Abbey Clancy went to see a physician convinced she was seriously sick — however it turned out her jeans were just too tight.
The British model opened up about her experience of health anxiety in a podcast appearance this week.
Clancy, 37, said she had amassed “like five doctor friends” — parents at her kids’ schools — over her constant worrying.
Her symptoms included painful numbness round her groin that she became sure was multiple sclerosis (MS), a condition affecting the brain and spinal cord that could cause problems with vision, arm or leg movement, sensation and balance.
When she began to feel the numbness in her lower body, she googled her symptoms and grew apprehensive once they appeared to suggest MS.
Clancy tapped up a “top MS doctor” to search out out what was occurring however the news was surprising.
“It’s once I had these jeans on,” she explained to the Newlyweds podcast.
“They were so tight they’d stop the blood where I used to be sitting down.”
Thankfully, the doctor ruled out MS but diagnosed Clancy with one other condition — health anxiety.
“I’d been holding (anxiety) in a lot that once I got to the doctor, I went hysterical and couldn’t stop crying,” she said.
“He was like, ‘You haven’t got MS but you’ve got a mental health issue.”
Health anxiety, also generally known as hypochondria, is a mental illness just like obsessive compulsive disorder. Those affected spend quite a lot of time worrying that they’re sick, sometimes to the purpose where it takes over their life.
Symptoms of the condition may include worrying and checking your body for signs of illness, equivalent to lumps, tingling, or pain.
Individuals with health anxiety may all the time seek reassurance from others that they are usually not sick or persuade themselves that a physician or test could have missed something. They might obsessively research health information online or avoid going outdoors for fear of contracting or spreading illness.
Clancy’s husband, retired football star Peter Crouch, who was also on the podcast, said he wished his wife would worry less.
“Health anxiety is a thing, she has got a problem with that,” he said.
“I’d like Abs to fret less.
“It seems like she takes on everyone’s problems. It’s a pleasant thing however it takes its toll.”
Clancy was the runner-up of Britain’s Next Top Model and went on to host the show from 2015 until its cancelation in 2017.
She and Crouch married in 2011.