Hypochondria

 

“It’s worse at night. It’s 11pm, I’m lay in bed reading a book, alarm set for eight, and suddenly my brain connects my recent fatigue, a sore throat, and choking on the quorn nuggets I ate for dinner (which FYI are delicious) into a fear that I may have some sort of incurable cancer. I open google, which is never a good thing yet I convince myself I’m being responsible checking on my health, and my mind spirals out of control when the symptoms I’ve been experiencing lead me onto the NHS page for oesophagus cancer. I’m overwhelmed, scared, panicked.”  https://www.42ndstreet.org.uk/news-articles/a-20-something-hypochondriac/

“I have a constant awareness of any ‘heat spots’ of worry on my body. This is a physical sensation in areas that I’m concerned about. I can feel them all right now, from the mole on my right side to the unexplained lump on my toe. They’re in the back of mind at all times.

And ‘Doctor Google’ doesn’t help. A search for ‘Feeling tired all the time’ brings up about 888,000,000 results. Lots of them suggest that tiredness is a possible symptom of cancer.”  https://metro.co.uk/2021/05/14/i-constantly-fear-i-have-cancer-what-its-like-to-have-health-anxiety-14577601/

“Jane is 50 something, well-educated, divorced and very sensitive. Especially, when it comes to her health. She has visited more hospitals than one can imagine. She speaks like she has several PHDs in all sorts of health conditions, reciting their symptoms with a remarkable precision. This is her curse. For more than 10 years Jane has been living in a constant fear. Of being ill. Of being misunderstood by doctors. Of dying.

The only problem she has never tried to find or treat is the one, she later admitted, that she actually has – hypochondria.”  https://www.findmecure.com/blog/inside-the-soul-of-a-hypochondriac/

“Constant checking

Three times a year Patil books herself in for a full body, all over check-up. “Every little thing I feel in my body, my mind takes it to the worst case scenario,” she says. “I’ve had three endoscopies, I get my ovaries checked twice a year…” These tests are mostly covered by her health insurance (Patil lives in Dubai) but she will pay herself on the occasions they aren’t – but they help keep her mind “at peace.”

“For the past five years I’ve been dealing with stomach issues and my mind immediately goes to cancer,” she says.”  https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/body/health/a43515702/health-anxiety-grief/

“Within seconds, I was crying and grasping for breath on the floor. It had probably already spread to my heart and lungs by now. I had hours to live, hours until I went brain dead. How cruelly ironic that it should happen the day after graduation.”  https://www.huffpost.com/entry/it-must-be-cancer-how-i-came-to-terms-with-hypochondria_b_2998124  

“Amanda was sure that she had contracted leukemia, developed a brain tumor, and had a stroke—all around the same time.”  https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/08/11/sick-with-worry

“I’ve had a cough for several months, on and off, and now I’ve begun to feel something in my throat. Googling my symptoms makes this worse, of course, but in fact the images summoned to the mind are much the same as in the pre-internet crises of youth.”  https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/sep/04/a-cycle-of-dread-collapse-relief-the-absurd-tormented-story-of-my-hypochondria

“For five years, cancer was Sarah Drage’s constant companion. She could be enjoying a summer barbecue, or a day out with her husband and two young daughters, and she’d think, “My life is perfect.” Then, in the next instant, her happiness would be punctured by another thought: “Remember, you’ve got cancer.” The thing is, Sarah, now 34, didn’t have cancer. In fact, she tells me one Friday from her peaceful, neutral-toned home in Kent, “I was the epitome of perfect health. That’s the ironic thing.””  https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/hypochondria-investigation

“Hypochondria is exhausting and very isolating. I remembered dragging my brother to the E.R one night thinking I had a slipped disc ( had a back ache). Came home with an aspirin.”  https://www.quora.com/I-suffer-hypochondria-and-have-always-believed-I-could-have-cancer-However-my-parents-have-always-been-dismissive-when-it-came-to-my-health-related-anxieties-so-I-ve-never-told-them-convincing-myself-I-m-being

“Canada’s latest public health guidelines recently changed to two drinks per week—news that I read, ironically, while I sipped my second glass of Prosecco. Alcohol is linked to increased cancer risk, which isn’t ideal when you have a family medical history like mine. I finished reading the article, slurped my drink and set to cooking dinner, which I briefly considered had an over abundance of carbs and red meat. Was that risky, too?

