Medical Anxiety: 5 Tips To Get Through Your Next Medical Appointment
Most people don't enjoy going to a doctor. Besides the annual check-up, usually, any other visit is a chance to hear bad news regarding your health. It could be expected based on personal lifestyle choices and habits, or come completely out of the blue and be a horrifyingly traumatic experience. Usually though, it's something simple and treatable, or sometimes nothing at all.
Yet our minds like to put on a dramatic play in our heads of all the worst-case scenarios and the future outcomes from them, leading to a fear of doctors and something called white coat syndrome or health anxiety. This can lead to general anxiety which eventually leads to stress, which as we all know can be a cause of numerous illnesses as it weakens our immune system responsiveness.
This can be especially traumatic for those that are going through infertility treatments, and consistently are experiencing reproductive traumas associated with those medical procedures. It could be completely psychological and worrying at the same time with each additional rejection and attempt at having a child. There are some techniques that can help reduce these levels of anxiety and ultimately leave you feeling more optimistic about these types of visits.
Stay Away from the Internet about the Procedure
The internet is a wonderful tool to help connection, information, commerce, and many other topics. Yet, when it comes to medical procedures, even if you're looking at what are very trusted websites, these sites are often filled with comments of worse case scenarios as that is what we are subconsciously looking for.
We expect the worst, so we expect to read it online. This leads to a cascading chain of anecdotal information on a mass scale that can actually start to appear as a statistic. Yet, consider how often people leave a bad review for someplace over a good review. It's the same on informational medical sites as well where more often than not it ends up being a digital venting forum.
Consistently reading about these infertility treatments or trying to see which one may be the best for you based on what other random people are saying about this can lead to overconsumption of information, forcing your brain to go into overdrive to process everything that is going on.
It’s also not uncommon for people to then go to a licensed medical professional with extensive years of education and experience under their belt in this specific treatment regime and tell these medical professionals how to handle the situation.
Research the Medical Professional
This is one useful way to use the internet. Do some research on your doctor that’s performing these fertility tests. See what you can find out about them, their success rate, the feedback others have given them. There are many doctors out there, and it is always okay to get a second or even third opinion. You are trying to create life and you should work with someone who exudes the type of confidence that is needed to get you where you need to be.
Confidence is not the only important thing, but this is medically intimate as well, so you should absolutely feel 100% comfortable with the doctor handling your procedures and overall treatment. Don’t be afraid to move on and find a new doctor, even if it takes longer or means starting over from the beginning, as the more ways you can relieve your anxiety, the better procedures can go.
You also want to make sure that whatever procedure is being done, the waiting time for the results are as short as possible, because the last thing you want hanging over your head is the expectation of results to linger there.
Use This as a Way to Adopt a Healthy Lifestyle
Let’s face it: some of us could be a little bit healthier, and this is a prime example of why that is important. You’re facing an unknown variable, where you are unsure of the outcome. This puts physical stressors on your body and it will find new ways of coping, whether through overeating or staying up way past your bedtime.
You need your body in prime shape at all times really, but especially when going through infertility treatments or any other medical procedures. This is also an opportunity to transition to a healthier diet, develop an exercise routine, and make sure that you’re always getting enough sleep. The last one may be the most important because our body always needs time to rest and recuperate.
Changing over to a healthier lifestyle definitely helps to alleviate stress and provides more natural energy to your body to help handle anything that comes your way. Whether it's weight loss or helping improve your sleeping patterns, it can help prepare your body physically for what is needed for these treatments.
Develop Routines and Enjoyable Activities
Use this time period to work on stress reduction activities, such as yoga or meditation, that can help bring a more mindful peace from the deep breathing it provides. Combine these with enjoyable, low-key activities such as reading or walks through nature. Try to avoid screen time as a relaxing activity, because that can actually up the anxiety and lead to those sleepless nights we want to avoid.
At the same time, try to reduce those long nights out or crazy events we all may have done in our younger years at one point, to keep you on a consistent, routine-oriented lifestyle.
When it comes to routines, they can really help bring some order to your life. It helps bring a modicum of control over certain elements in your life, which is really great when trying to have procedures that may not always lead to having a child born. Being in control via your routines will help establish positive habits that will be beneficial throughout your life regardless of the overall outcome of the treatments.
This can also be a useful tool for any stressful triggers that may occur either before or after fertility treatments and are proven, regimented methods to help manage and alleviate stressors in your life, especially those that end up becoming traumatic.
Allow Yourself to Feel This Way
This can be the most important. Process these feelings and emotions and let them empower you versus them being a burden. By expressing how you feel, either to yourself or through loved ones, you help visualize and materialize the issue and then you can work through it and eventually eliminate it. You need to be able to embrace this unknown and realize and understand that you are doing all that you can do and are being proactive.
Sometimes knowing just that can be enough to start to reduce your anxiety when it comes to infertility treatments and the trauma associated with going through these treatments. Confront the trauma and identify what can happen and accept it.
In the end, sometimes these things were not meant to be but there are always alternative ways to show and express your love and what you have to offer to the world. The sooner you can embrace these feelings, the sooner your anxiety will start to become more manageable until it dwindles away.
If your anxiety symptoms are becoming too much for you to manage alone it may be time to consider anxiety therapy. If you have questions or want to know how I can help, I offer a 15-minute consultation. Please reach out today!
