conversations at the doctor's office

[stressedGuy]

I went to the doctor's today with a list of symptoms that I'd somehow linked together to make a scary disease. It turns out the doctor didn't share my concerns. I usually come away feeling relieved and a bit foolish.

My question to anyone is - when you visit the doctor's surgery with a fear of a serious illness, do you go with an almost apologetic tone feeling like you know what he/she's going to say or do you just go in and present your symptoms and let him/her make of it what they will?

In the past I've opened with the line "Hello doctor, I have health anxiety but I'm having these symptoms that are causing me to worry that I might have [body part] cancer". It's almost like I'm apologizing in advance for wasting their time and giving them a reason to not take me seriously from the start.

Does anyone have some better techniques for when you're at the doctor's? I want to acknowledge the fact that I'm having anxiety issues but not encourage the doc to attribute everything to it.

[Female healthanxiety]

Well,,,,,,,,,,,, I go in and cry! sometimes when I have been putting up with symptoms for a while - it all seems to come out when I am with him!

I wouldn't worry too much about how you come across - DRs are there to do a job and that is exactly what they are there for!

Not everyone that goes to the DRs is diagnosed with anything - more percentage is diagnosis and rulling out

x

[Agadch]

I don't tell the doctor that I have health anxiety issues because I feel like he'll just dismiss my symptoms and not take them as seriously if he knows!

[Serenity1990]

Tbh I'm just matter of fact about it. I never suggest what I'm worried about to them as either they might form the opinion all my symptoms are somatic or their judgement may be otherwise clouded. At the end when they tell me it's something entirely different I ask about what I was worried it was, and they generally explain why it isn't that.

I don't really do emotional.