Daryl,I have to agree with Mario Mangler and GeoffWab, both of whom reiterate the position that reassurance seeking, which is totally natural in moderation, becomes positively counter-productive and even downright harmful when it is repeated and becomes chronic.After my first clinical and EMG, I was perfectly happy with the diagnosis until, bizarrely enough, I joined the chatroom and, a little later, this board. Because it was in those places that, among all of the supportive posts, I first came across people who were doubting the results of their neurological tests. Still, this didn't deter me from hanging around the chat, and this board, because I reckoned that the reassurance I got there actually outweighed the anxiety that was often provoked by reading posts from vets of several years standing who were STILL doubting their original diagnoses. Chat, and the board, became a kind of 'bubble' where I could escape that anxiety. But I gradually realised that the anxiety that I was escaping from was coming FROM the very same place as the 'bubble' that I was escaping TO. In the end, I realised that this was a vicious cycle: I was going there for reassurance, getting more anxious in the process, and then looking for more and more reassurance as a result.As GeoffWab says, the people in chat were very helpful, and they have the best of intentions. But if you go there, you can't avoid the drip-drip-drip effect of people coming in with their doubts and anxieties, their ALSphobia and their other health-related complexes, and try as hard as you might to avoid these, if you're of a certain constitution they are bound to take their toll. That is when I decided that it would be better to try to go it alone, and that while my anxiety might not decrease dramatically, at least it would not be ramped up every few days by the fears of a 'newbie' or, worse still, the doubts of a 'vet'.That is why I think that chatrooms and boards are of really limited use, chiefly because they keep us focused (a) on our selves, which is never a good thing when we are disposed to health anxiety; and (b) on all of the negatives that come with BFS, most importantly this terrible fear of the sinister and the fatal.It cannot be without relevance, Daryl, that a number of people have left the boards and the chat on the advice of their neurologists and therapists, who realise that while these places are not without their uses, for some people - like you and I who crave constant reassurance - they ultimately do much more harm than they do good.
