Waiting room/hairdresser/trapped feeling anxiety-anyone else?

[fruitandnutlover]

This is getting worse for me.

I have always been anxious in waiting situations but its getting to a point where I can't stand being in an environment where I feel 'trapped' such as the hairdressers (have a home hairdresser now), gp and hospital waiting rooms (especially if they leave me waiting too long makes my anxiety goes through the roof!) etc.

I was booked in for a small op last week but had to cancel because I just had a major panic over it :weep:

I have root canal booked in for later today and I am dreading it :scared15: I think I am actually more anxious about being in that chair for so long more than the acutal procedure! I start panicking about my IBS playing up whilst there (especially as the anitbiotics they gave me have made my IBS flare up) and feeling that I just can't escape.

Does anyone else get this and how do you get through it?

[Fay13]

I feel exactly like this! Its the worst, especially when you're waiting at the Drs where you know that if anything bad were to happen you're in the best place but it still doesn't help. I had to go for a blood test the other week, where it was just a drop in clinic that you couldn't book appointments and I nearly walked out so many times as I was just sitting there with no idea how long I'd be waiting. When I finally got in there (after 40 mins of waiting) I explained to the nurse and she was really good, chatting away to distract me - I don't actually have an issue with needles or blood, was just the waiting that got to me.

At the hairdressers I do try and go at a quiet time, take some mints and some cold water with me, and chat away to the hairdresser so I'm distracted (obviously none of this will work at the dentist)

Can you talk to the dentist beforehand and explain? When I go to the dentist I arrange that if I just put my hand up, she'll stop and I can sit up and have a drink of water if I need to. I appreciate that with a root canal its different to a routine check up but maybe if you make them aware they could try and help? I don't know what would help you, but for me I'd probably like to know exactly what they were doing and how long is left so I'd probably like them to talk me through it and every so often just say, ok 10 minutes left now etc., so I could focus on that. Or maybe you could ask if you could have your headphones in one ear while they worked - not sure how feasible this is as I've never had anything like this done, but I'm sure they would prefer a calm patient to an anxious one so would hopefully be willing to be a bit flexible with you. Remember as well that loads of people are really nervous at the dentist (whether they have anxiety or not) and so dentists are probably used to people being really anxious before/during an appointment and are hopefully a bit better at putting people slightly more at ease (similar I guess to my blood taking nurse, who must have anxious people all the time).

[Buster70]

Hi there , yes me to on this one , I had and Mri at start of year , went to hospital at night feeling ok about it , they said they were running late about a 20 minute wait , I sat on my own for an hour and a half by the time I went in I was freaking out and nearly backed out I felt rough for days because I'd got so worked up , I hate queuing too I'm allways planning my escape route out of the situation , I think it's just the antisipation of what could go wrong when the chances are nothing will , I was hoping to get a new tattoo but that's hardly somthing you can walk out on so its on the waiting list , take care .