{"id":371,"date":"2025-12-18T12:14:52","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T12:14:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.integrativehealthcare.org\/wp_temp_dir\/?p=371"},"modified":"2025-12-22T21:14:21","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T21:14:21","slug":"omg-i-think-i-got-it-cyberchondria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.integrativehealthcare.org\/mt\/omg-i-think-i-got-it-cyberchondria\/","title":{"rendered":"OMG – I Think I’ve Got It! Cyberchondria"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MassageWant to earn continuing education credit<\/strong> for this article? Learn more<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When I was in massage school, third semester meant it was time to take pathology. On the first day the instructor warned us that at some time during the semester as we learned about various diseases and afflictions we would think we had them. We all laughed when she said it. However, over the next several weeks, each of us at some point were indeed convinced we had some sort of something serious wrong. Since our pathology instructor was also a medical doctor we, of course, went to her with every complaint which she assured us would go away, and probably recur several times over the semester. By the time school was over the symptoms would most likely – almost miraculously – disappear forever.<\/p>\n

Back then the computer was not as influential as it is now. We weren\u2019t carrying smartphones in our pockets with instant access to medical information, and symptom-checker apps and AI tools didn\u2019t exist yet. Today, people can look up anything within seconds \u2014 often before they\u2019ve even considered calling a healthcare provider. This means everyone who has access to the Internet is capable of looking up what it means to have a headache, belly pain, double vision or any other physical or mental symptom.<\/p>\n

What Is Cyberchondria?<\/h3>\n

Cyberchondria is defined as a form of nosophobia – or fear of having a disease. It has the added dimension of a person being able to research his or her symptoms, whether real or imagined, on the Internet. That person now thinks he or she has the disease described. It does not refer to the individual who occasionally checks out a medical website, but more to the person who obsessively researches a collection of relatively mundane symptoms believing he or she has some serious affliction.<\/p>\n

Cyberchondria is a somewhat more intense version of what we and other healthcare professionals experience in pathology classes. Our minds are highly suggestible when it comes to thinking something is wrong with us. Some individuals get a pain in their abdomen and think the worst, some ignore it, and others go online to get a second opinion. With healthcare costs constantly on the rise it may seem faster and cheaper than a doctor’s visit, but cyberchondria can ultimately be costly. An inaccurate diagnosis can result in a person not seeking or putting off appropriate healthcare, taking self-prescribed over-the-counter medications or taking medications given to him or her by well-meaning friends.<\/p>\n

Nearly all adults with Internet access search for health information online at least occasionally. Data from the National Center for Health Statistics found that in 2022, 58.5% of adults had looked up health or medical information within the past 12 months. The line is crossed into cyberchondria when the searching becomes obsessive and begins to fall into the category of an anxiety-driven behavior. A headache becomes a stroke or a tumor, a chronic cough turns into lung cancer, a misplaced item evolves into Alzheimer’s disease.<\/p>\n

Commonly Searched Symptoms<\/h3>\n

The following are some commonly searched symptoms and their most likely causes:<\/p>\n