Don’t stick your head in the sand — see your GP ASAP!
About a year ago I noticed a strange, dark mark on my cheek. It was no bigger than a grain of rice and very faint, but it still bothered me.
I have a family history of skin cancer and knew I should get it checked out . . . and I meant to.
but the days turned into weeks. ‘I will make an appointment,’ I’d say to myself. ‘tomorrow.’
It was six months before I saw a GP, who immediately referred me to a dermatologist.
thankfully it turned out to be a tangle of tiny blood vessels that had popped through the skin and would disappear with time. but why on earth did I wait?
With hindsight, it was an unbelievably stupid thing to do. If it had been cancer, then six months might have been the difference between me sitting writing this column for today and not being here at all. And I’m a doctor, for goodness sake!
I was displaying a well-known psychological trait dubbed FoFo or ‘Fear of Finding out’ — and we brits are horribly susceptible, as confirmed this week by two reports. According to a review of the past 20 years of cancer care by the Health Foundation charity, survival rates in the uK lag behind many other countries.
this is despite countless public health campaigns, a national ‘cancer tsar’, and the NHS ‘14-day rule’ (if a GP suspects cancer, the patient should be referred to a specialist within two weeks).
Around 17,000 people are dying annually because their cancers are being picked up too late.
the NHS has to take some of the blame. Staff shortages and a lack of diagnostic equipment are an important factor. but patients, too, are culpable.
Another report found that a record five million women are overdue their smear test because they are ‘embarrassed’ about being examined.
the truth is too many people with worrying symptoms delay seeking medical help.
the reasons given, according to the Health Foundation, include ‘embarassment’ or because they don’t want to ‘bother’ their GP.
that may be true for some, but I suspect — and there is research to prove it — that the vast majority are suffering from FoFo.
I saw it regularly when working in cancer care. Despite being anxious about their symptoms, people chose to ignore them, hoping they would magically vanish. In reality, if cancer was the cause, it would have probably progressed by the time they did see a doctor, necessitating more invasive and intense treatment.
FoFo is understandable. No one likes bad news, so denial is a way of coping. It is one of our brain’s ‘defence mechanisms’, a strategy for managing difficult, upsetting or stressful situations.
but while denial in the short term might be beneficial mentally — perhaps helping us towards gradual acceptance of bad news — in the long term it can result in far bigger problems, not least living with constant anxiety.
If what I have written here strikes a chord, make an appointment with your GP now. then write down what you’re concerned about before visiting the surgery and hand it over as soon as you walk into the consulting room.
Your
GP will be able to tell more or less immediately if it’s a priority problem. Whatever you do, don’t Google your symptoms and self-diagnose. I’ve seen too many people gain false reassurance by doing this, and too many needlessly scared.
Above all, remember that we all have a propensity to bury our head in the sand but ultimately it helps no one — and it can make things much worse.
Facing your anxieties head on may be anxiety-provoking in the short term, but ultimately you will gain peace of mind.
IT’S official: superheroes really are a force for good. Psychologists in the U.S. report that seeing images of Spiderman, Thor, Wonder Woman etc makes people more likely to help others. And reading or hearing about real-life heroes — the police, military, lifeboat crews — triggers the same response. From an evolutionary psychology perspective, I wonder if this is why superheroes have endured across cultures? They serve an important function because they encourage us to aspire to be better people — for the good of all.