Life Threatening Phobias
Most people have some type of fear, but there are some whose fears turn into phobias. A phobia is an intense fear of something that isn’t life threatening, but the mind inter-operates it as life threatening. Some of these fears are not very rational, but for someone who has a phobia, it can be hard to think about their fear or anxiety rationally. This can make some phobias be potentially life threatening.
One dangerous phobia is pharmacophobia, or the fear of medication. This can mean that even though a person has a fatal disease or injury and needs to take medicine to save their life; their phobia prevents them from taking it. Some people develop this for several different reasons, either they had a negative experience with medication in the past, such as coming off of pharmaceutical medicine, or they may be afraid of choking, side effects they may have, or they simply feel it does more harm than good. If you suffer from this particular phobia, you should speak open and honestly to your doctor about it. Your doctor should be able to help you find a way through it or how to deal with it.
Cibophobia is a fear of foods that can become an obsession for the person who is suffering from this condition. A lot of times it is mistaken with different eating disorders that are actually a psychological issue with how certain foods affect the human body, but in the case of cibophobia the person is actually afraid of food itself. In some cases, the person refuses to eat a variety of different things which can lead to different health issues due to a change in diet. For more severe cases, the person may choose to go hungry than eat something in particular and can have a very dangerous result. People who suffer from this should talk to a mental health professional who can try different methods such as hypnosis, medications and other types of therapy in order to help alleviate the patient of this fear.
People who are afraid of needles normally suffer from trypanophobia. This means that the person is deathly afraid of hypodermic needles, or any medical procedures that involve needles such as injections, shots or vaccinations. This, like pharmacophobia, can be very dangerous if the person needs a life saving drug or procedure that involves a needle. This may also go hand in hand with iatrophobia, the fear of doctors, or any other phobia that involves hospitals, doctors, or dentists. There are a lot of people who suffer from this, but they have found ways around it or treatment. Instead of getting a shot, people may be able to use a medicated spray or jet injection as well as other methods for medications. If you have this and want to work through it, you can see a mental health professional to try and work through your fear.
There are a lot of different types of phobias that may not be as life threatening, but they can still disrupt people’s daily lives. Some people may be misdiagnosed when they express their concerns about their phobia such as people with cibophobia may be thought to be anorexic, but they still are very dangerous if they are untreated. If you suffer from a type of phobia that could be a potential harm to your life, you may want to see if any life insurance companies cover it. You should have life insurance, or at least term life insurance in the event that you pass and leave your family behind. Of course, if you suffer from necrophobia, or a fear of death, then you may have troubles thinking about life insurance or a creating your will.