Woman describes repeated hospital visits amid health anxiety

Hollie Sharman says she went to hospital four or five times a week at one point because she feared that severe chest pain meant she was dying. The 25-year-old told the BBC that tests did not reveal a cause, but each new sensation sent her searching online for an explanation and worrying again.

The BBC reports that Sharman was eventually diagnosed with health anxiety and health-related obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). She says her family and partner have helped her manage the anxiety, which no longer controls her life.

Clinical psychologist Dr Kirren Schnack, speaking in a BBC podcast released in June, described patterns that can include repeatedly checking the body, researching symptoms or seeking reassurance. Some people instead avoid examining themselves or attending appointments because they fear what they might learn. The NHS lists similar signs and says health anxiety becomes a concern when worry about illness starts to take over someone’s life. A single behaviour is not, by itself, a diagnosis.

Sharman’s experience does not mean chest pain should be dismissed as anxiety. The NHS advises calling 999 for sudden chest pain or discomfort that does not go away, pain that spreads to the arms, neck, jaw, stomach or back, or chest pain accompanied by sweating, sickness, light-headedness or breathlessness. It advises seeing a GP for pain that comes and goes. Its chest-pain guidance is more specific than a general suggestion, also quoted in the BBC report, to book a GP appointment if a symptom persists for two weeks.

For people whose health worries are preventing them from leading a normal life, the NHS advises seeing a GP. Treatment may include cognitive behavioural therapy.