This new drink recommendation, after a global pandemic, has many of us questioning how healthy we really are.”  https://chatelaine.com/health/cancer-health-anxiety/

“My life is too perfect. I have everything, and soon it’s going to be yanked away because I’ll be dead. The lump in my breast is cancer. It’s hard, it’s immobile, and it’s fatal. Soon, it will spread to my bones, my brain, my liver — and when it hits the liver, you’re done. What will my kids do? Will they remember me? It’s just a matter of time. […] To be clear, I don’t have cancer — not that I know about, anyway. But I go through bouts of hypochondria so debilitating that I’ve given myself bruises on my breasts and stomach from prodding for lumps.”  https://expmag.com/2018/11/now-write-out-your-obituary/

“One day after nursing her six-month-old baby, Colleen Abel developed an itchy red rash on her right breast. The cause was a mystery. Abel speculated that scratches left by her son while he fed might have gotten infected, or that bedbugs might have bitten her. The 36-year-old writer from Illinois opened her laptop and investigated her symptoms on Google. What she found shocked her. The first result blared inflammatory breast cancer, “and that scared me out of my mind,” Abel says. Other diagnoses such as dermatitis were far more likely… ”  https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cyberchondriacs-just-know-they-must-be-sick/

“Yeah, I felt pretty silly when the doctor looked at my "cancerous tongue" and proclaimed that I had a clogged salivary gland (or something like that--I can't remember her exact verbiage), which is common in pregnancy and usually resolves on its own.”  https://www.glamour.com/story/share-your-hypochondriac-momen

“What distinguishes my hysteria is that at the appearance of the mildest symptom, let’s say chapped lips, I instantly leap to the conclusion that the chapped lips indicate a brain tumor. Or maybe lung cancer. In one instance I thought it was Mad Cow.”  https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/opinion/sunday/hypochondria-an-inside-look.html

“Suggest that the trouble is emotional, and the response, according to Wise, is apt to be: “Sure I’m anxious, but you’d be anxious, too, if you had this terrible pain that I know is a brain tumor.””  https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-09-25-me-127-story.html

“Health anxiety, on the other hand, has never been trendy.

It probably never will be. Health anxiety – or hypochondria, as it’s perhaps better known – has always been one of those comedy illnesses: the mental health problem it’s OK to roll your eyes at, because it’s just a bunch of silly people who take themselves off to bed as soon as they sneeze, and think every little twinge is probably cancer.”  https://foreveramber.co.uk/health-anxiety-story/

“You are scrolling away on TikTok and suddenly come across a video of a young person sharing their story about how they were tragically diagnosed with cancer. It grips you. It is as if all of your fears are captured in one brief, random video. So, of course, you watch the whole thing. Maybe you even watch it a second time. And now the algorithm, with its clever and resourceful methods, knows your weakness. So, you start seeing more and more videos about people with serious and/or terminal illnesses.”  https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/managing-health-anxiety/202303/are-you-watching-videos-on-tiktok-about-health-tragedies

“Misinterpretation may be due to assumptions about health and illness, such as, “My cousin died of cancer, so it’s only a matter of time for me.” Or, “Viruses spread quickly. Since people in Africa are dying of Ebola, it could easily spread to the United States.” People with health anxiety might hold rigid definitions of good health, perhaps believing that any discomfort means bad health.”  https://paulbohn.com/treatment-specialties/health-anxiety/

Signs that suggest you don’t have Cancer  https://kauveryhospital.com/blog/cancer/10-signs-that-suggest-you-dont-have-cancer/

“Two in five people end up diagnosing themselves with a serious disease after using Googling their symptoms. A survey of 2,000 Americans found that 43% of them had misdiagnosed themselves after searching their symptoms online. And 74% said that the results made them more worried.”  https://etactics.com/blog/stop-googling-symptoms

“Have you ever wondered whether you are worrying about your health too much? According to a new book released by a Northwestern Medicine professor, “we have become a nation of hypochondriacs”.”  https://www.news-medical.net/health/Hypochondria-are-you-a-hypochondriac.aspx

