Speedophobia: why it occurs and how to get rid of the fear of contracting AIDS

Among the wide list of phobic diseases, one cannot help but recall speedophobia. It ranks far from the last in the number of diseases among people around the world. This disease manifests itself quite simply. A healthy person is convinced that he is infected with a venereal disease or will become infected with it in the near future. Such phobias arise against a background of instability of the nervous system and often cause severe stress.

Experts say that this disease is a type of hypochondria. As a rule, such diseases occur in those people who are too sensitive to the problems that surround a person every day.

Fear of tests as a mental disorder

Patients who complain that they are afraid to take HIV tests or are afraid of the results of an HIV test suffer from a specific type of phobia - speedophobia. The fear of contracting HIV or developing AIDS is a normal reaction of any person, due to the instinct of self-preservation. But phobic fear is too exaggerated and irrational; it complicates a person’s life and leads to the development of depression and other mental disorders.

Experts distinguish two types of speedophobia:

1. The person is firmly convinced that he has AIDS, and constantly undergoes medical examinations and tests. He does not believe the negative test results, believing that the doctors simply made a mistake or that he has a special type of disease that the tests cannot detect.
2. The person assumes that he has contracted an infection, but he categorically refuses to see a doctor and undergo an examination.

In the first case, it will be very difficult to solve the problem without the help of specialists. But the second type of speedophobia can be overcome on your own, with the support of relatives.

Curse of the Internet

The Internet has become a real curse for all specialists involved in the treatment of hypochondria. The Internet offers quick access to a lot of information and is very useful for most people. But not for hypochondriacs.

People with hypochondria, including AIDS-phobes, often experience an obsessive desire to read everything in a row about the disease that they have chosen as their target. They study medical reference books and encyclopedias until they completely scare themselves. In terms of knowledge regarding “their” disease, they can “outdo” many doctors. It is not surprising that the Internet has become an extremely important resource for people with hypochondria. In the end, if you are determined to find out what Kaposi's sarcoma looks like and where exactly you have to look for lymphoma, type the necessary words in the search engine. And there is something to worry about - bright and frightening headlines of articles, endless lists of “symptoms of AIDS”, forums and chats where you can share symptoms with “brothers in misfortune”.

The Internet does not help hypochondriacs much, quite the opposite. There are a lot of pseudo-medical sites on the Internet that publish unreliable and incorrect information. In addition, even good information can easily be twisted if read out of context. What if information on different sites contradicts each other? Well, then the person comes to the conclusion that “there is still a lot that is unclear regarding AIDS, the doctors themselves don’t know anything, and my negative test result doesn’t mean anything.”

The dangers of fear of tests and how to get rid of it

A person who has any phobia is almost always unhappy. He feels lonely because it seems to him that those around him do not understand him. A depressive state leads to the development of mental and psychosomatic disorders, which further aggravate the condition. Therefore, you should not ignore phobias, especially if the fear is associated with visiting a doctor and taking tests.

If you have discovered a number of symptoms characteristic of HIV infection, or someone close to you has said: “I am afraid that I have become infected with HIV,” then you need to immediately undergo testing. To overcome fear, you will need to do the following:

• turn to loved ones for help. Their support will help overcome uncertainty and fear. A person must understand that regardless of the test results, he will be loved and supported;
• make maximum volitional efforts to decide to visit specialists;
• get acquainted with the latest developments in the field of detecting HIV infection. When a person understands that he will get the result instantly, and he will not have to suffer waiting for several days, then the fear becomes less.

It will be useful to study information about the characteristics of the disease. People suffering from any form of speedophobia avoid contact with sick people in every possible way, considering them a potential threat. They do not trust information about the routes of transmission of infection, sincerely believing that they can become infected with HIV in other ways that doctors are silent about. If you cannot convince such patients of the irrationality of their fears through your own efforts, then you should consult a psychotherapist.

Real treatment

The good news is that hypochondria is not forever. For many people, it goes away on its own over time, and the person who receives another negative test result calms down and returns to normal life. In other cases, professional help may be needed. There was a time when it was believed that hypochondria was very difficult to treat, but modern medicine is more optimistic.

Recently, doctors have found that certain antidepressants can significantly reduce the symptoms of hypochondria. In any case, the first clinical trials in this area turned out to be quite promising. Typically, in this case, drugs related to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors are prescribed. Naturally, such drugs can only be selected by an experienced doctor, and they should be taken under his supervision.

Psychotherapy with a psychologist or psychotherapist may also be helpful. Therapy can replace taking medications or be carried out in combination with them. Usually, for this purpose, cognitive therapy is carried out, aimed at making a person aware of his irrational thoughts about his health and learning to control and change them.

There are also other things you can do right now. Resist the urge to feel your lymph nodes, or at least don't do it so hard. Don't go to medical websites today. Refrain from taking your temperature for at least one day. If you have a headache, just take a walk in the fresh air. And if the series “Emergency” is on TV today, might it be better not to watch it today?

