# Anxiety Disorders > Hypochondria (Health Anxiety) >  >  anxious about health...really not helped by google

## Otherside

So heres the problem. It's not a constant obsession thing, but when something is wrong with me, and it could be something minor, I instantly panic and fear the worst. The first time I can remember it happened...a few years back and I was having headaches, along with dizzyness, nausea, blurred vision at times, neck pain...and google informed my that my symptoms could be due to a brain tumour. And so I spent the next week panicking about a brain tumour until I finally went and saw my GP...and although we never did get the bottom of what was causing it, it was probably migranes, or headaches due to heat, or something like that. 

I also remember panicking after seeing an advert informing you of the symptoms of meningitus that a spot on my leg that would not go away when pressed with a glass was an early sign of meningitus. Before being reminded that meningitus had more symptoms that just one spot. 

Or when I start panicking that I'm suffering for serotonin syndrome after coming across it. For some reason, depsite the fact that the antidepressants I'd been on hadn't caused anything like that, and weren't causing any of the symptoms, with the exception of vomitting which was due to something else, I decided I had serotonin syndrome.

Or the one lately where I came across Huntingdons disease in a college, and decided that I had that, and that was the source of my mood swings.

Seriously. I imagine everythings made ten times worse by an anxiety disorder, but does anyone else have this? I don't think I'm a hypocondriac...I think I just see something accidently, and then instantly panic is some of the symptoms match up to some of what I'm having at the time.

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## Antidote

I think this is a form of hypochondria, even if subclinical. I believe I'm a hypochondriac but I need a trigger to set it off. If I don't have triggers I forget about it. The solution to this is to identify when you are triggered and not to cave into the compulsion to check it on google. 

I've noticed many health sites on the internet are alarmist. They err on the side of caution probably for legal reasons. But they can be misleading and make you freak out over benign symptoms.

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## IllusionOfHappiness

I'm definitely like this, though not to an extreme degree. Earlier today I was remembering that when I was a kid I went through this phase where I was terrified of being sick to my stomach. Every night before bed I would imagine that I felt nauseous, and would try to convince my mom that it was going to happen. Nowadays I need to stop giving health problems too much thought until an actual doctor can give me their educated opinion. And of course googling it is almost always a bad idea. You wouldn't believe what came up when I searched "what causes thin fingernails?"

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