"Cyberchondria"

[jitters]

Does anyone else suffer with this modern version of hypocondria. Were you look up your symptoms on the internet convinced that the Doctor must have missed something?

Strangely in my case this made me feel better when I started to slip into a panic episode like a distraction technique. Probably not a good long term treatment though me thinks.

Duncan

[amarkb]

I did do that but have knocked it on the head.

I think that's the reason i got so bad in the first place, giving a suggestable mind all that food for thought was a biiig mistake for me.

I was having some fairly mild symptoms of stress and anxiety following a bad couple of weeks at work and decided to google them.

Well, sure enough the stress got worse and so did the symptoms and i got in 'the loop'.

Maybe I was heading there anyway but googling every little thing I felt certainly accelerated it.

[jitters]

I try to stay off the medical websites these daya Google is not our friend.

Duncan

[jitters]

*Days*

Sorry

Duncan

[V for Victor]

Oh yes, I've done this lots.

My doctor actually had to tell me to stop researching my prescribed medication so I wouldn't totally psych myself out of taking it!

I guess for some people, researching their symptoms might be a good distractor, and make them feel like they're in control. For others, such as myself, the research can irritate the situation further, and open your mind up to new ideas of illnesses you never even knew existed!!

Either way, I have gathered a wide range of general knowledge about many, many illnesses, diseases, viruses, and conditions through my research, which could be handy in preventing them from happening!

[jitters]

Yes it's amazing how much I know about human phsyology after my research if anyone I knows comes down with a major illness I'll be like a walking encyclopedia of medical knowledge. Maybe this knowledge will help me rational lise my episode knowing which symptoms I am not getting. Who knows gotta be positive. :)

[TheBlueDanube]

I like to look things up "just to make sure" but I find it bad when I was trying to convince my doctor I had depression not agoraphobia. :roll: He said, "doesn't matter the medicine will cure both." :lol: Wait until next time I'll have a full printed essay on all my issues. ;)

[jitters]

Sooo Helpful sometimes these Doctors, did he advise you to seek councilling or did he just give you the pills and tell you to walk. :thumbsdown:

Hi,
Ive mentioned the following before but got no response.
Looking at this site is the same as googling symptoms.We are looking for reasurance. The posts which get most replies are the ones asking direct questions about physical symptoms. This cannot be a coincidence , I suspect that most people on here have fallen in to the google trap. Your anxiety subsides when you read about someone who suffers the same thing as you. Unfortunately it returns stronger and you have to find someone else to reasure you. Then the time that this comforts you decreases and you have to search more and more. Its just the same as searching for a website which tells you what you want to hear, which I have done and know makes me worse. You then have to find another and then another and so on. I am guilty of this and look for people with the same as me and skip over any issues which dont involve symtoms,we are all going round in circles. I asked a question about valium,120 people looked but only Duncan answered. Why on a site dedicated to anxiety would I get only one resonse about Valium! there must be loads of people who could help. Had I asked about headaches more would.
I appreciate its not a chatroom Duncan but surely it can be more than a place to compare symptoms, which we we have all agreed makes us worse. Thanks for your response it was very informative and you obviously spent some time on it,
I appreciate this.

[jitters]

No problem, I know what you mean about hearing from people who have the same problems it does help. In the case of an illness like Anxiety maybe it is one of the most important things, hearing from fellow sufferers.

Keep Posting, People will answer hopefully not just me.

Duncan

[jitters]

I mean that in the sense that some people if not most people with anxiety, do need some kind of reassurance they are not alone. I do understand that you feel that reassurance alone is not enough, but unfortunatly once people get their anxiety under control they tend to get on with their lives. this leaves a gap which needs filling of recovered anxiety sufferers who have the knowlage and positive stories that maybe we need to hear.

That may come in time, in the mean time the best you can do is raise the issues concerned in the correct section and hope people can relate.

Duncan

I understand that reasurance is important and helps,this site can certainly provide that . However, constantly seeking reasurance makes it worse and this site does make you seek reasurance. Thats what Im doing again now.looking for reasurance. This constant checking and seeking helps reinforce your fears,thus making anxiety worse. We are never content with one example, we need more and more. My points were :

Seeking reasurnce on here is as bad for you as googling yet here we are doing it

We all perpetuate our anxiety by playing the game and disscusing physical symtoms.