Test anxiety

[Ihavelostmymarbles]

How are you able to handle the anxiety you get from health tests? I'm never able to stay calm during a test, and I worry that it messes up my results. Especially ekgs--like what if it's always abnormal because I'm always scared? I also have two tests tomorrow and I'm really scared. I know I'll be okay no matter what the results say, but thinking positively doesn't seem to take my anxiety away. It maybe lessens it, but it's still there and I can't fight it or make it go away.

[montys]

I suppose I have the advantage of coming from a medical family but despite my severe and irrational hypochondriac tendencies, I have the utmost faith in health tests. In the era of modern medicine, they are robust, do an amazing job of isolating confounding factors, and are designed so that doctors in a variety of health specialties can look at the same test and come to the same conclusions. These days, with the internet, it's fairly easy to interpret them yourself.

Some readings are more volatile than others, but doctors know what they are. For the most part though, small variations in day-to-day behavior won't bias the information.

Don't worry, you go this! Technicians study years to be able to do their jobs. They know what they're doing, and will take care of the rest.

[nomorepanic]

Hi

This is just a courtesy reply to let you know that your post was moved from its original place to a sub-forum that is more relevant to your issue.

This is nothing personal - it just enables us to keep posts about the same problems in the relevant forums so other members with any experience with the issues can find them more easily.