by Teri Halliwell

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It can be a persisting rush on your skin, feeling your pulse when you lay down to bed or a sensation that’s something is stuck in your throat. In an age where almost everything is at your fingertips, it is difficult not to fall down the rabbit hole of googling your symptoms. Self-diagnosing can lead to wrong self-treatment or wrong medication, worsening the condition and losing time for proper care. According to research published on the National Library of Medicine, the plethora of information found on the Internet can be misinterpreted, overwhelming and cause “health anxiety”, a real mental disorder causing excessive worrying that you are sick.

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What is Cyberchondria

In classical medicine, hypochondria denoted the soft part of the body below the ribs. This region was identified as the source of black bile that, when excessive, was believed to cause diseases of the mind and body. Dr. Melinda Moree, a PhD in medical microbiology from the University of Maryland and Senior Program Officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, notes that there is a fine line separating hypochondriacs from sufferers of real diseases. He relates, "In the 19th century. many sufferers of multiple sclerosis were regarded as hypochondriacal. Whether any cases of hypochondriasis will be redefined in the future with changes in diagnostic practice is uncertain”.

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Adding Dr. Google to the menu takes medical anxiety to a whole other level. The term “cyberchondria” not only relates to searching online medical symptoms and convincing yourself that you are gravely ill, but also the fear and anxiety people feel over what kind of information they will retrieve from the Internet.

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Even though you cannot resist the urge to google, filtering the information can assist to better understanding medical content. Here's what I recommend:

• Take everything with a grain of salt and never self-diagnose. Although the symptoms for a particular disease, such as sore throat when having the common cold, are experienced by the majority of people, each body is unique with its own identity. Doctors are often detectives, drawing a map of the symptoms you describe, test and examine before reaching a diagnosis. Think of it this way; if diagnosing a disease was that easy simply by doing an Internet search, there would be no need for medical degrees or licensed practitioners and facilities.

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• Make sure the article is reviewed by a medical doctor. Articles often indicate who wrote the medical content and who reviewed it, including their credentials. Many health publishers now have experts who ensure content accuracy. 

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• Go to Scientific Journals, like The Journal of Neuroscience or The American Journal of Psychiatry, and the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) where you can find firsthand accounts on events, original research, breakthrough news and thorough approach to a medical condition; not just referring to the symptoms, but putting the symptoms into context.

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•  Your doctor is your number one contact. Instead of going down the slippery slope, you can either talk to a doctor or a therapist online if you feel like your emotional or physical health is getting the best of you. 

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