Scared of Doctors

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shoppygirl
shoppygirl Member Posts: 694
edited June 2014 in Mental Health: Because Cancer Doesn't Just Affect Your Breasts

So hopefully I am posting this  in the right place.  I have found that since my breast cancer diagnosis, I have had a huge fear of drs and tests.  It seems that every time I have a scan they find some new incedental nodule or scar that requires further investigation.  A couple of examples are the first ct scan I had  after dx, they found a lung nodule.  Fast forward 6 months a rescan determined it was a granuloma but then they found a thyroid nodule.  After a biopsy it was determined to be benign but I still needed to follow up with the thyroid dr.  That was on Thursday and I was almost having a heart attack in the waiting room worring that he was going to tell me more bad news.  It was all fine and he just wants to follow up with an ultrasound in 6 months. Now I have made myself an eye doctor appointment as it has been a while since I have had one and I have been having this dry eye issue since chemo and the Tamox.  The problem is that I am in a tizzy that they are going to look into my eyes and tell me I have brain mets or something like that.  I also have an ooph comming up in a week and I am terrified of any issues on the results of that.  This is all making me very depressed.  Anyone else feel this way about drs and tests?

Thanks

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  • Rachel1
    Rachel1 Member Posts: 363
    edited February 2014

    Yes, shoppygirl. I feel this way. I hate going to the dentist, the eye doctor (I had the same fear as you). I was in Curves yesterday and noticed that the position of the sink and the tile looked the bathroom at the onc. I had a full blown panic attack. Welcome to post traumatic stress syndrome. That's what my therapist tells me.  I'm 3.5 years out and thought I'd be better by now. Unfortunately, I think I'm getting worse.  So sorry you are going thru this. I hope your ooph went well. I had one also. It was a walk in the park comparatively.

    Big hug,

    Rachel

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  • shoppygirl
    shoppygirl Member Posts: 694
    edited February 2014

    Thanks Rachel

    The opph went great as did the eye doctor appointment. So glad to be able to cross those off my list!  Now I just need to get through the next few follow up appointments!  Someone referred to the fear of doctors as white coat syndrome !  I have that for sure!! 

    Hugs !   

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  • lekker
    lekker Member Posts: 594
    edited February 2014

    Shoppygirl - I definitely have White Coat Hypertension. I don't normally have blood pressure issues but something about waiting to see a doctor (cancer-related or not) sends it sky high, which of course worries the nurse until I tell her about my anxiety.  My local Y does free checks once a month and my pressures are fine there.

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  • mrenee68
    mrenee68 Member Posts: 383
    edited February 2014

    I so have the white coat syndrome. I had to go to my onco appt. and just walking through the door and the air rushing at me I could smell that hospital smell in the air and it made me sick to my stomach. So glad my husband was there to keep me going or I might have ran the other way and went home.

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  • shoppygirl
    shoppygirl Member Posts: 694
    edited February 2014

    It's crazy how certain things bring up bad memories. Every time I drive by the road sign for our cancer centre I feel a cold shiver down my spine and then I say a little prayer to ask that I never have to go back there!!!!  

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  • momand2kids
    momand2kids Member Posts: 1,508
    edited May 2014

    I have to say, I am also starting to have a fear of the medical profession.  After surgery, chemo and radiation-- a visit to the dermatologist feels like   land mine... when I think of it--pcp visits, oncology visits, eye dr. dermatologist, gynecologist--and now  because of nodules, I have to have an endocrinologist and a pulmonologist--and I am afraid of all of them..... I have to steel myself for every conversation because I am waiting for bad news. 

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  • shoppygirl
    shoppygirl Member Posts: 694
    edited May 2014

    Mom

    I still feel the same way, it has not gotten any better. I had to go to the eye doctor as I had a massive floater in my eye and I was sick with worry as to what it could be! It turned out to be an innocent floater but I really wish I could get a grip on all this worry !! 

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  • 208sandy
    208sandy Member Posts: 2,610
    edited May 2014

    I have "dr. ptsd" as well - have had it for years and years - now I take 1/2 an Ativan before any dr. or scan or anything medical visits - my PCP is so wonderful that on occasion I visit her without a pill and my bp is low but most of the time I have "white coat pressure" - anything can trigger it.

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  • momand2kids
    momand2kids Member Posts: 1,508
    edited May 2014

    Sandy

    I love this idea of ativan--- I think I am going to ask for some--- I have not used it since my dx but I remember it as being very calming-- thanks for the tip

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  • leaf
    leaf Member Posts: 8,188
    edited June 2014

    I certainly had it too when I was first diagnosed.  I went to a therapist, and that's when I learned I had neonatal and early childhood trauma, as well as trauma during the breast excision.  For several years afterwards, when my PCP (and other docs) would walk into the exam room (he had nothing to do with any of the traumas)  I would be trying to curl up in a ball, etc.  They couldn't even take my blood pressure.  After many years of therapy and an anti-depressant (sertraline), I can really have a normal conversation with any of them.  (I still have white coat hypertension though.)

    I haven't been through chemo, radiation, mastectomy, substantial breast excision, or anything like that.  

    Since I started both the anti-depressant and therapy at the same time, I don't know how much each helped, but it really changed my life.  You have been through a lot more trauma than I.

    We are all different, and different things work for different people.  But I did get much, much better.

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  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Member Posts: 1,376
    edited June 2014

    Or is it that you do not trust them?

    I have a lifelong, complicated, medical history from 10 hours old, parents in medicine, worked in medical schools...

    I can thank the idiots that could not respect me as an individual, wanted to do everything at their convenience and not give me the info I needed to make decisions with informed consent, and who ignored what they were told to do and not do by my advocates as I was a recent sexual assault victim that watched my attacker get off, for my PTSD.

    Bad care and bad attitudes changed me from being a cheerful, compliant patient.

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  • sheropesem
    sheropesem Member Posts: 34
    edited June 2014

    I have to do blood work and meet with my onc in two weeks for results. I am one year out but even this blood work petrifies me. Thank you everyone for HOPE. And knowing I'm not crazy and all alone in this. Sometimes I wish I could give away my brain....it causes me an awful lot of torment.

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