Confessions Of A Cyberchondriac - Internet Making People Think They're Sick
from the people-getting-sick dept
I've heard stories of people in medical school who, as they study each new disease, suddenly notice that they have the symptoms particular to that disease. Now that we have the internet, and anyone can study up on any disease in the comfort of their own home, it seems this phenomenon is no longer limited to medical students. aNonMooseCowherd writes in with a link to a story about the rise of cyberchondriacs - people who are spending all their time researching diseases they believe they have. They go to their doctors armed with information - and are told they're perfectly healthy. Then, they get back online and go doctor shopping for another doctor, since they believe the original one must be wrong. In the end, about the only disease these people tend to have is "health anxiety" (apparently the modern name for hypochondria) with a high tech twist.
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I just went through this
This was certainly an issue where too much information was available, and she kept picking the worse consequences for what was going on.
Fight Club, I believe.
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I thought I had strep throat, so I look up info on the web. By the time I was done I was convinced that I had rheumatic fever. Are those red spots on my chest? My fingers are kind of stiff. Ow, my heart!
It was just a sinus infection.
Then I looked up the side effects of my antibiotics. Whoo boy, that'll keep you up at night.
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Wow,
A WHOLE article on my MOM !
I knew she was eventually gonna get her 15 minutes of fame ...
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