To be overwhelmed with hearing about cancer?

[BillieTheFish]

It's everywhere in the media. Reports on a daily basis in online news. Updates about Kate Middleton and her father in law. (I wish them well btw though I don't want to hear every detail though I do want to know they're faring well). Does it help or does it not?

I'm aware it is a sensitive subject. My uncle died recently only 6 weeks from diagnosis so I am not unsympathetic.

Does all the relentless coverage save lives? Has this got worse since Covid?

I've developed a terrible health anxiety. Every twinge is panicked over. Every headache is a brain tumour or an aneurysm. Every muscle tightness is MS. Lose my keys or forget something and it's dementia.

I have become aware of people I know either becoming ill or dying with cancer, particularly in recent months. I suspect that it is more prevalent. I don't think that worrying will help and it's probably a good idea to limit the time spent on news and other media.

Limit your time watching news if you have developed health anxiety. It's not a normal reaction to the news tbh.

I think this is down to you to manage your anxiety and what youre seeing that causes ut tbh.

Speaking about it does save lives, just look at Jade Goody and the legacy she left.

Famous people having any kind of illness or accident always results in multiple press stories as well.

You sound like you have health anxiety. You need to find ways to manage it.

I was diagnosed with a rare gene mutation and had breast cancer 15 years ago. You manage to cope and live a full life with a few bumps along the way.

Of course, it helps to talk about it as people get help, and it also becomes less of a stigma.

I’m certainly aware of it much more than I used to be. I find it difficult too. But I’ve had cancer twice now within a year, and am now looking at my third incidence.

Yes it’s more common but that’s in part as a result of people living longer. People are living longer due to good health care and childhood vaccination programme. If people didn’t die from other illnesses or accidents then they would eventually all get cancer, that cancer may not kill them.

Confirmation bias. You see it more because you're alert to it.

I don’t think there’s all that much of it

If you have health anxiety though, what there is will be very loud to you.

Are you getting help for this, and in the mean time can you control your news sources, it is the only way.

Partly, but there is a big rise in under 50s cancer (eg bowel cancer). Some of it I think is assumed to be obesity, but some doesn’t have a clear explanation so perhaps environmental.

I do think that means it feels more around to younger people

IMO it’s the algorithms on social media etc.

When I was pregnant I was bombarded with terrible content about pregnancy.

Now I am bombarded with stories about young people with cancer.

I agree it makes your fearful. Stop reading the papers, they are depressing and mostly just looking for ‘clicks’ to generate revenue.

Well 1 in 2 people will get cancer of some sort (used to be 1 in 3). So you will hear about it, obviously most of those people will be older, and remember treatment is improving all the time.
You have anxiety, concentrate on how to manage that.

I’ve recently been diagnosed with cancer and it does feel like there’s a lot of news stories about it lately but I do think part of it is that I’m tuned into it now type thing and possibly that’s the same because of your uncle?

in your shoes as you struggle with health anxiety, I’d hide social media and mumsnet threads about it and avoid the tabloids as they’re the worst at the health scare stories, ice struggled with health anxiety in the past and avoiding health related stories/posts really helped.

As I am currently undergoing investigations for both cervical cancer and melanoma, I can relate. Talk of cancer doesn't bother me but I am still baffled by the amount of publicity the royal family gets. I bet Johnny from Pine Drive isn't making the news with his stage 4 liver cancer so yes, I am somewhat perplexed by the amount of coverage given to what, for many people, is just a fact of life.

I’ve also been recently diagnosed with cancer too. Youngish for it though.
but I’m very aware of anything cancer related now!
It SEEMS to be everywhere but maybe I’m taking more notice now.

The problem here is your health anxiety, not media coverage about cancer. You're only only feeling overwhelmed because you have a mental health condition that needs managing. It's a bit like someone with an eating disorder feeling overwhelmed by TV programmes about food. You are noticing it more because it's something you're hyper-sensitive to.

It hasn't got 'worse' since Covid. It's just that during Covid, health journalism was pretty much centred on Covid and very little else. Now it's returned to covering health stories in a more varied way.

I also think that that you miss the point a little bit when you ask whether news stories about cancer 'save lives' - that isn't what the news is for. The news is there to report what's happening in the world.