health anxiety and having blood pressure taken

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I tried really hard to have this under control and not worry myself stupid. But when I went into the gp's waiting room it hit me and my heart rate raced. My blood pressure was high, even when the nurse took it a few times. I told him I was very anxious and he was nice but not very reassuring.

How the hell do I get this health anxiety under control? Its awful, just awful. I'm terrified of dying, terrified of something being wrong with me, terrified of the worry if something is wrong. I actually feel I'm going mad.

please please anyone who has this under control please help me.

This is total normal, it's a THING! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_coat_hypertension. If you are really anxious about your blood pressure you can buy a blood pressure monitor, they're not that expensive and take your BP regularly at home when you're feeling calm that way you'll know that there's nothing wrong with you. But do talk to your GP about your health anxiety they will be able to help you.

I don't know, but I'd love to know. I am terrified too. There are certain things that really bother me, other things I don't worry about. But I don't know how to get it under control.

thank you both so much for replying, I really feel so alone with this. Dh is really nice but he is so laid back and worries about nothing, he cant understand me at all and this makes me feel worse. I think he gets a bit fed up with me. I honestly honestly could win an award for worrying and I've been anxious my whole life. I'be spoke to my gp about my health anxiety and didnt get anywhere, just a few leaflets and websites and a cd to play when I get uptight, that didnt help.

I feel I'm losing it.

I actually really like the sound of beta blockers, something to calm me right down would be great, but I dont really know what they are and also I know they dont get prescribed just because your a basket case very anxious.

On a practical level - is there any way, if you are at an appointment, you can get them to do those sort of tests towards the end (or do you get more anxious as the appointment goes on).

I only ask, because my grandmother suffered very badly, and our lovely family doctor used to always make an excuse to re-take her blood pressure at the end of an appointment. The little bit of time during the appointment to chat through her problems and get used to being in the doctors surgery meant that her blood pressure was always lower at the end.

OK, first there is such a thing as the white coat syndrome where your blood pressure goes to the roof due to anxiety.

That's a VERY well known phenomena and the reason why a GP should never put you on Blood pressure tablets wo asking you to check your blood pressure yourself at home (he will provide the monitor) for a week at least.
Then you can review the results and check if the results are still high or not.

Both my parents have had that and tbh, it took them some time to actually relax at home when they did the blood pressure test. Usually first measure was still high but if they took it again, it went down rapidily.
After a while, they both relaxed enough around the idea of checking their blood pressure at home and it has always been normal.

I feel very similar to your parents love, it'd take me a while to calm down about this

My GP says white coat bp still needs medicating even if it's normal at home which surprised me.

I'm a bit surprised at that too Smog, what's the point of doing the measurements at home in that case? Certainly my GP has always been happy to go off home readings.
I believe it is the case that White Coat BP does increase likelihood of developing the real thing, so a GP might suggest you monitor at home more regularly than someone without WC?

Snog sorry but your GP is wrong and doesn't follow guidelines there.
Doing that could result in fainting etc because it will lower your blood pressure too much for example.

Thanks guys, I'll question my GP as she is saying that she will prescribe for me if mine doesn't come down with diet and exercise.
At home my BP is on the low side of normal so I see what you mean about it going too low with medication potentially.