By Cowboy up and Maz
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What is Hypochondria
Hypochondria is a condition relating to people who tend to believe that even the normal twitching, headaches, dizziness, and other things like basic pain is a symptom of an unknown disease or some other severe problem that is often over looked by their doctors. in doing so, doctor shopping is often done.
Having test after test being done, only to find out that it is related to Anxiety/Panic attacks, both wastes money and resources of that from going to your doctor as well as going to the ER for help. But there are still cases in which your doctor may have missed something, chalking it down to your Anxiety Disorder.
As so many people with Anxiety Disorder do tend to over-react and when they have sensations or symptoms, they start to over-react, believing they have a serious or life threatening disease: Example: you have a headache, therefore you must think you have a brain tumor and so on goes the list. The majority of the population recognise simple symptoms for what they are and if anything happens in a 'normal' person not having anxiety they dont tend to be bothered by it. They dont let it affect their day to day life
But people with this condition start to look up these symptoms on the Internet and find symptom after symptom of diseases that they don't have, and this fuels the fear. By using the Internet, searching for the cause of these sensations adds to your already dx of anxiety and aids in you becoming a hypochondriac. By thinking in this manner, even though many of these happenings are normal in very real life that are harmless to us, people with hypochondria can be a drain on themselves, on their loved ones, friends, colleagues and the services you recieve from your medical professionals- whether it be a doctor or the ER. People who suffer from hypochondria, which is a very real condition, often struggle to see that what they are doing is harmful to themselves in many ways.
Hypochondria should be adressed with regular therapy, counselling and even CBT, as it is a form of health anxiety.