Health Anxiety and the Internet

[Basha]

Arggh!! The Internet is driving me CRAZY! My panic/anxiety for the past couple of years is related to health... heart attack has been my most recent obsession.. I get lots of chest pains (I started getting checked for heart problems when I was 19) and am healthy physically but obsess over every little thing I feel happening in my body.

I've been signed off for a week by my doc as i am starting some citalopram tablets, but find I can't stop searching the internet for deadly side effects and heart attack symptoms. I feel half the time the internet is my downfall.. I swear I know every symptom for every disease in the book. Does anybody else do this? If so any advice for how to stop?

Basha xx

[nomorepanic]

Block google for starters LOL

It does us no good and we all do it and then we get worse.

Before the internet we had only books to relate to and the docs.

Learn to accept things as they are and not google them (says she who did this just tonight)!!

Sorry I am as bad but yes we do need to stop it - or at least find informed sites and not random ones.



Nicola

[Meg]

http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/default...=healthanxiety

Meg
www.anxietymanagementltd.com

Your anxiety is the human representation of the pictures that you paint using your many vivid colours of revolving and reoccurring thoughts.
How big is your gallery ?

[Henry_Rollins]

The internet has been my downfall. Google & Web MD ruined me! Because of those two sites I have convinced myself that I have HIV, ALS, MS & cancer!

I cannot stop searching and running to the internet every time I get an ache or pain. But on the positive side, it brought me to you crazy Europeans with the same problems as me!

[8D]

I am addicted to diagnosing myself on the internet and I cannot stop. I need help!

[Meg]

Bad Night.......To much time to think....!

Meg
www.anxietymanagementltd.com

Your anxiety is the human representation of the pictures that you paint using your many vivid colours of revolving and reoccurring thoughts.
How big is your gallery ?

[Dan21]

Do not do it!!

The internet should carry a health warning for folks like us!!

Thats paradoxical! Maybe there should be a new forum:

Internet Health Anxiety!!

[andrewjdavid2005]

I must admit i have been terrible over the last year and ahalf with looking up on google, i have been obsessed with blood clots, heart attacks, brain diseases and loads of other things it really worries me when i used to type in symptoms and bad diseases used to appear i don't do it as often now i have tried cutting it out.

[Henry_Rollins]

I was reading the other thread and I came across this persons post... too damn funny, especially when they said "A bad case of Googlitis!"

Googleitis / Googlitis should be in Websters!



What they wrote:

Check this out.

Over the past 8 months, I have definitely had/got the following illnesses:

Heart Attack
Pulmonary Embolism
Pleurisy
Emphysema
Asthma
Anaphylactic Shock
Peptic Ulcer
Stomach Cancer
Blocked Salivary Gland
Mouth Cancer
Glandular Fever
Thyroid Disease
Menieres Disease
Throat/Ear Virus*
Bladder Cancer
Kidney Disease
Renal Colic
Kidney Stones
Cystocele
Antibiotic-Resistant Urinary Tract Infection*
Myaesthenia Gravis
Multiple Sclerosis
Deep Vein Thrombosis in one leg
Polycystic Ovaries
Endometriosis
Pelvic Inflammatory Disease*
Eczema
Dermatitis
Scarlet Fever
Shingles
Lichen Planus*
Anxiety*

There are more but I can't recall them offhand (the fact that I can recall this many off the top of my head is somewhat indicative of the amount of analysis I have been doing on the quiet!). How shocking is that??? That's over 30 medical conditions, 5 of which I have had in reality (indicated by the * - I have had a rough year but...).

The rest are a bad case of Googlitis

Writing that out is therapy in itself - however did I survive that lot LOL!

Eeb x

[Basha]

Thanks for all your replies! I have been doing well the last few days... instead of surfing the net for all the diseases I could have, I've been spending my time on ebay instead buying things I don't need!! Or spending my time on this site which is definitely more positive and therapeutic than getting myself worked up over all the diseases I don't have.

Thanks for all the positive replies, I love that I can say anything on here and people don't laugh at me. xx

[Henry_Rollins]

Question:

With so many people having problems with health anxiety and the internet (mostly Google), why is there a link to search Google right on this very website?

I have linked up to Google twice through this website to check a symptom. I am sure others are doing the same!

My thought is: "out of site - out of mind." Remove the temptation and get rid of that Google search option on this website!

Your thoughts?

- Henry