Phobia of Illness…!
5 min readJul 18, 2020
Doctor, please check me.
I think I’m not well, and developing the worse disease in my body.
No, I checked you properly, your reports are quite normal. You don’t need to worry about it.
No, no doctor, you might be mistaken…! I searched all my symptoms on the internet previously. All symptoms are leading to the worst one. Oh, even I am not able to make you understand it. Please save me!!!
Okay, let me prescribe some medication and Give me a follow up after 5 days.
Doctor, are you sure? those medicines will cure my disease? I searched for the medicines on the internet too. The information was different than these medications…!!!
Well, such types of conversations happen very often during our OPD sessions. Sometimes patients came to us not for the actual disease but for the imaginary illness!
Do you fear getting ill? Do you search your symptoms on the internet and indulge in it very often???!
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No one likes the Dis-Ease
Disease and medicine
Well, no one wants to fall ill. No one likes the Dis-Ease. But fear of getting the illness despite having good health status is actually a baseless situation. The phobia of getting caught with the illness will definitely lead to stress and anxiety initially and later to some serious mental illness. Searching about various symptoms of illness frequently on the internet might be a serious subject of concern.
The person who has an excessive fear of having a serious illness is called Nosophobia.
Nosophobia comes derived from “Nostos” and “Phobos” which means “Disease” and “Fear” in the Greek language respectively.
Nosophobia people are very sensitive about small minor changes that happen in their bodies. No matter how minor change it is, they fear to have a big illness without proper medical diagnoses of it. Nosophobia people are fearful about their own health status even after authentic medical diagnosis which proved the person healthy. Such persistence behavior leads them and their near ones into big trouble.
Sometimes their thoughts are far high and illogical. People frequently indulge in self-examination and try to diagnose on their own. Such extreme, irrational, and persistent behavioral thoughts will lead them to a serious mental illness called Hypochondria, commonly known as Illness Anxiety Disorder.
Sometimes their thoughts are far high and illogical. People frequently indulge in self-examination and try to diagnose on their own. Such extreme, irrational, and persistent behavioral thoughts will lead them to a serious mental illness called Hypochondria, commonly known as Illness Anxiety Disorder.
Nowadays, such a hypochondriac person searches their symptoms over the internets. For such people the term used is Cyberchondriac. Cyberchondriac people reviews various articles, and information over the internet about their fictional imaginary disease which they never had. They might not have physical symptoms but worry that they have or they going to have specific diseases.
Common symptoms of such a person are Anxiety, restlessness, excessive sweating, and stressful behavior. They can’t sleep easily due to stress/worry/fear of illness. They spend hours and hours gaining knowledge about the disease via the internet, health bulletin, etc without getting a break for food or water. Even they miss their important work schedule too.
We clearly know that all the information shared on the internet is not always authentic. There are so many fake websites that provide false information regarding health problems and divert a big mass into a phobia of illness. Even sometimes a person doesn’t know that the information he/she is reading is fake and unauthentic. And such wrong information misleads us into darkness.
Fear
How we can save ourselves from such behavioral patterns?
Well, first of all, we must understand the difference between Care and Fear. One must take care of their own health, but fear/phobia of illness surely leads to anxiety. Over possessiveness about health is definitely not a good sign. Over possessiveness in inform leads us to nothing but stress and anxiety. Try to follow these tips to avoid such phobia:
1. Cultivate Good Healthy habits
healthy habits.
2. Ayurveda Lifestyle is good for mental as well as physical wellbeing
3. Do Yoga and Meditation every day.
4. Avoid excessive use of the Internet.
5. Don’t check information regarding Health very often
6. Check the source of information over the internet before accepting them
7. Don’t rely on rumors
8. Always seek authentic medical advice
9. Don’t try to treat yourself, let the doctor complete this task.
