For the past week, I’ve been dealing with a mild sore throat—nothing that disrupts my sleep, just a slight discomfort, particularly noticeable when I take that first sip of water in the morning. While I haven’t rushed to a doctor yet, I have found myself contemplating various potential causes: allergies, stress, a postnasal drip, or maybe even the early signs of throat cancer. Despite logic suggesting it’s likely one of the more benign options, I can’t shake the last possibility from my mind, a pattern I recognize all too well when grappling with symptoms ranging from gas pains to the fear of a heart attack. Yes, I’m a cyberchondriac.
“Cyberchondria,” as defined by Microsoft Research, refers to the unwarranted increase in worry over common symptoms triggered by online searches. Essentially, I end up convincing myself that I’m stricken with a rare illness after merely Googling a vague symptom. The more ambiguous the symptom, the longer the list of dire illnesses I feel compelled to explore, which leads me to wade through countless disease-specific forums. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve stumbled into a chat room about leprosy.
This tendency seems to run in my family. As a child, I often watched my mother leaf through an antiquated medical encyclopedia ominously named Diseases of Women, as she sought to pinpoint her latest array of ailments. “Have you ever heard of idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura?” she’d casually ask while sitting cross-legged on the floor, poring over the book’s yellowed pages. “Because I think I have it.”
Whether I worried that her self-diagnoses were hereditary is a memory I can’t quite recall (unless, of course, I have amnesia or early-onset Alzheimer’s, which are always lingering possibilities). Growing up just before the advent of the World Wide Web meant I didn’t have access to the vast online resources we have today. Instead, I compared my symptoms with those of friends and family.
“My arm hurts. Aunt Sarah’s arm hurt before her stroke.”
“True, but she was 90 and had health issues, while you’re 16 and about to go rock climbing.”
“Still…”
Over time, my obsessive medical research has only intensified, paralleling the explosion of information available on the Internet. Recently, WebMD informed me that the trendy term for my condition is “somatic symptom disorder,” which essentially means an obsession with bodily symptoms. With every symptom I experience, there’s an entire spectrum of illnesses to investigate.
Take, for instance, a headache, which I frequently encounter. WebMD lists over 65 potential conditions associated with a “sudden onset dull headache.” Sure, a tension headache is the most likely culprit, but how can I completely dismiss the possibility of migraines, meningitis, or even Cryptococcus—a fungus found in bird droppings? I do live near birds, don’t I?
I often wonder why I can’t seem to apply common sense to my self-diagnoses (my toe hurts because I stubbed it and not due to some rare neuropathy) and instead gravitate towards the worst-case scenarios. Perhaps I need to explore the direst possibilities to ensure I’m not caught off guard. Maybe I just can’t accept that I might simply have a cold.
You might think I spend an excessive amount of time in the emergency room, chatting with nurses and doctors, but in reality, my obsession rarely leads me out of the house. By the time I’ve traced the maze of potential disorders online, my symptoms have often faded, leaving me to sheepishly concede that, perhaps, it was just a mild allergy to my partner, who stands by with an annoyingly smug look.
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Summary
In this candid reflection, the author shares her experiences as a self-proclaimed cyberchondriac, detailing how the internet fuels her anxieties about trivial health symptoms. Rooted in familial tendencies, her obsession with diagnosing ailments leads to an overwhelming search for rare diseases online, often resulting in unnecessary worry. Ultimately, she humorously acknowledges that most of her symptoms are likely benign, highlighting the contrast between her anxious thoughts and reality.