Scared of any type of doctor

I am absolutely terrified of the dentist and any other type of doctor. I struggle with health themes and I often think my moles are cancerous, that I have mouth cancer, ovarian cancer, colon cancer etc. While I realize having all of these at once would be super rare, I’ve convinced myself that while I might not have all of those I probably have at least one but I don’t know which one. I worry about having cancer or some other terminal disease almost 24/7 it’s really impacting my life.. the issue is I can’t bring myself to go to any doctor’s appointments. I’ve been doing a little better by building a good relationship with my primary care physician & I’ve had every blood test available & all came back perfect. I got over my fear of the eye doctor and went and got a new prescription for the first time in 8 years & I went to an allergist for the first time. Since my biggest fears are ovarian, mouth and skin cancer I can’t seem to bring myself to go to the gynecologist, dermatologist or dentist. I know if I go I’ll feel better like I did with other appointments but I am SO convinced that I will be told I’m dying that I’m not ready to hear it and too scared to go. I fear I’m letting other health problems that I may have like gum disease get worse due to my fear of receiving bad news which only makes me more scared to go. Any advice or comments are appreciated!

7Eraser

Date posted: 1y

I also have extreme health and doctor anxieties and ocd. Some therapists I know are willing to actually accompany you to appointments, that could help ease some tension with someone on your side with you. Of course the basic method is to just force yourself to go, just set up an appointment and go. It will be very rough waiting for the appointment and very hard going to it, but afterwards you will feel phenomenal!! I’m rooting for you though, best decisions i’ve ever made were to go to appointments like the dentist because my teeth really needed it and now i’m not afraid anymore! But from my understanding it sounds like you are afraid of the extremely rare cancer diagnosis rather than the doctors and appointments themselves, so maybe working on overcoming that fear specifically will help more.. The way I did it was that I just said “whatever” whatever happens happens lmaoo and forcing myself to think that way has led me to not being that afraid of health stuff anymore. It sounds silly and tough but it really works if you force or even fake that mindset. But that’s just my two cents on everything, i’ll be rooting for you!!

anonymous444333

Date posted: 1y

@7Eraser I definitely felt a lot better when I forced myself to those few appointments I went to. Sometimes I almost work up the courage to do the ones I really need to do but I always back out. Thank you so much for the advice I’m definitely going to try everything you suggested! I really appreciate it so so much

Skelita

Date posted: 1y

Hi there! I’m going through the exact same thing and it sucks :( I’m so sorry you’re going through it too. I’ve been dealing with health ocd for like 10 years now but there was a period in between that where it felt like it was completely gone for a few years so there’s hope (it came back a few months ago) 🥲 feel free to message me whenever you need reassurance or someone to vent to!

anonymous444333

Date posted: 1y

@Skelita I’m so sorry you’re dealing with this as well! It’s so hard sometimes. I just absolutely am convinced I have something terminal to the point where I’m like scared to get engaged or any other life milestones because I’m like well.. I’ll probably be dead soon. So awful

Pink Dinosaur

Date posted: 1y

Omg, I feel like I could have written this myself.

anonymous444333

Date posted: 1y

@Pink Dinosaur I’m sorry you’re dealing with this as well! It’s so hard to constantly worry about being sick but not being able to get checked to make sure you aren’t

Ola..

Date posted: 51w

@anonymous444333 i have exactly the same, I become afraid and i feel like nobody believes me whereas i might need medical help.. im sorry that so many people have to struggle with that, it sucks. I hope you are doing better now!

tomhyland

Date posted: 23w

disease obsessions

hello. i have been going through health scare obsessions for at least 5 years now and it terrifies me. i mainly fear of cancer. i have no reason to fear of cancer because it is not a predominant condition in my family. i have been to check ups for skin cancer and been told it was nothing which relieves me for a short period of time but then i start thinking of other cancer possibilities :( it doesn’t help that im a smoker to deal with the stress of adhd and ocd which just fuels the obsession of lung cancer. i know it would help my fear to stop smoking but thats easier said than done. i have only been a smoker for 3 years and its the only thing that helps right now. on top of this, my brain makes me believe that every intrusive thought i have WILL MANIFEST into existence just from thinking about it! this has scared me so much in the last 5 years and once i told my mum about it and she said "if you ever got cancer we would deal with it, its okay" but that didnt help it just made it worse and the possibility become more scarier! please help me.

BigGyro09

Date posted: 23w

18+ only

Starting to think I have unresolved childhood trauma unfortunately. Health OCD is also driving my absolutely crazy but I'm too scared to go to my doctor. I worry about diabetes, illnesses, cancer, skin problems, etc. I just hope everything works out in the end. Right now I just can't do the things I love doing because I'm constantly worrying about everything. All of my worries are exacerbated and I just can't keep them away. They only come back.

PRIV8

Date posted: 11w

Afraid of my health/overthinking

I went to internal medicine today, and i'm not perfectly healthy, My liver is a little bit fat, I have to lose weight so thats okay, also I have gallsand, which is not gallstone yet but it can become that if its not treated. Now im like these arent big problems but when i heard these I started to overthink and think about the worse that I will have gallstones cause the doctor said I have it cause it runs in my family(my mother/grandmother and uncle had it) and I just think that it wont go away, and even if i doesn I will be worried all year if it came back. Im just so afraid. Also they said I should go get a blood check, but I said i will hesitate now cause last time i almost fainted and felt horrible the whole day, and now i hear from people i know that they went and they felt sick and vomited there. But the overthinking comes from me thinking if these little symptoms I experienced which I thought its because of anxiety, was because of health issues then the other symptoms I experience sometimes (headache and lightheadedness) are there cause of another health issue, and im worrying about my health, im afraid of death, i keep imagining myself if they tell me that i have terminal illness or something really bad and i dont know how to handle it. Now i feel nausea and i would say its because of stress but i keep thinking that its because of the health issues I have...I don't know how to handle this fear, if you ask others or therapists, they will say "yeah everyone is afraid of death and suffering" or "Try to think about something else" and i wont pay for advices like this...

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Scared of any type of doctor

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