Medical Anxiety

Fear of needles, procedures, hospitals, or illness itself can keep people from getting the medical care they need. Medical anxiety is common, real, and very responsive to treatment.

Who we help

We work with people who avoid appointments, procedures, or treatment because of fear; who experience panic in medical settings; who struggle with health worries that tests and reassurance never quite settle; and who are facing a diagnosis or treatment that feels overwhelming.

How treatment helps

Using exposure-based and cognitive behavioral approaches, we help you build tolerance for the situations you’ve been avoiding — so you can get blood drawn, sit through the scan, start the treatment, or simply stop organizing your life around medical fear. We’re also glad to coordinate with your physicians and care team when that’s helpful.

Worry about health and illness

• Health Anxiety (Illness Anxiety): Ongoing worry about having or developing a serious illness, even after reassuring test results.
• Illness-Focused OCD: Obsessive doubt about disease or contamination, with checking, researching, or reassurance-seeking that never settles the question.
• Body Symptom Checking and Online Searching: Repeatedly scanning the body, measuring vitals, or searching symptoms in ways that increase fear instead of relieving it.
• Heart-Focused Anxiety: Fear of heart sensations such as racing, skipped beats, or chest tightness, often after a normal cardiac workup.
• Panic Attacks Mistaken for Medical Emergencies: Repeated emergency room or urgent care visits for symptoms that turn out to be panic.

Fears of medical procedures and settings

• Needle and Injection Fear: Intense fear of shots, vaccines, IVs, and injections, including avoiding needed care because of it.
• Blood Draws and Fainting: Anxiety, lightheadedness, or fainting at the sight of blood or during lab work. This fear responds well to a specific treatment approach.
• Dental Anxiety: Fear of cleanings, drilling, numbing, or being in the dental chair, often leading to years of postponed care.
• MRI and Scan Claustrophobia: Panic or dread about enclosed scanners, which can prevent a needed scan from being completed.
• Surgery and Anesthesia Anxiety: Fear of going under, not waking up, losing control, or pain during recovery.
• Hospital and Doctor’s Office Anxiety: Distress triggered by medical settings themselves, including “white coat” spikes in blood pressure and heart rate.
• Fear of Medical Tests and Results: Avoiding screenings, or being overwhelmed while waiting for results.
• Fear of Choking, Gagging, or Swallowing Pills: Difficulty taking medication or tolerating throat and dental exams.
• Fear of Vomiting (Emetophobia): Persistent fear of being sick or seeing others sick, which often shapes eating, travel, and medical decisions.
• Medication and Side Effect Fears: Anxiety about taking prescribed medication, allergic reactions, or sensations after a dose.

Anxiety connected to a medical condition

• Adjusting to a New Diagnosis: Anxiety after learning of a chronic or serious condition, and difficulty getting back to daily life.
• Fear of Recurrence: Worry that cancer or another serious illness will return, especially around follow-up scans.
• Medical Trauma: Lasting distress after a frightening hospitalization, ICU stay, difficult birth, surgery, or emergency.
• Anxiety With Chronic Illness: Fear and avoidance related to conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, breathing problems, gut conditions, or chronic pain.
• Pregnancy, Birth, and Fertility-Related Anxiety: Fear of childbirth, of procedures, or of something going wrong during pregnancy.
• Avoiding Medical Care Altogether: Putting off appointments, screenings, or treatment for months or years because of fear.