Overcoming White Coat Syndrome
When seeing the doctor for a check-up, are you nervous? In particular, are you concerned your blood pressure will be high? You are not alone. White Coat Syndrome is the tendency of blood pressure to rise for some at a doctor’s appointment. Why does this happen? Obviously, we’re tense or nervous. Why is that?
When getting a check-up, there is always the possibility the doctor will find something concerning or needing treatment. Thus, despite our doctor’s intention to help, we can perceive medical personnel as a threat to what we all strive for — control of the world in which we live. Doctors prescribe treatments, therapies, and drugs to provide benefits relative to doing nothing. Still, all such interventions place demands on our time and resources, and the more serious ones can severely impact our comfort and independence, at least temporarily. Furthermore, they are a subtle reminder of the fragility of health and life.
Any good doctor works to alleviate or mitigate the medical issues we encounter. Whether it is a joint replacement, cardiac surgery, or treatment for any other disease or injury, we must sometimes accept short-term limitations. We must endure the treatment and any recovery/rehabilitation time to improve long-term control.
Consider the following curve.
This curve is meant to generically represent a person’s relative ability to control the world about them as they progress from birth to death. A newborn begins with little more than the capability to get attention through crying. As a baby grows, their capacity to control rapidly increases with their ability to move and communicate. With the maturation of thought and increasing physical strength through adolescence, we take pride in our growing independence. Our facility to influence the world expands further as we develop skills and acquire knowledge as adults. Eventually, though, as we age, our abilities will fade and ultimately terminate when we reach the end of our lives.
The curve shown is smooth, but in reality, it is not. There are bumps and dips along the way where our control is enhanced or degraded. A promotion at work boosts our influence, while a bad case of covid or pneumonia will cause a significant dip for those who wind up on a ventilator or worse. A trip to the doctor for an issue or check-up, or an outing to a pharmacy for a vaccine, is done to minimize or avoid a significant downturn in our curve. Perhaps blocked arteries around the heart must be bypassed, an infected appendix removed, or a hip replaced. When we do those things, we accept the short-term dips with the hope of improved long-term prospects.
Does the preceding help us understand the cause of our trepidation and concern when seeing our doctor? If so, we can use that understanding to help set us free from our mental anguish. In our minds, we need to separate our health issues, which can cause our control curve to dip, from the medical professionals doing what they can to keep that curve up. If we can do that, our anxiety level should drop, and we benefit by enabling the doctor to collect the best possible information to support our long-term health.
