Bombarded by media health advice

[dorabella]

Does anyone else find that the flood of health advice- take this test, have that checked for things you've never heard of or even considered - that is everywhere in the media - tv, newspapers, magazines - is becoming overwhelming and can make you quite anxious?

I'm even getting circulars in the post at home from health screening companies (lord knows where they get my address from). When I'm in an anxious state I start catastrophizing - thinking these companies know something I don't - that I might have missed some significant symptom. Having long ceased Googling every little twitch, pain, weird symptoms - this is beginning to get me on the treadmill again....

Anyone else feeling as overwhelmed as I am?

[mary3]

Yes!!!! I could have wrote this post! It's like having a constant reminder about what illnesses are out there and then I start thinking about the symptoms or googling the illness. Also all the conflicting advice scares me. I try my hardest to ignore it x

[AthenaFaeyrn]

2 posters I walked past through town today riled me.

One was something like, "WE'VE GOT OUR EYE ON YOU", (it turned out to be about tax dodging.. and I can't afford to pay my taxes this year so yeah, I'm scared about that), there was a photo of a womans' eye peeking through torn paper right out at you, as though to imply you are literally being stalked and stared at right that moment, and the other may as well have read "OVER 60 AND GOT A COUGH? Get vaccinated before it quickly kills you".

No one needs the amount of fear pumped out to us these days. It's everywhere. It's haunting. There's a BIG difference / fine line between helpful information, and outright scare-mongering.

[Fishmanpa]

For those with anxiety, yes, I can see your point because that's the way the anxious mind processes something like that. It's catastrophic thinking IMO. Otherwise, we have the choice to allow something to affect us or not.

Positive thoughts

[Mindknot]

Ugh, yes. According to public health announcements I'm sure I should be checking about 5 different things daily... woke up this morning to the latest one on the radio, and although I know it's totally irrational, I think my body is reacting to it in the background by providing me with a bit of heartburn...
I can understand why it exists, I'm sure a lot of people wouldn't go to the doctor with X, Y or Z, but on top of the other 35GB (actual figure I found somewhere) of information that we absorb every day, in an anxious mind, it can be trouble... Fishmanpa is right, we need to not catatrophise these things (although it's hard when the trusted public health service IS, through marketing), and we need to remember not to take them "personally"...

It would be nice to see the equivalent level of marketing budget put into raising public awareness of mental health issues and symptoms!

[cattia]

I was thinking this today, as I was driving home from work there were two adverts on the radio in the space of half an hour telling you to go and get checked for cancer if you had two particular symptoms. I won't say what they were in case it triggers people but they were both things that were pretty common, especially for the anxiety sufferer and I wouldn't have associated either of them with cancer!

[Sophi123]

I agree that for someone with HA it is all a bit overwhelming, but then I also agree with Fishmanpa that it is probably 'our' problem as opposed to the media doing something bad as I wonder if for the 'normal' person it is these kind of reminders that can make a real difference.

I have been having really bad HA about cervical cancer though recently and didn't help that my news and twitter accounts were full of the stuff by Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust at the weekend about rising rates of CC/testing not being infallible etc. But again that was about people generally not going for screening and that's not really aimed at me who has been and been told things are prob fine!

Another one this morning was that you shouldn\t ignore heartburn as this can be sign of stomach and oesophageal cancer apparently. But again that was talking about continuous heartburn that hadn't been checked by a doctor, not the odd bout after a spicy curry or something I guess.

Shame everything makes us HA-ers feel so blergh hey :( x

[Mindknot]

Sounds like all the last three folk have heard the same thing this morning then...! Is it me, or do they always choose Mondays for launching these campaigns too?

[Foxine]

I agree that in this case, creating demand in the society in an artificial way is no longer an innocent "game" as in the case of other products. Whenever I see all those ads, I am asking myself a question - if all these meds are so necessary, how is it it possible that people were doing pretty fine without them 20 years ago? It looks like our bodies can't function without getting 10 pills a day...

[Primula]

Oh I so agree with you all. Mindknot you made me chuckle. I had a bit of heartburn yesterday, which I haven't had for ages, and I wasn't at all bothered by it, until I read the article you are talking about. Straight away, I remembered my own heart burn yesterday, and had a little panic. Fortunately, I remembered what I've learned in CBT, and caught the thought and realised what was going on, and managed to defuse it.
Last year there was a PAncreatic cancer advert that sent me into a downward spiral. I'm determined that's not going to happen this time. I do hate the media health articles, but they are not going to go away. We need to remember not to personalise the stories. Just because we see them and they panic us, they are not a sign that we have the disease.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Its the scatter gun approach of the government that is the most annoying for me. They do it to catch the lower number of cases that 'could' be something serious but for the most part "blood in your poo" can be any number of everyday things that most people won't dream of contacting a GP for and the same can be said for the "coughing more than a couple of weeks" one. Persistent heartburn, trapped wind and frequent burping fit into the next campaign...thats most of the local working mens clubs around my way :winks::D

It always reminds me of the HIV campaigns of the 80-90's and how they we warning we would be facing an epidemic...which never happened and the anti crime ones with the ugly bats in!

I don't have HA, so my response to these adds is "oh god, not another one of those annoying adverts" and this is the response of people I have spoken to who have no anxiety disorders. People get sick of seeing them, because we all know that for the most part they are a load of BS! Personally, I think the charities such as DMH do a better job with a kinder advert. Cancer is a major push and has been for years and I find myself desensitised to them as there have just been so many.