Check these signs to see if you are worrying more about your health than you should ? If you’ve been preoccupied with a serious disease of which repeated medical tests have found no trace in your body for at least six months. ? If you have visited several doctors, all of whom have given an “allclear” diagnosis, and if you feel none of them is attaching enough impor tance to your fears. ? If you ? nd yourself Googling compulsively to ? nd out more and more about some illness you think you have. ? If you are obsessed about a speci? c organ or body part and feel panicky at the slightest sign of discomfort. ? If you ?nd yourself mostly feeling depressed and nervous, and if you notice that all your friends and relatives star t looking exasperated or simply avoid you when you try to discuss your illness. ? If you have dif?culty in maintaining a job and relationships, and also in per forming everyday physical and mental activities. ? If your family doctor has more than once hinted at psychiatric counselling even though there is no history of mental illness in your family.
Most people take a painkiller for a headache. That’s a given. But taking your headache as a sure sign of a sin ster medical problem is a sure sign of hypochondria. More so if you get medcal tests done, and completely refuse to believe the results when they show you are quite okay. When every headache becomes a brain tumour, and every stomach ache a certain sign of cancer, the person concerned needs serious help with his head.