Being healthy is a boon, but to be over-apprehensive about health with anxiety is a disease. A worrisome person invites trouble through excessive visits to a medical professional, leading to over-testing with an infusion of extra drugs in his system. The distress is tenfold when the person gets access to an available cyber for his overrated symptoms and starts evaluating and treating himself.
Cyber (Internet) + Hypochondria (health anxiety disorder) = CYBERCHONDRIA – ‘Unfolded anxiety concerning the state of one’s health brought on by visiting health and medical websites.’
A Guru of Palmistry once said – ‘The biggest problem with learning palmistry through consulting a book is that the person begins reading his hand and is troubled by gathering half-baked knowledge about his future.’
Consider someone suffering from a common cold and cough caused by a climatic change. A quick ‘Desi’ treatment would be to have ‘Adrak Ki Chai’ four times a day and relax. Now, if the person starts consulting ‘Dr Google Baba’ for each symptom, there is a long list of dos and don’ts and equally elaborate modes of treating the simple ailment. A Pandora’s box of recommendations will open once you start typing for every single sneeze or cough.
Mr Sharma is a health freak and leads his life through a cyber-suggestive diet, a strict yoga routine and a fitness mantra. At the shy age of sixty, he wants his body to behave like early thirties. While his peers indulge in OTT platforms to uplift their sagging virility, Sharma jee keeps toying with every detail he can excavate from Google Health. His mind is constantly at work, and he keeps checking his pulse rate in bed. He may seem robust physically but, frankly, is mentally cyber-stressed.
The worst scenario a medical consultant faces is satisfying the urge and information satiety of a cyber-savvy patient who has googled enough of his ailments and jumbles up his half-cooked information. There is so much confusion because his mind is jumbled up with suggestions and options, not solutions. He may even start questioning the Doctor’s credentials and experience by putting him in the frame of his raw acquaintances.
The problem becomes grievous when the person muddles the drug’s side effects with cyber. Google mentions one in a million side effects of a particular drug. This eventually causes the patients to lose confidence when they pop even a single tablet of innocent vitamin C.
The Cyberchondriacs become pathetic when they start relating their simple cough to the possibility of malignancy in the Lungs — or a spell of loose motions to Intestinal cancer. There is a thin line between Awareness and Anxiety when it comes to the ailment. Such people create a nuisance for themselves and for their families, who simmer in the heat of the patient’s cynicism. May indulge in overmedication and abuse when they are unable to handle their wrath.
The fundamental problems with cyberchondriacs are –
* There is compulsive, unwanted searching on the web.
* Worrying leads to distress, depression and desperation.
* A waste of precious time and energy.
* Seeking assurance at all times.
* Mistrust of concerned medical personnel.
Cyberchondria can be checked (FIVE WAYS) if the person –
* Stops humiliating and questioning his belief system.
* Understands his inner self and follows meditation.
* Speaks his heart out to a friend or professional.
* Understands that all diseases and ailments are not solely his own.
* Makes the right choices and stops living on options. After all, our lives are about choices. Some we REGRET and some we are PROUD of – some will haunt us; some will adulate us; we are what we choose.
In life, we have only two options – ACCEPT or CHANGE.
“Try to accept what you can’t change and try to change what you can’t accept.”
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If only people were more aware of this! The next generation of hypochondriacs
Thats what I have tried to create. some awareness.
Thanks dear.
Perfectly said Doctor Anuj.
This is the latest SIN DRONE where, as you rightly pointed out, people are carried away with what they read on apps, videos and Google the Doctor.
Useless waste of time and unnecessary stress for the mind.
The more you read the worse it gets.
Enjoyed reading your candid opinion and well worded article.
Cyber makes you HYPER.
I love the caption .. cyber makes you hyper :). Cyber gives more stress than it helps.
Thanks a lot for the feedback.
The blog-“Cyberchondria-Are we Cyber slaves-Five ways to check it” relates to state of mind one may find due to over exposure to Cyber information..There’s a old saying called Jack of all trades but Master of none, aptly applies to those who are laiden with half baked information. It is normally seen that people with Biology background have a superficial knowledge of human anatomy and physiology. Nevertheless, this knowledge is not precise. It simmers with addition of information gethered through Google Baba. Such mentally sick persons start thinking themselves as if they know all about a particular disease. They themselves will pop up medicines when they have any ailment. They will not pay a visit to a Doctor till the condition worsens.Anf if they visit a Doctor, they’ll not only tell what medicines they have engulfed but also tell what other unwanted procedures they have followed, as if a Doctor is not needed for such diseases. Well fine.. What will happen if the condition deteriorates to an alarming proportion. Had knowledge gethered through Google been sufficient to treat an ailment, requirement of Doctors would not have been there. As rightly said, there’s a thin line between Awareness and Anxiety when it comes to the ailment, defines the quantum of anxiety, stress and mental disturbance one can accumulate in the mind by gethering unnecessary information through cyber use. It is rightly said that excess use of every thing is bad. So is the case with so called Cyberchondriacs who may become mentally ill by sticking too much to Cyber information which ultimately may result in to a thrash if not properly used.. Ver nice Blog Dr Anuj
Thank you so much Ashok bhai. You are a blog in yourself. It’s a treat to read your feedback which is so informative and apt. As a doctor we face such cyber savvy people all the time and it is an arduous exercise to convince them. well, they do so much damage.
Ignorance is a bliss goes very well.
Regards.
I didn’t realize there was a name for this obsession. It’s got to be frustrating for physicians when patients come in with so much anxiety about a simple headache. often a search for causes of headache will produce a list from allergy to brain cancer.
It’s important to listen to one’s body & changes in health & wellness. It’s important that physicians listen to their patients and believe them when they say they know something is wrong. Together the doctor and patient can discover the root of the problem and work on solutions.
Great article!!
Thanks a lot for the appreciation. You are absolutely right about the doctor and the patient together discovering the root of the problem. There is so much confusion with the extra knowledge available about the smallest things on the cyber. A doctor needs to treat the anxiety of the patient more than the actual ailment. I am a psychiatrist first, then a Hand surgeon. 🙂 Regards
That’s the real problem each of us is facing these days, the extent of which is only immense. Quite pertinent article.
Yes, dear that a problem indeed. The worst is that parents give mobiles in the hands of little ones. God knows where this going to take them.
regards.