Symptoms of hypochondria can include: thinking a lot about having a serious illness. seeing a doctor many times, but not accepting reassurances. seeking out lots of medical tests.
Common Method for Self-Diagnosis. To make a self-test for diagnosing health anxiety, the most common method used is a questionnaire. People who think they may be affected by health anxiety disorder can take up the questionnaire to make a self-assessment.
People with illness anxiety disorder -- also called hypochondria or hypochondriasis -- have an unrealistic fear that they have a serious medical condition or fear that they're at high risk of becoming ill. They may misinterpret typical body functions as signs of illness.
This condition is caused by an oversensitivity to the way a person feels, combined with serious panic attacks that mimic terrible diseases – all leading to the person feeling as though something must be wrong with their health. Even generalized anxiety disorder can cause these types of issues.
Hypochondriac Symptoms
Hypochondria is a mental health disorder. It usually starts in early adulthood and may show up after the person or someone they know has gone through an illness or after they've lost someone to a serious medical condition.
Do hypochondriacs feel real symptoms? Yes. Hypochondria can trigger symptoms associated with anxiety including: stomachaches, dizziness, headache, dry mouth, muscle tension, fatigue, increased heart rate, sweating, shortness of breath, and a frequent urge to use the bathroom.
Risk factors may include: Age between 20 and 30 years. Serious childhood illness or trauma. Mental disorders, such as anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, personality disorders, and depression.
Hypochondriac comes ultimately from the Greek word hypokhondria, which literally means “under the cartilage (of the breastbone).” In the late 16th century, when hypochondriac first entered the English language, it referred to the upper abdomen.
Experiencing physical or emotional trauma can lead to hypochondria. This can include previous health trauma caused by the person having a serious illness, or by observing someone else experience a serious illness. People who experience extreme stress which they cannot relieve are also vulnerable.
The term is one of the oldest medical terms and used to describe disorders believed to be situated in the hypochondrium, which is the area under the “khondros,” the cartilage, ribs, especially stomach, spleen, and liver.
There is no 'cure' for either condition, but both are considered treatable, mainly through psychotherapeutic techniques such as CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy), which aim to help the patient to relax and not to catastrophise when interpreting bodily sensations.
While some people's obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) focuses on their health, health anxiety (sometimes called hypochondriasis) is not a form of OCD, and OCD can involve thoughts and anxieties that aren't related to illness. If you're experiencing OCD, health anxiety, or both, effective treatments are available.
To determine a diagnosis, you'll likely have a physical exam and any tests your primary care provider recommends. Your provider can help determine if you have any medical conditions that require treatment and set limits on lab testing, imaging and referrals to specialists.
Key takeaways:
Symptom checkers are easy to use, but they're less accurate than medical professionals. Frequent searching for health information online can cause anxiety and lead to unnecessary medical visits.
One of the biggest reasons you as a patient should never google your symptoms is that diseases are incredibly complex. Some symptoms can overlap many different diagnoses, all of which can range in severity.
Illness anxiety disorder, sometimes called hypochondriasis or health anxiety, is worrying excessively that you are or may become seriously ill. You may have no physical symptoms.
An individual with hypochondriasis is known as a hypochondriac. Hypochondriacs become unduly alarmed about any physical or psychological symptoms they detect, no matter how minor the symptom may be, and are convinced that they have, or are about to be diagnosed with, a serious illness.
Antidepressants are most commonly prescribed medications for illness anxiety disorder. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) or serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) are typically the first-choice antidepressants. SSRIs include medications like: Fluoxetine (Prozac)
Hypochondria is a type of anxiety disorder. It is also known as health anxiety, or illness anxiety disorder, or hypochondriasis. It is normal for people to worry about their health now and again. But people who experience hypochondria get very worried that they are seriously ill, or are about to become seriously ill.
But here's the irony: People who are overly worried about their health are also more likely to actually develop some serious health problems, according to a large new study out of Norway, published this month in the journal BMJ Open. Sometimes being right does indeed suck.
People with health anxiety often misinterpret normal or benign physical symptoms and attribute them to something more serious. For example, if they were to compress an arm while asleep, instead of rolling over and shaking off the numb feeling, they might worry they were having a stroke.
Patients may have periods of hypochondriasis for months and years, and then go months and years without hypochondriasis. Some patients recover from the disorder. For others, it may be a lifelong problem.
The main symptom of hypochondria is excessive worrying about health. Causes may vary, and could be related to other legitimate health conditions. For most people, it is a temporary experience. The term as defined by the DSM-5 manual is somatic symptom disorder.