How to stop?

[Alex94]

I can't stop myself from conducting 'whole-body scans' when I look for lumps, bumps and other abnormalities, especially when it comes to my lymph nodes (even tough my GP checked it yesterday!).

I'm afraid that if I don't stop doing this soon, it will turn out that I have OCD, appart from my HA/MS duo:ohmy:

What do you do to avoid this scanning?

[RoseEve]

I think HA has a lot in common with OCD in fact my therapist told me I have OCD tendancies never mentioned health anxiety. For me obsessing and the relentlessly search google. I have been better lately but I still find myself googling just not nearly as much. I no longer allow myself to touch my body as far as looking for lumps. But I'm over board I won't even do a self breast exam which is bad. I'm going to give up looking at google for lent I know I won't do it then.

[Althea]

In general, it's easier to teach yourself to do something else than to make yourself stop doing a habit. Have you tried any mindfulness, meditation, or CBT techniques to refocus yourself when you start?

And good for you for realizing that it's a habit it will be helpful to break! That's not always an easy thing to figure out, so I think you're doing very well there.

[Alex94]

thanks for your posts.
I haven't started CBT yet, so I don't know any techniques. I just want to stop asap, because I don't want to waste so much time doing self-exams every day... or at least reducing the number of checks would be good.