How fear arises before taking an HIV test

Speedophobia can develop in different people; the causes of this disorder are very different. However, there are a number of provoking factors that can lead to the development of fear before taking an HIV test:

1. The presence in the family of a seriously ill person with a similar diagnosis. Such a negative experience will inevitably affect a person’s mental state. This factor most often provokes the occurrence of speedophobia in the fairer sex, since they are more impressionable. If such a woman has been tested for HIV, then she will inevitably worry about the results, because she has already encountered this disease.
2. Speedophobia can occur in homosexual men who refuse to accept their orientation. After each sexual intercourse, such a man experiences a colossal feeling of guilt, and also thinks that an infection has occurred. He may say or think: “I'm afraid I have HIV ” but he will not get tested. The fear of illness in this case is enhanced by the fear of exposure. Due to feelings of guilt, speedophobia can also develop in heterosexual men who use paid sex services.
3. Constantly being in a stressful situation. In this state, people tend to become overly sensitive. They react to even the most minor changes in health, considering them manifestations of terrible diseases.

A person who has previously been misdiagnosed may be afraid to take an HIV test. A rapid test can show a positive result in an HIV-negative person with some other diseases. To confirm the diagnosis, you need to undergo a more accurate examination.

The harm that phobias cause

It is not entirely appropriate to say that HIV phobia has any symptoms. Symptoms depend on which disorder is or is not predominant and how it manifests. Signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder, hypochondria, depression, neurasthenia or senesthopathy may be observed. Some patients experience phantom pain and may show signs of somatic diseases. The development of OCD is most likely, especially with fear of HIV infections.

Worth seeing: Confined space phobia

This type of phobia is harmful on several levels.

• It fetters the will, and everything that happens seems unimportant, since one will die soon anyway. The patient is able to quit his job or be fired due to an unexplained loss of ability to work.
• A large amount of money is spent on purchasing medicines. Sometimes dietary supplements or homeopathy preparations are purchased as therapeutic agents.
• Patients try to “drown” their grief in a glass and, along with a fictitious disease, acquire very real alcoholism.
• Speedophobia can force people to completely abandon any contact with the opposite sex, and fear of cancer, a phobia, also significantly reduces sexual activity. Thus, families are destroyed.
• The behavior of patients is dominated by distrust of themselves and the medical staff of diagnostic institutions, where they go in order to obtain positive results.
• At one time, mass hysteria around AIDS caused a significant increase in the number of suicides. Fear of fatal diseases is a form of general fear of death, and thanatophobia has historically been a cause of suicide.

Misconceptions related to HIV and AIDS

The fear of getting tested is usually caused not by the procedure itself, but by the fear of contracting an incurable disease. Very often on specialized forums you can read the following statements: “... I’m terribly afraid to donate blood for HIV...”, “... I took an HIV test, and now I’m waiting and I’m terribly afraid of the result...”, “... I’m afraid I’ve become infected with HIV...”, “ ...I'm afraid that I have HIV...” Such thoughts arise because many myths have been created around the human immunodeficiency virus and AIDS. Among them, the most common are:

• HIV is an inevitable death. A person infected with the virus can live a long and happy life. To do this, you need to start treatment as quickly as possible and follow the prescribed antiretroviral therapy regimen;
• If the tests reveal HIV, then the person has AIDS. In fact, HIV and AIDS are not the same condition at all. The syndrome develops as the final stage of HIV in the absence of proper treatment for the infection;
• A pregnant woman with HIV will definitely give birth to a sick child. The risk of a baby becoming infected from the mother in the womb is reduced to 50%. But if the woman was under the supervision of a doctor and underwent treatment, then it becomes minimal;
• a person with HIV becomes an outcast because he is dangerous to others. It is impossible to become infected with this infection through everyday life or through communication with a sick person. As mentioned above, the virus can only enter the body through blood, semen or other biological fluid. But if a sick person receives proper treatment, then the risk of infection even during unprotected sex is reduced to 1%. Being in a large group is more dangerous for the patient himself than for the people around him, since his weakened immune system will be under great strain.

Recently, much attention has been paid to preventing the development of HIV infection. One of its directions is explanatory work with the population regarding the characteristics of the disease. If people are less afraid of HIV infection, then taking a test for it or an AIDS test will not be so scary.

What is HIV

The human immunodeficiency virus was first isolated from the lymphocytes of a patient in 1983. Almost simultaneously this was done by an American laboratory and a group of scientists led by Luc Montagnier. The virus received its familiar name for HIV infection a little later.

This infection is a systemic human disease, which results in a rapid decline in immunity. As HIV infection progresses, it reduces the body's defenses so much that it ceases to resist pathogenic microorganisms and the patient is diagnosed with AIDS. Its symptoms:

• the appearance of a rash on the mucous membranes and skin;
• rapid weight loss;
• enlarged lymph nodes, their pain;
• fever;
• frequent diarrhea;
• the spleen and liver become larger;
• pharyngitis, cough and other catarrhal manifestations;
• the appearance of permanent secondary diseases - herpes, pneumonia, intestinal and other infections, cancer, fungi, etc.

HIV is an incurable disease because the virus constantly mutates after entering the body. Once the immune system begins to produce antibodies, the virus changes at the genetic level. This same circumstance explains the fact that so far no one has been able to create a vaccine against HIV infection.

HIV infection is transmitted through blood and other biological fluids (sperm, breast milk, vaginal secretions). It is impossible to become infected with the virus by other means, such as airborne droplets or touch.