How to tell if it's health anxiety or real?
Written by the clinical team at The Lyceum Clinic. Clinically reviewed by Sanah Younis, Clinical Director, BABCP-accredited (no. 1000792). Published 28 October 2026. Last reviewed 28 October 2026.
The question itself is the trap: health anxiety keeps you trying to be certain, and certainty about health is never available to anyone. A more useful question is whether you have had the sensible checks and are still unable to let it go. Any new or changing physical symptom should still be discussed with a GP.
What we say when a client asks "but what if it's real this time?"
"I don't know. It might be." That usually shocks people, because they expect the reassuring-doctor role and a promise that they are fine. That is not the job. We are not aiming for certainty that you will never get sick, because that is impossible for any human being. The question we ask instead is: are you willing to ruin the perfectly healthy life you have today, just to try to predict an illness you might get tomorrow? We stop trying to guarantee safety and start building tolerance for uncertainty.
Signs that point to health anxiety
Reassurance that works for hours or days and then wears off. Symptoms that move or change as your attention does. A pattern of new fears replacing old ones once each is ruled out. Repeated tests that come back clear without reducing the conviction. A life increasingly organised around checking, searching and avoiding.
For more detail, read about health anxiety therapy.
What therapy does and does not do
Therapy never tells you that you are not ill, and a therapist who promises that is overstepping. It helps you live with reasonable uncertainty the way everyone else does, and it stops the behaviours that keep the fear alive.
When to see a GP
For any new, persistent or changing symptom, once. Then, if the fear continues after a clear result, that is the point at which therapy rather than another test is the right next step.