Anxiety Support Group
Anxiety is a physical condition marked by intense and persistent feelings of distress, fear, angst or dread. General anxiety caused by routine day-to-day stresses usually passes quickly and is experienced by almost everyone at one time or another. However, such feelings that linger over time and are very difficult to cope with, and which lack a clear cause, may indicate...
Everytime go to the dr's office my blood pressure and pulse rise. Today my heart rate was 144 and blood pressure was 150/99. Took it a second time and it was 150/91 and my heart rate was still high, around 118. When I checked it later at Kroger it went down to 110/76. That was probably the 3rd and 4th time I checked. I'm just worried I'm doing this to myself all the time and I'm causing damage. I hate this fear and this phobia. I just want to go in and be able to check my blood pressure without flipping out, does anyone have any advice or can relate?
Trust me when I tell you that the doctor will know the difference between white coat syndrome and high blood pressure. I have both, and the doc knew the difference. You can always tell the doc you're nervous and have them let you chill out, then re-test you at the end of the visit. They'll totally be understanding of that.
Also, if you DID have high blood pressure, it's no death sentence. You take this little tiny bit of medication that pretty much doesn't affect your life in any way, and then your blood pressure goes down and you have as low of a chance of getting a heart attack as anybody else. :D
I hope that helps.
Amber
I have (had?) this phobia dreadfully - it was so bad that I would panic if I even tried to take my own blood pressure at home. This is a particularly bad part of health anxiety because the anxiety causes the medical results to be worse, and knowledge of this increases the anxiety, it's a vicious circle.
I went to see a psychologist who advised me that the accepted cure for phobias is to "desensitise" - ie to force oneself to face the fear incrementally. I thought of how I might apply this to taking BP. I came up with the following steps, and would tackle each step one at a time, moving onto the next step when my anxiety for the current step was at a manageable level.
1. Step 1 - buy home monitor (even this caused my heart to beat faster!)
2. Put home monitor on wrist without switching on
3. Switch on momentarily, then switch off immediately (this caused me some significant anxiety at first)
4. Switch on for 1 second then switch off
5. Switch on for 2 seconds then switch off
6. Keep the monitor on for a little longer each time (or each time you feel ready to)
7. Eventually the monitor will actually take your BP - but you don't have to look at it - the readings are stored in the memory. I found it helped me be calmer if I knew I would not look at the reading.
8. Keep on taking BP without looking at it, hopefully getting calmer.
9. Finally - when you have taken BP in a calm or only moderately anxious state, look at the reading (the next day, say).
I did this - it took months. Apparently the desensitisation usually takes at least 6 months but it does work. I took lots of readings in a relatively calm state, all were about 115 over 72 or so. Still need to actually take it and look immediately, and ideally be able to let a doctor or nurse take it too, but this is great progress for me, and I found my doctor was happy for me to take my own blood pressure (if you relax it is more accurate).
Good luck!