Hypochondria: Mental Vs. Physical

Hypochondria: Mental Vs. Physical

Imagine every symptom you had ever experienced was a sign of illness. Every bruise or mole was a developing skin cancer, every headache was a tumor growing within your brain, and every itch was due to a result of scabies. A small percentage of people in the United States often obsess over such health phobias that physicians distinguish as hypochondria, an excessive worry or talk about one's health ("Dictionary.com", 2), also known as hypochondriasis, an excessive preoccupation with one's health, usually focusing on some particular symptom, as cardiac or gastric problems ("Dictionary.com", 1). Hypochondria is often misunderstood as a physical illness, rather than a mental illness, resulting in a hypochondriac's refusal to see a psychiatrist (Tanner). When seeking treatment, Hypochondriacs lean toward physicians for medicines of some sort, while doctors determine the real treatment is associated through a psychiatrist's care to help lead the patient toward believing the illness is mental, not physical.

Hypochondriacs excessively associate experienced symptoms with having illnesses which are most likely not present, nor are likely to persist. After surveying 30 individuals at random (15 male and 15 female), a total of 8 people claimed to suffer or have suffered from hypochondria based on their own diagnosis. Physicians diagnose hypochondria in terms of the number of compaints a patient has of experiancing symptoms of illness ("Medical News Today").

"Hypochondria" derives from the Greek term, hypochondros, hypo (below), chondros (cartilage of the breast bone) which was first recorded in 1888 by a Greek physician who used the term to describe unknown stomach pains caused by movement of the spleen located near the hypo chondrium (the upper region of the abdomen just below the ribs). By the nineteenth century, "hypochondria" became the equivalent to the term "hysteria", a diagnostic label applied to a state of mind, one of unmanageable fear or emotional excesses.

Effects of hypochondria vary from person to person, depending on the symptoms being experianced, and the illness to which a hypochondriac is convinced to have. Common effects include: anxiety, or panic attacks, depression, a loss of apetite, decreased libido, increased self consciousness, decreased motivation in life, numbness in certain parts of the body, and chronic fatigue. These effects hold true for most of the surveyed individuals who claimed to have or had suffered from hypochondria, especially the fear of impending doom hailing upon them. Effects of hypochondra related symptoms can last a few months to years depending on treatment and how the patient responds to the treatment ("Medical News Today").

To treat hypochondriatic beliefs and attitudes, antidepressants or other medicines are prescribed. A person suffering from the illness most often prefer to seek their primary physician over health clinics. Primary physicians know their patients' health history, and since hypochondria is psychologically related, it's important for