As Seen in the Dermatology Office
Tag Archives: health anxiety
Ditching the Razor: Armpit Hair is Back!
Tayler D. Parker, BA1; Ashley E. Brown, MD1 McGovern Medical School, UTHealth Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX Corresponding author: Tayler D. Parker, BA, 6431 Fannin St, Houston, TX 77030, email Tayler.D.Parker@uth.tmc.edu, phone: 806-445-4949 Tags: beauty, behavior, shaving, medical sociology, health anxiety “Keep your man faithful and ensure home security- Shave your underarms!”. This slogan may sound comical, but it is an actual message found in underarm shaving advertisements for women as early as 1915.1 Whether shaving was driven by the emergence of sleeveless tops or by a male-driven culture, most women in the United States were shaving their armpits consistently by the 1950s for both social normativity and perceived … Continue reading
Melanocytic
by Rebecca D. Hamburger A mole appeared on my back a few years ago, in my early twenties. I cannot be sure exactly when as it is only visualized by mirror and neck contortion. It has been evaluated numerous times by a trusted dermatologist as a benign melanocytic nevus, and I was advised to keep a watchful eye on it. The anxiety which surrounds this decidedly harmless lesion, exaggerated in the painting, morphs into a physical symbol of all the other anxieties in my life. The green hills of jealousy toward others’ achievements as I navigate medical school, the flowery pattern symbolizing the positivity and happiness which I often mask … Continue reading
Health Anxiety in Dermatology
Patients see doctors with varying degrees of concern regarding their health. While some require tests or treatments, a subset has severe health anxiety and cannot be reassured by tests, procedures, or pharmaceuticals but may be helped, at least temporarily, by a sympathetic listening face and reassurance. Hence, we designed a questionnaire to investigate health anxiety in patients recruited from a general dermatology clinic. The study was reported in the International Journal of Dermatology and can be accessed at this pdf: Health Anxiety in Dermatology
Health Anxiety in a Dermatology Practice
Abstract: Health Anxiety is a common affliction of patients seeking medical attention, yet many physicians are unaware of it. We surveyed 222 consecutive patients in a dermatology practice in Massachusetts and found that upwards of 49% self-reported some level of health anxiety, suggersting that it appears to be pandemic in the dermatology population of patients. Keywords: health anxiety, dermatology, Massachusetts, actinic keratoses, cryotherapy, survey,, Tyrer Introduction Patients see doctors with varying degrees of concern regarding their health. Some, require tests or treatments. A subset of patients have severe health anxiety (HA) and cannot be reassured by tests, procedures or pharmaceuticals but may be helped (at least temporarily) by a sympathetic … Continue reading
Health Anxiety
seen every day in medical offices Health Anxiety: lurking in plain sight All practitioners will learn useful information from this article. Excerpts “Many patients, despite how much they would like to, cannot do what we would like them to do: ‘stop worrying.’” As physicians, we see a few such people every day. Health Anxiety seems to be epidemic (perhaps, endemic) in our communities, yet it is poorly recognized. “People with health anxiety do not ask relief from somatic symptom, but rather only desire freedom from worry about disease. A key component of health anxiety is rumination, so that patients cannot stop thinking about a disease once the thought has come … Continue reading
