Anyone else in Health Care?

[catalyst911]

For the last 10 years, give or take, I have worked in health care.  Presently I am a Paramedic.  When i was in my early 20's I worked as a Care Aid in a school/hospital for Children with extreme physical and terminal diseases.   I should also mention that I respond to disasters, such as the Haitian Earthquake and am completing a degree in Disaster studies.

So say my life is full of the medical worsts is an understatement.

I see the worst case senerieos everyday.  I see the person my age with MS or Cancer and it scares the hell out of me.  Sometimes I don't realize that it is scaring me till all of a sudden I start checking the symptoms online and finding out I have them all - or at least some.   

I did have health concerns when i was a child and it took many trips to the doctors and 2 surgeries to find out what was wrong with me.  My mother was relentless that something wasn't right - and even though two doctors said I was simply a "dramatic child" she ended up being right. 

I find myself at a difficult crossroads.  I am going through another down time.  I haven't experienced anxiety this badly in years but my father had two strokes last April and since then I have felt like I was slipping and now i have totally fallen. 

This time it isn't cancer that I am freaking out about (it usually is ovarian, cervical, thyroid, endometrial, stomach or low bowel) - this time it is MS.  I seem to have pretty much all the symptoms listed on the internet.  I know a lot about MS as I studied it when I was in training.  I find that is my problem with a lot of things - I know enough to be able to freak myself out - but not always enough to reassure myself.  I also don't have the luxury of saying "how many people have you met with such and such a rare disease" cause chances are I have met plenty!

Does anyone else work in Health?  Does anyone else find that their work is often a trigger to the obsessive merry-go-round of anxiety thoughts?  I would really love to hear from someone else as to how they deal, or don't deal, with the constant "in-your-face" of sickness and Trauma.

[marc]

My wife has been a pharmacist for over 30 years and it does not trigger any health anxiety in her.
A friend of mine is a paramedic and it does not trigger any health anxiety in him either. We are all
different, but on this forum other people are in health care and it triggers health anxiety in some.

[sweetblubrry]

I am a CNA in a nursing home! So I work with a lot of older patients with chronically ill conditions and some that are on hospice. Just last week we had a lady pass away who was not functioning at all. She basically just existed and was hooked up to an oxygen machine. Honestly it is still early for me to tell how this is affecting me. But I do love it a lot and I don't worry about what conditions my patients have. I also feel like it has comforted me about death because I see how it is a peaceful thing and not something terrible. When it is time, it is time. I am planning on going to school for nursing so I will see how that affects me as well. But it doesn't seem like it does at this point. A lot of my patients are elderly and simply disabled whih is why they are there. I do not worry about the health conditions -- I am so focused on making them feel comfortable and doing my job well that I don't have time to think about it.

[nik88]

I am!  I'm an RN on a rehabilitation unit...so dealing with with a lot of pt's with spinal cord injuries, stroke, MS...

Oddly enough, it doesn't really fuel my health anxiety.  I don't worry about these particular things happening to me....which one would think the opposite would be true.  Sometimes I do think that working in such a setting does fuel my health anxieties and worries, just not related to what my patients have.

I do constantly bouncing my worries/symptoms off my coworkers to see if they can offer me medical advice or for reassurance that I'm ok! 

[Angelofworry]

I'm an RN in a nursing home and primarily work behind a computer. Being in the setting I'm in, it doesn't really fuel my anxiety. Nursing school on the other hand - they should have handed me a bottle of Xanax with my acceptance letter!! Pretty sure I was at the doctor every other week!! Not even joking! If I wasn't diagnosing myself, I was diagnosing my family and friends! Also I do feel my health anxiety limits what job fields I would be ok with working. For example - I would LOVE to get into hospice care. I really enjoy making people's last days as comfortable and mesningful as possible. I love providing support to the patients and families. And if I was guaranteed only elderly patients I would apply in a heartbeat! However... It's not just people over the age of 80 that have a terminal illness and pass away. So I'm pretty sure that would fuel my anxiety like no other!!

[RNwithanxiety]

I'm an RN in the ICU and my HA keeps getting worse. Ive always had it but my short time spent in oncology took it to a whole new level. Everything is cancer for me.

[catalyst911]

Thanks for replying to my post.  I thought it might help to see if anyone else went through the same thing.  I have once and awhile found someone at work I can talk to about this, but normally it is not really an environment where this type of talk is really open.  Many people do the same type of jobs as I do and don't have any negative effects, I guess I was just hoping for reassurance that I wasn't the only one that gets this way in this field.  It makes me think I am in the wrong profession - like this is a weakness that makes it hard to do my job.  I am very afraid that HA is going to force the end of all I have worked for in my career.  Once I know for sure that what I am going through now is anxiety again and not MS or something real, I am not sure what I am going to do about my job.

[Slangevar]

Almost all of my doctors (and a doctor relative of ours) have HA. I actually go out of my way to choose docs with HA because they tend to be more thorough; they're obsessed with finding causes and solutions; they explain things really well, and they understand what I'm going through.

So on behalf of your patients, I thank you for what you do. I don't think I could do it, but I'm so glad you guys do. You're the best.

[Turner1298]

I've been an LPN for 15 years. I agree it's a case of knowing just enough but not enough??? Strange thought huh? My true anxiety symptoms, the ones that are ruining my life, started after my daughter almost died though. Now it's a constatnt thing...I have three kids to obsess over getting sick. My main worries are Cancer....but I do stray to other ailments PRN..lol

I do find that my hypo/anxiety doesn't reach to my patients. I actually feel very capable of my care for them. It does sometimes affect my ability to go to work, which sucks.

My therapist says health care workers are one of the latgest groups of hypo sufferers.