Do i bite the bullet?

[helenhoo]

and request derm appointment?

Everyone tells me no because its my anxiety ruling me which I know it is. I am confident that even if I have a derm see me and tell me I'm fine I'll still worry. About this or something else

and I also worry he'll want to take most freckles off and some will be bad and i'll get worst news. I go from freckle to freckle. I'm annoying I know. I annoy myself. In the UK we have to make appointments and half of me is toying with getting it out the way and the other thinks i'm silly and wasting time. I've shown doctors and nurses most of freckles and they eye roll and shrug.

What do you brits think? (only because elsewhere you'd pay which is more choice than appointment wasting)

has anyone overcome a MM fear?

[Noivous]

I don't think there's a right or wrong answer. If you want to go, go. Don't overthink it.

What's an MM fear?

It's not fear of m&m's I hope...nooooooo

[MyNameIsTerry]

No, if your GP is saying you don't need it, that's the clue for me. Whilst GP's can be bad with mental health, they are usually very good with things like this as it's something they see more of and are better trained in. I realise you have an occurrence in the past where a GP got this wrong but if you have a different GP now and you trust them, discount what the previous GP got wrong. Give the new GP a chance.

Following up with more & more tests is reassurance-seeking. In OCD this will certainly only reinforce it all. It won't go away because you have those tests, your OCD will just find another "what if", a chink in the armour. You could have every mole removed from your body and it will come along and say "what if another one comes along", "what if one removed was X", "what if the tests they did were inaccurate", etc.

Obsessions are not removed by logical actions like having such tests. This seems to work for some with HA but that may be based on other factors like whether they are more GAD than OCD, certainly the severity will play a part.

If we showed you two pictures, one is a picture of a melanoma and one is a picture of a healthy mole that looked like yours, would you just drop the issue? But what about all those sneaky little anxious thoughts about the mole changing at any point in the future? There are many ways your negative thinking could introduce an element of doubt into this scenario and you would start all over again.

I would put this question to the therapist when they get there. See what they say. If your GP is happy, I bet they raise the issue of reassurance testing being part of the disorder.

[helenhoo]

It was nurse who said it was all ok.

[Elen]

Terry's post still applies hun.

Its reassurance seeking and it will be short lived.

Dealing with the HA is the only way to sort this fear out

[helenhoo]

That's what i thought but then i have the 'but i didn't show him/her this freckle though only those other 5 . . .'

[ktdid2000]

OMG the reassurance seeking!

I have done this so many times its impossible to know how much time/money has been wasted. Even when I have the test done and everything comes back clear, I spend time questioning the test results and whether it was done correctly or they missed something. So basically no amount of testing can alleviate my anxiety. :(

If you go in for a general skin check you have to go in with the assumption that you will TRUST what they say. But I agree with the others that if your GP was ok with the state of things there is probably no need to investigate further. They usually know how to look for things like MM as part of a yearly check up.