How do I believe my GP???

[kittenface]

We are constantly bombarded with stories of missed or wrong diagnosis's - every night on the news or in the paper - the woman who went to her GP 58 times and died of cancer, a family who are suing the NHS after they missed their daughter's breast cancer - it's making me crazy with anxiety and completely destroying my trust of my own doctor.

Does anyone else feel like this? How do you cope with it? I see my GP and feel reassured for maybe a day before the doubts start creeping in - what if he's wrong, what if it's more serious - which sets off my symptoms and i'm back in my spiral.

Currently i'm suffering with persistent stomach pain, I have seen two GPs over the past 6 months (my surgery has different doctors available at different times) One told me I had acid reflux, the other told me it was a dietary/IBS issue - I now think they're both wrong and can't stop freaking out about Pancreatic cancer.

I just wish I could believe my real life doctors more than I believe Dr Google :(

I have so many friends who have IBS/Stomach issues all the time and they aren't terrified they're about to die - I have to keep remembering that.

xXx Kittenface xXx

[Gary A]

The reason reports like this are on the news is because they're rare events. If they were common events then they wouldn't be newsworthy.

[seeker]

I get over it now by not reading the daily fail, now and their ilk which thrive on these stories. I don't google either-I realised nothing calmed me down. I now ask my dr which symptoms I'm missing or just say I'm worried it's this, what makes you sure it's not?

[Mi]

Good advice seeker! I'm also doing my best not to google things from now on. And I agree the daily mail is the worst for scare mongering x

[MyNameIsTerry]

Whilst the Fail may thrive on these stories, we must remember they exist, they are not made up. They will certainly sensationalise them but you will find them in more reputable newspapers with a more accurate & appropriate article. But you do have to be careful though as some of these reports may be misleading about whether a doctor could have even spotted something. Although, yes, some GP's have been found to miss them and the NHS produced their own report a couple of years back to pick up the cases where this happened to tighten things up - but we will always have the potential of "human error".

I think the fact your GP's have each given conflicting a diagnosis is probably feeding this too as you don't know which to trust. If your symptoms changed between, the latter GP may have seen something to make a differential diagnosis that the previous one had no ability too.

When it comes to the life threatening, like cancer, they are much rarer to be missed. Sadly, this is less rare with more mundane issues (including mental health where incorrect diagnosis has been common for a long time - but I mean of the mental health condition due to lack of knowledge) but with these it can mean a matter of observing until they reach the right one and since it's not dangerous, just unpleasant, they have the time to do so and don't need to rush for inappropriate tests.

[kittenface]

Thank you all for your advice - I'm a journalist so can't really avoid the papers unfortunately. I want to be able to read things like this and not immediately apply it to my own life, but not sure how to achieve this. But I definitely need to stop Googling - you're right seeker - no matter how much I google it never actually calms me down, just makes me consider even worse possibilities!

In terms of my stomach issues - I am excluding some dairy from my diet and eating loads of fibre/probiotics - I'm also getting a test for excess stomach acid. I'm going back to my GP in three weeks to see how my stomach pain is. Hopefully if I can stop focussing on it 24/7 then it will start to calm down!

Fingers crossed

xXx Kittenface xXx