“About 40 million adults in the United States live with anxiety disorders, making it the most common mental illness in the country.”  https://eu.delawareonline.com/story/news/health/2016/03/20/dont-turn-dr-google-7-ways-beat-health-anxiety/81906044/

“Health anxiety persists despite reassurance from the doctor. Seeking reassurance from doctors, insisting on repeated medical tests, and visits to the ER and urgent care are common if you have health anxiety.”  https://adaa.org/understanding-anxiety/related-illnesses/health-anxiety

“It is defined by compulsively checking for symptoms, researching diseases, obsessing over normal bodily sensations or avoiding anything that could potentially lead to you being exposed to disease.

This little-known, yet widespread condition, has hit more people this year in the wake of the pandemic.”  https://www.bbc.com/news/disability-56591440

“With nowhere to go in lockdown, an increasing number of 'worried well' are spending their days Googling symptoms and fearing the worst”  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/body/convinced-every-lump-ache-covid-cancer-rise-health-anxiety-young/

“The worst behaved news shows are those which target a female audience, like Dateline NBC. Some of its self-proclaimed "best features" include "Seasick: Is your seafood safe?", "What's in your water?", and, perhaps most appropriately, "Panic Attacks"2 Sadly, the problem of scare stories is not limited to tabloid news shows. Even mainstream newspapers have gotten in on the game. In the past two years, the Washington Post featured 111 articles about breast cancer, and only 44 articles about prostate cancer.3 This, despite the fact that prostate cancer kills about the same number of men each year as breast cancer kills women.4”  http://davidgyoung.com/cancer.html

“My mind was purely on a complete mission to receive every test and reassurance possible from professionals, to confirm I didn’t have a specific illness.”  https://mentalhealth-uk.org/blog/my-terror-of-living-with-health-anxiety/

“Have you heard things like “aspartame causes cancer” or “glyphosate causes cancer”, or “red meat causes cancer”?

Spoiler: these claims are wildly misinterpreted and usually false.

Carcinogenic means having the potential to cause cancer.

Unfortunately, the term carcinogenic is widely misused. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes not.”  https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2024/04/22/how-iarc-and-other-independent-global-cancer-assessment-agencies-can-distort-the-publics-understanding-of-the-risks-of-cancer/

“Well, this time, instead of brain cancer, leukemia, or some obscure, rare cancer, I now am positive I have cancer that's metastasized throughout my lungs, stomach, intestines, and colon. And I know this because I had two tiny, needle point-sized dots of blood on my toilet paper a few weeks ago. I have dark stool sometimes, and that could be black rather than dark brown meaning digested blood and, therefore, internal bleeding from cancer.”  https://www.reddit.com/r/Anxiety/comments/18qrlrc/its_always_cancer_tw_health_anxiety_hypochondria/?rdt=58576

“"What hypochondriacs have trouble accepting is that normal, healthy people have symptoms," says Barsky. Hypochondriacs tend to be very aware of bodily sensations that most people live with and ignore. To a hypochondriac, an upset stomach becomes a sign of cancer and a headache can only mean a brain tumor. The stress that goes along with this worry can make the symptoms even worse.”  https://www.webmd.com/balance/features/internet-makes-hypochondria-worse

“Some people with health anxiety worry about health issues that they think they may develop in the future.

People affected with hypochondria are often on the alert for any symptoms of disease in their bodies. The more they analyze, the more hypochondriac they become.”  https://www.news-medical.net/health/Health-Anxiety-Hypochondria-Symptoms.aspx

“A large Swedish study has uncovered a paradox about people diagnosed with an excessive fear of serious illness: They tend to die earlier than people who aren’t hypervigilant about health concerns.”  https://apnews.com/article/hypochondria-anxiety-fear-illness-research-396a6e0ae2498906aeef5e03977a48e2

O întrebare care-ţi poate salva viaţa! “Before starting any treatment, ask your doctor the most important question 'What is the evidence that by taking this treatment, I will be able to increase My life span or improve the quality of My Life in comparison to not undergoing any treatment?”  https://www.diamondbook.in/1-question-that-can-save-your-life.html