29 Times People Were Told They Were Just Anxious Reveal What Was The Actual Issue

When you go to a doctor with a complaint, you expect them to provide you with a fitting diagnosis. Then, once you get it, a plan for healing/help can begin. Yet, such a plan of action works properly only in cases when the diagnosis is right. 

Studies show that there is around a 10-15% medical diagnostic error rate. If you take this percentage to the United States, it translates into 100-200 million errors per year. Sounds pretty horrific, doesn’t it?

Don’t fret – not all of these errors are serious. Only about 10 million of them result in death or disability. Okay, the word “only” might not be the best fit here, as even one serious harm is too much, but you get what we wanted to express with it, don’t you? 

Someone getting misdiagnosed with anxiety happens more often than you might think. In fact, there’s a whole list of conditions that get mistaken for it. It includes rather common things such as endometriosis, inflammatory bowel disease, fibromyalgia, and less heard of conditions such as inappropriate sinus tachycardia or Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome.

For more examples, you can check out the list we created today – it’s full of stories from the internet. 

But why does anxiety disorder get mixed up with all these various diseases so often? Well, you see, anxiety symptoms overlap with many of those of other medical issues, driving doctors to make wrong assumptions when they’re presented. The assumption is made even quicker if the patient already has a history of mental illnesses, mostly anxiety itself. 

Of course, not only are symptom lists to blame here. The lack of knowledge by clinicians and limited time with patients can play a part in it, too. Essentially, some doctors might lean towards diagnosing anxiety because it seems like the simplest explanation for vague symptoms. 

Then, there’s a whole other problem of women specifically getting misdiagnoses because doctors don’t take them seriously – something people dub as medical gaslighting. Basically, when women come with complaints, they get written off for weight gain, imagination, and mental health.  

And so, both medical gaslighting and anxiety misdiagnosis cases eventually lead to patients suffering longer than they have to without proper treatment. This can result not only in harmed health but in people forming distrust in clinicians, discouraging them from seeking further care. 

Have you ever been misdiagnosed with anxiety or anything else? Share your story in the comments!