also give some great insights into the thinking paterns of those on the spectrum and ways to manage anxiety more effectively

Good Luck

Coogy

Hi,

 I think it's important to distinguish between hyperchondria and the genuine feeling that most with hypersensitivity experience.

I've had several different experiences and they present with their own unique difficulties.

One of my lads has an extremly high pain threshold. (He also has dypraxia and falls a great deal.) He can go to casualty with the severest of breaks and show little or no sign of discomfort. This has always been an issue when facing the staff. As a parent you can come across as overbarring or over insistant when you push to have an assessment they feel is unnecessay. The staff at my local hospital have had to apologize in the past to my son, having x-rayed his arm on my insistance, only to find a severe break. (One member of staff accused my son as, 'having me on.' She later appeared with a lollypop for him, expressing that she'd never witnessed a child with so little symptoms and so much mobility in a broken limb!) Given that they wanted to send him home, this could have been a disaster. 

My other son however, is extreamly sensitive to what he feels throughout his body and this can be difficult to guage. He also was sent home from hospital in severe pain following a sports injury, but had to return to hospital days later when the x-rays were re-reviewed and it was revealed he had a broken thumb. Yet in his most recent trip to casaulty the same level of pain was related to a simple torn muscle.

In my own case i'm also hypersensitive. I've experienced extreme bowel pain for some years and had a number of tests which have been negative.

However, in more recent years i've also experienced other pains, which I dismissed having had negitive results in the past. My GP was also unsympathetic & I never challenged his dignosis because i didn't want to embarrass myself further. When I began displaying other symptoms and could bare the pain no more, a scan revealed haemorragic cysts, which I've clearly lived with for some time and suffered prolonged pain and no treatment for.

Both under and over sensitivity can lead to their own very different problems. How we respond to them however can have totally different outcomes.

Some like chest and stomach pains can be induced by the high levels of anxiety we face on a daily basis. It is no coincidence that bowel issues run in very high numbers for those on the spectrum. This does not mean they are not valid, it just means that they are caused by anxiety, not by a specific disease. This does not make them any less real for the sufferer.

The balance of knowing when to ask for investigation is always a tricky one. I'm very good at asking for assessment for my children, but poor at insisting on help for myself and too quick to dismiss subsequent pain because I didn't want to further embarass myself for the same negative outcome.

My understanding of the definition of hyperchondria is that it is 'imagined ill health.'If that is what you are describing then this maybe indeed what you are suffering from.

If however, you are experiencing genuine pain then perhaps you need to acknowledge that. The truth is that you maybe experiencing that pain or making that pain worse because of your anxiety, not because of illness. Once you establish the cause, it maybe possible to break the cycle where you jump to the conclusion that the pain is something more serious or worse ignore the pain when in genuine need.

The link below is by a woman who has looked in anxiety and the affects for those on the spectrum. You may find it of some use.

www.youtube.com/watch

I'm no GP or Psychologist and in the event you feel ill, I'd most definately advocate seeking medical treatment, but since dicovering the link between my own anxiety and the related bowel pain I suffered as a result, I've been able to manage my bowel pain levels and minimize my trips to the GP for more pressing issues.

Mindfulness, may also help with managing your anxiety levels. In doing so you may find that your pain is reduced and it may also help with your pattern of thinking that all pain is related to something more serious.

The book 'Living well on the spectrum' by valerie Gaus can also give some great insights into the thinking paterns of those on the spectrum and ways to manage anxiety more effectively

Good Luck

Coogy