Alana Yanagida, LCSW, is a behavioral health therapist at the Inova Saville Cancer Screening and Prevention Center. The center’s behavioral health team provides counseling and guidance related to cancer screening and prevention.
Scanxiety is emotional distress – fear, anxiety and worry – related to medical scans, imaging and tests. Although the term is most commonly used in connection with cancer scans, people can feel scanxiety with any kind of medical imaging or testing, from MRIs, X-rays, CT and PET scans to blood draws, biopsies and other tests.
Some people experience scanxiety before a scan happens – the morning of the test, for example – while others experience it after the scan is finished but before the results arrive. Others experience scanxiety before, during and after the test. Scanxiety can happen with routine medical tests, diagnostic workups when a person is having symptoms or follow-up scans after a person has been through treatment.
The most important thing to remember about scanxiety is that it’s a natural reaction and very common feeling. In fact, in some ways it’s a logical response to confronting the unknown or preparing for a potentially unpleasant experience. But it’s important to remember that medical testing is an important step in your long-term health journey. These scans and tests can help your healthcare team find the cause of your symptoms or find out whether a problem is recurring. In these cases, knowledge really is power.
Reasons for scanxiety vary from person to person and test to test, but there are a few common reasons:
Depending on the individual and the circumstances, scanxiety can have a range of emotional, physical and mental signs and symptoms.
Emotional signs:
Physical signs:
Psychological signs:
Fortunately, there are things you can do to manage these feelings, so you can minimize their potential to disrupt your life at home, at work, with your family and in your community. Practical tips include:
Before, during and after the test:
In the days leading up to the test or while waiting for results:
Since scanxiety is such a common experience, healthcare providers have a lot of tools at their disposal to help ease distress. For example:
But the healthcare team can’t help if they don’t know how you feel. That’s why talking with your provider is so important. Your provider can help.
At the Inova Saville Cancer Screening and Prevention Center, our team specializes in cancer prevention and early detection. We assess your risk of developing cancer, and we also work with you to develop a proactive plan to reduce that risk, including one-on-one support with a behavioral health therapist or dietitian, as well as many classes and wellness groups. Learn more.
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My anxiety is having the test results and reading them before I hear from my doctor. I don't have the expertise to understand the results but I was doing that anyway.
This last CT scan in which my doctor asked for measurable disease, I decided to do something different . I chose to not read the test result before hearing from my doctor. Not everyone agreed with me, and i still struggled with my decision but it kept me from googling medical terminology, etc. and minimized my PTSD.